Extra ammo for AI on harder difficulties?

[Kommodus]

I normally play MTW on hard, and it seems to me that AI-controlled missile troops (including archers, horse archers, and artillery) seem to take a much longer time to run out of ammo than my own missile troops. I'm not sure if this is actually the case; it could all be a figment of my imagination. Does anyone know if AI-controlled missile troops get extra ammo on harder difficulty settings?

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Seems that way to me too. No real data to back it up though.

[CBR]

One reason for the longer time is that not all archers are actually shooting so overall the units has more salvos although they have same ammo. I have seen the AI take some strange breaks and that also might explain why they still have ammo when you have run out.


CBR

[Fragony]

The AI always uses 4 ranks deep, and only the first 2 ranks shoot unless they have a significant hight advantage and are standing on a steep hill. That is why they last longer.

[Procrustes]

I think that the AI also always keeps it's missle troops on "skirmish" - so they
may have spent a lot of time backing up and moving forward instead of firing.

[HicRic]

The AI always uses 4 ranks deep, and only the first 2 ranks shoot unless they have a significant hight advantage and are standing on a steep hill. That is why they last longer.

I've never seen the AI do that before. I've seen the occasional three rank deep but most of the time they go for two ranks. I've never seen foot archers go four ranks deep (horse archers may have been though).

What difficulty do you get that on?

[Boris of Bohemia]

It seems so. I can remember a battle where I ran out of ammo, had to hide in a forest against ai horse archers, maxed the speed 100%, saw the sky darken and brighten, and it still took forever. It finally convinced me.

[CBR]

That depends what archer unit it is. The unit file has an entry for number of ranks the unit will use default and that is different, 3 or 4 ranks IIRC


CBR

[Ludens]

Rumours that the AI has unlimited ammo date back from the STW period, but even back then they were not true. You can test it in a bridge battle, where your archers will be hampered. The AI is simply less efficient with its archers, even more so in MTW. And remember that when fighting the Mongol Horde, the AI withdraws HA that ran out of arrows to replace them with new HA, which causes it too appear that their archers actually have unlimited ammo.