A guide to install EB, screenshots provided

[Tellos Athenaios]

As requested I post this guide I wrote for another thread as a thread of its own - however, it's somewhat modified by now, if not extended.

Please take the time to read through the various notes list just below BEFORE reading the Guide, as not everything may apply, or may be required for each individual user. (Note1 for instance deals with such kind of information).

At all times, remember that this thread is for keeping the guide as sharp and to-the-point and complete as possible: it is not intended for individual cases, but the general case as a whole. If you discover you need help at some stage, or run into trouble, or find bugs or other thechnical issues you experience: please take the time and effort to read two more threads: How to ask for help with a crash and: 1.2 Fixes you should try before posting (it's a sticky in this forum).

Note: step 1, 2 and 3 are optional, provided that you have a clean, that is unmodified copy of RTW, patched to 1.5. In other words: you have a version 1.5 of RTW that contains neither any traces of other mods, nor any modifications of your own. In which case step 4 refers to your clean RTW 1.5 build

Note 2: if you use Windows Vista you may experience certain errors due to the security model Vista uses to protect your PC from possible threats.

One feature of the 'UAC' causes Windows Vista to override RTW (among other software) to store its preferences.txt file inside the AppData folder, which is a subfolder of your User Account. This may not affect RTW, but it does appear to prevent the so-called 'modfoldered' mods from running correctly, since they work with a separate preferences.txt file.
'Modfoldered' means that the so-called architecture, or structure of the mod is designed/created to make the mod work from its own, separate 'mod' folder, rather than overwriting the basic RTW file structures. This means that you can run multiple modfoldered mods on the basis of one RTW install; and that you can run the basic RTW from the same location to boot. As you probably guessed correctly by now, EB is fully modfoldered and therefore requires the possibility of generating, maintaining and reading its preferences from its own set of folders. Unfortunately the UAC prevents RTW from generating the file in the correct location, and more importantly: it appears to fail to point RTW to the modified location.

There are two ways to circumvent this issue:
1) Conform yourself to the security model: don't install softwar such as games in the C:\Program Files\ directory, or any of its subdirectories. The correct root folder for any softwar that wishes to use/store settings from/to a separate file always begins with the adress of your User Account. Therefore the left-most part of your install destination should then read "C:\Users\[Your Account Name]", with [Your Account Name] being the name of your account. So the path might look like.: "C:\Users\Admin" or "C:\Users\John Smith". Warning: this means that if you happen to have installed RTW inside the program folders (for instance you have applied the default suggestion its installer comes up with) you will have to either make a back up of this install inside your preferred subfolder at your account, or you will have to re-install RTW to this location.
2) Turn OFF the UAC. UAC means User Account Control and is a safety feature of Windows Vista (among other operating systems) to limit administrator powers to the very simple and basic ones for unexperienced administrators. On one side, this is a very sound way of protecting your PC against potentially malicious software if you are a very passive admin (i.e. you do not actively maintain the various security software, preferences and similar policies on your PC), on the other hand it limits what software installed by you is allowed to do. While it is certainly the most easy 'fix' to apply, it is not recommended unless you know what you do; and therefore it is not explained in any greater detail here. (For if you know what you are doing, you will have no trouble whatsoever to find out how to do it.)

Note 3: if you use a Steam client or similar for running RTW, the installer is unable to create a working shortcut to your RomeTW.exe. However there is a solution, as described by mk56:

Ok as an update, I figured out how to get this running in Steam. The problem was that EB is started with a command line on RomeTW.exe, and there was no way to put the shortcut the EB installation program creates into Steam (that I know of at least).

The solution is to manually enter the command line into the launch program button within Steam itself. In Steam, if you right click on the Rome: Total War launch button, there will be a properties option. In the general tab of properties there is a "Set launch options" button, which will bring up an empty text box. Manually type in "-mod:eb -show_err" (without apostrophe) into that box. Now when you run Rome: Total War, it will launch EB.

The downside is that I don't know a way to have a second Rome button in Steam, so if you wanted to play regular RTW you would have to go in and delete the command line. There might be a way to set it up where that is not necessary however.

Finally, then:

A Guide to Installing EB, step by step.

Step 1: Uninstalling your previous RTW & EB installs

Hit/ Left click start and left click "Control Panel":

Go to "Add/Remove Programs", and left click this tool:

Wait a bit, and you'll see a list of programs. Now, find all traces of RTW, and click remove:

If you're asked whether you're sure, well - you are! Are you not?
Do the same with all traces of EB you find:

Step 2: Installing RTW from the disc

Which needs no further explanation. Though, for convenience, you may want to write down in which folder you installed RTW - since you'll need that piece of information later on.

Step 3: Preparing your RTW install for EB

Make a back up of your newly installed RTW. To do so, create a new folder outside of the folder which you installed RTW in, and copy your RTW folder to that folder. Now, you basically should have two folders containing the whole RTW install.
Next, load up RTW, just as you would do to start playing it, but when you get to the main menu: select "Options". You should now see what version number your RTW is. This number is the key to what you're going to do next: patching.

