Not the most experienced person to answer but I hope you don't mind...
Templars attacking the front - maybe they were attacking the rear of the army, just that the rear was fairly far ahead? I don't think that the commanders or troops on guard commander count, so once they became parallel to the rest of the army, they moved toward the center and slammed into the closest enemy there. Troops on guard commander don't seem to count toward army rout either (the army will rout even though the bodyguard squad wasn't even in contact with the enemy, and turn to fight if pursuers move close), so I guess that might be the case.
Acolyte charging forward - there has been some mention of this behavior with mages/priests before, I think in the AI thread (remember my mage who was cold when he ran into Breath of winter cloud?
). After he runs out of script, tactical AI decides what he's going to do, and that might not always be the best choice. I think that, since he had noone left to bless, he either reverted to stay behind troops, or attack. Stay behind the troops actually means that he will stay at the rear of the army, not that he'll stay put, so that's why he ran after the templars. The tactic that seems to work is once you don't want thim to cast any more spells, put him on "hold a turn" and then "stay behind troops". This will ensure that he'll stay put for a few turns, and move forward when the situation will hopfully be less perilous.
Crossbowmen - my guess is that it's also a case of tactical AI judgement. Since they were commanderless, they weren't scripted, and the AI judged that they should attack instead of fire.
[ November 09, 2003, 03:36: Message edited by: HJ ]