It never occurred to me to play SP MTW with unlimited ammo until I read the web-link posted by Grifman in one of the cavalry threads: http://www.sca.org.nz/collegium/uni36/medieval_war.php
Talking of the importance of logistics, it says an archer would be pretty useless if he only had the arrows he carried. As a MTW player, that struck a certain bell. Then it reported an estimate that 500000 arrows were fired at Crecy.
Another source says that there were 7000 British archers, each carrying 48 arrows with "Resupply was accomplished by going back thru the lines or having more brought forward". http://www.archeryweb.com/archery/crecy.htm
I feel that the rate at which ammo is depleted in MTW battles is rather high (especially for longbow men), especially when the battle is a large one - with the AI bringing on more reinforcements.
I am not sure how unbalancing unlimited arrows would be. I guess it favours the human, but it does not seem very realistic that archers must spend half of the battle twiddling their thumbs due to a lack of ammo. Nor does it feel right that one must conserve longbows for particularly high value targets.
I never felt this to be a problem in Shogun, perhaps because archers seemed more powerful there anyway and ammo depletion seemed more modest.
Anyone tried the unlimited ammo option and can report how it plays?
Anyone know more medieval history and can tell when a lack of arrows was a real factor in a battle? (In medieval battles, not only were there supply wagons - archers would often reclaim arrows from the field in lulls in the battle). Shortage of ammunition has not figured in accounts of battles in any period I have read except where one side was isolated from resupply (eg the KGL at La Haye Sainte) or the ammo is very special (eg Argentinian Exocets).
Right now I am inclined to switch to unlimited ammo although I confess I am playing the English :=)
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