If your install was 1.0, or 1.1 you must patch to 1.3 and then to 1.5 using the patches provided by CA. These should auto detect which folder you installed RTW in. After that run RTW another time, and check if your version number now reads "1.5".

If your install was 1.5 you don't need to patch at all.

Step 4: Downloading EB

Make sure you have downloaded EB v1.1 Full Install AND the EB v1.2 patch. Use this link:https://www.europabarbarorum.com/downloads_mod.html

Please note that EB is only available through mirror sites; and torrent; and that this will be for a while. The main reason to use torrent is that it is specifically designed for downloading large amounts of data (in this case the EB installer), and it will likely be quicker.

If you would like to use torrent: and you don't quite know how to do so; you could read this quick guide to torrents. Please keep in mind that it's no use to dowload through torrent when you don't have torrent client software installed on your PC. In any case when you have downloaded EB through torrent; you will be able to find it in the folder which contains all your torrent downloads.

If you would like to use a mirror instead: when you have to select a folder to save the file in, select "desktop". (This will be convenient later on; because you won't have to browse your folders to find the installer itself.)

Regardless which way you choose to download, if the file shows as "corrupted" or fails to start, you may have an anti-virus program running which falsely sees the EB installer as malicious code. While we cannot guarantee it is intact and unchanged on mirror sites, the torrent will be clean of any viruses, spyware or such ilk. If you choose to trust the installer, it should work.

Step 5: Installing EB
Now, run the EB installer (you should now be able to find it on your desktop):

It will perform a MD5 checksum -you can read more about that in Bovi's remark above- and then if the MD5 is correct it will start unpacking some files:

When it's done with unpacking the neccesary files it will show you this screen:

Click Install to start installing EB on your PC.
The first screen you'll now see is:

And now start paying attention!

Why? Well, this is where most people who can't run EB have made a mistake. The path/adress you see there is set to be something by default: C:\...\Rome Total War

However, for many people this is not the correct folder to install EB to.
Trick is to fill in the exact same folder, as the one which contains your clean RTW 1.5 on that line. (So: either the exact same folder as the one which you installed RTW in or the backup.) You can do this by typing the entire path, or by left clicking "Browse":

and select the folder of your clean RTW 1.5 (similar to selecting a picture from file to insert in Word, however this time you select your RTW 1.5 file folder instead of the "picture"). In my case the path ended up like this:

Next, click "OK". Now, when your PC is done with the "OK" thingy the screen will look similar as to when your first had to insert the installation path... And breathe... However, this time the "address" (destination/ installation path are other ways to describe the same stuff) is that of your clean RTW 1.5. In my case that was this (see also the screenie above):

Now click "Next". You'll now see a screen asking to double check your installation path before you give your final approval:

To continue installing EB: select "Install", to adjust something you did earlier, click "Back".
If you have pressed "Install" a loading bar will reappear.

This is the time to leave your PC alone for a while.
ONLY IF YOU ARE VERY CONFIDENT ABOUT IT OR YOU DON'T MIND TO DO EVERYTHING ALL OVER AGAIN, you can try to run something on your PC alongside it. (Which is exactly why you had to download the installer to your desktop; then you don't have to run a program to find the installer with!)

Now that EB 1.1 is installed, you need to do much of the same with the 1.2 patch - Make sure you install it into the very same location as 1.1!

Step 6: After installing EB
Wow, you and your PC made it through! Now you can choose what you'll do next. You can read the readme file (Recommended):

You can install the optional Modesty Patch:

Whatever you choose, be sure to visit this thread too - these fixes are not part of the installer you downloaded (since the bugs were found after the release of the latest version; and no new installer has been put together since) 1.2 Fixes you should try before posting
The fixes are an absolute must-have, because not only do they fix what you might consider annoying, they improve stability of the mod. These fixes are typically save-game compatible, but not necessarily retroactive. That is: they will not help an ongoing campaign much (apart from preventing the fixed bug to re-appear) because the bugs have already been 'locked' into the save game. (An example would be the bug which cause the placement of certain reform buildings to re-occur every once in a while: if your campaign were affected by this bug already your duplicate reform buildings cannot be removed, though further spawning will be prevented by the fix.)

Therefore it is highly recommended that you install these fixes before playing EB for the first time: it's a one time only thing, and you will not have to give up an awesome campaign just because some bugfix is 'incompatible'. You can find all the fixes listed in this thread, accompanied by a brief instruction on how to install them correctly: 1.2 Fixes you should try before posting

Finally there is the subject of Minimods: EB has overtime gathered quite a large fanbase, and naturally not everyone thinks the way EB does things is the best. Or some people decide to add in some of the features or to fix bugs they know themselves, perferring not to wait until EB releases its next version. There are even those people who decided that RTW.exe is not the right engine and prefer to play EB on an expansion, hence the various mods/installers to get EB to work on BI.exe (from the Barbarian Invasion expansion) or ALX.exe (from the Alexander expansion). Of course this offers you the opportunity to 'customize' EB to what you think suits your tastes most; but there are some technical things to consider here as well:

