Quote Originally Posted by Sin Qua Non
You may also want to see if you are inflicting a high number of friendly casualties with your missile units behind the front line. If that's the case, then there is one more thing that may be affecting your lines right before the gallic charge.
I noticed that archers (on low exp atleast) tend to cut down their own men alot more if placed behind them, have problems hitting men on the sameelevation as them, and dont shoot very high anymore
An example of this is when I did as you said, placed archers behind a column of principales and the result was less than satisfactory. The archers took out about 5 Ps on the first shot and didnt even hit the computer (I was attacking the town square and I wanted some men infront of my archers to stop the cavalry charge) Then once I moved my Ps out of the way I unloaded volley after volley of arrows on the cavalry until they finally got the altitude right... it took about 6 or 7 volleys until they even began hitting the enemy. But I guess that is experience for you.