If you really need this guide, and (think you) are unable to get EB to work on your own:
1) Submods of EB might not work correctly with previously installed mods or even the 'main' mod, or flat out introduce bugs of their own. The EB team are not involved with submods of EB and all the technical issues that lie therein: the EB team does not 'support' these modifications. If a member is kind enough to even genuinely puzzle himself with your submod bugreport you can count yourself very lucky - because these bugreports are low priority at best.
2) Submods of EB (as do fixes) usually require more familiarity with your PC than does the EB mod itself. The reason is that many of them are just a few files, and people who actually want to spend their time on installers for those are hard to find.
3) As a rule of thumb: be sure that whatever you install can also be uninstalled with ease too. You do not want to end up removing the modified files one by one to replace them with installer files; only to be able to install the other mini-mod you want to try out - which of course so happens to be incompatible. You do not want to re-install EB for the sole purpose of removing a mini-mod either. So before 'mindlessly' installing everything as described on the forum page of the mini-mod of your choice, it might be wise to take a look what files exactly are 'modded', and back the corresponding EB files up first. If nothing else, it saves you the hassle to figure it out afterwards.

4) Not all submods are compatible with the various EB fixes.
5) Some submods are made to enhance the runtime speed of RTW when you play EB. While they might look appealing at first, you also need to be aware of the fact that these can only accomplish this by removing features of EB.



Whatever you choose, it is still highly recommended to shut down and restart your PC before you start playing EB the first time after you have installed it.

(Only a one time thing, see it as a way to give your "exhausted" PC a break. Or as the typical thing to do after installing something onto your PC. )

Step 7: And finally...
And now, finally, the very last part of the guide: how to give EB a try!
FINAL NOTES TO MAKE IT ALL WORK: in order to play EB you need to have your RTW disc in the disc drive, and double click the EB shortcut on your desktop.

As you can see, you can open the EB FAQ from there too. (Which requires a running Internet connection, since it redirects you to a web adress.)

Apart from that, in order to actually enjoy the 'EB-experience' it is paramount that you activate the background script! You may wonder how this is done, so here goes: one of the very first things you notice is the fact that each time you load a new game, or a save the advisor pops up as soon as you click a city, or attempt to construct/recruit anything. When you click his face, an text message should appear saying "Welcome to" and so forth. Then, if the message has appeared you should click the 'show-me-how' button (the blackboard-like icon) to activate the background script. When you do this all scripted features of EB are enabled, such as four seasons per year, reforms, and special events. Also, this will prevent the advisor from reappearing every single time you attempt to build, recruit or basically 'do something'.

Known thingies:
1) Some people experience a sort of 'loop' i.e. the advisor still returns after activating the script. Possibly you did not activate the script, but dismissed the advisor instead; possibly it's the old script settings interferring with the new ones. In any case this can be solved by 're-activating' the script, which is done exactly in the same way.
2) Some people find all their 'government' (if you're new to EB; EB has certain special buildings called goverments) buildings 100% damaged. This might be caused by old script settings interferring with the new ones. It is recommended to quit RTW without saving your game; and then re-starting RTW. This issue only occurs if a player has first played a campaign with one faction; then quit that game and loaded a saved game featuring a different faction of choice - all in the same 'session' of RTW.
3) Some people experience a crash to desktop, or CTD for short, upon loading EB; and others experience a flickering main menu. At the time this was written, we do not yet know why this happens (it only happens with a minority of the people who play EB, for by far the most people EB shows up just fine); but a number of solutions are known and listed here:
Install Validation

The solution fixing it for most is perhaps this:
a) Right click the EB shortcut on your desktop
b) In the context menu (the new menu that should've appeared by now) go to "Properties"
c) Change the arguments in the target line from:

-mod:eb -show_err

to:

-mod:eb -show_err -nm

The -nm switch tells the RTW engine to disable all movies. Note that this also disables the Intro movies to the campaigns that have them.
If this still does not solve your problem; you are very much encouraged to follow this guide and post the test results in a thread of your own in this subforum.
4) With certain types of graphics cards the trees on the campaign map may suddenly appear to have a cotton-like texture. This is due to the fact that the RTW engine itself is not fully compatible with all kinds of graphics cards. (In this case: the tree sprites are not rendered properly.) The issue is also known as 'snow in Arabia'.
5) Loading an 'Autosave' game may result in a (temporarily) distorted graphical representation of the game's current season. EB uses three 'Summers' (Spring, Summer and Fall to be more precise) and one 'Winter': this issue makes one such 'Summer' appear as a 'Winter'.
6) EB is known to be far more resource consuming than basic RTW. It is not unusual for people with limitted RAM to wait up to 10 minutes to get to the main menu; and neither is it unusual for campaign & battle loading times to see a significant increase as well. That said, there have been reports of people who play EB just fine with exact such limitted hardware power; and therefore it is hard to pinpoint the exact combination of PC specifications that cause the lag. For the main part it is related to the amount of RAM you have, combined with graphics card specifications.

Let me know when more screenshots are needed, and I'll see what I can do.