Which .exe do you use?

[Dragannia]

I'm just wondering about this. Which .exe is the best for EB? I hear the AI is better in BI, but what about Alexander? What other differences are there between the different .exes?

[Unintended BM]

BI has naval invasions. I'm not sure if the AI is any better for BI, but with Alexander, I notice a difference in battle AI. More flanking. Alexander also has naval invasions, but not as frequent as BI. I think Alexander runs the best by far. With RTW and BI, my EB would get really slow sometimes in battles, but it doesn't slow down at all for Alexander.

[MisterFred]

Make sure to install Barbarian Invasion even if you use Alexander as your executable. I never had naval invasions using Alexander when I was running it on an installation where I hadn't bothered to add BI. Using Alexander with Barbarian Invasion installed, I still never get serious naval invasions, but factions with islands (especially Rhodes and Cyprus) no longer build up giant armies there, they ship reinforcements to their other cities.

I prefer Alex.exe over BI because it crashes less for me and is the least resource intensive. For battle AI I'd recommend installing Sinuhet's BAI, which I think works out to be the same on all executables.

[vartan]

Another one of these threads? Sheesh. I'm more of a technical person (but you already knew that), so I'll tell you to use Alex. Crashes happen to everyone, but at least you'll be using less resources.

[Duguntz]

Hmmm... that topic haven't been raised yet... (the sarcasm is so present I can smell it...)

[Apázlinemjó]

I use the searchoptionisafrienduseit.exe!

[Dragannia]

Are there things that BI have that Alex.exe doesn't, though? I'm reading a few conflicting things. Does EB utilise Shield Wall if you use BI? Alex.exe doesn't have shield wall, does it? Is it that big of a deal? Also, do I need to install RTW, 1.5, EB1.1, 1.2, BI and Alexander in that order, or since I've already installed EB and RTW, can I just install BI and Alexander over it and it'll still work?

[vartan]

Are there things that BI have that Alex.exe doesn't, though? I'm reading a few conflicting things. Does EB utilise Shield Wall if you use BI? Alex.exe doesn't have shield wall, does it? Is it that big of a deal? Also, do I need to install RTW, 1.5, EB1.1, 1.2, BI and Alexander in that order, or since I've already installed EB and RTW, can I just install BI and Alexander over it and it'll still work?
The only thing you're obligated to do is install RTW. The rest you can install in any order you wish (save, of course, that you install EB 1.2 after 1.1, needless to say). Shield wall is BI-exclusive and is only a "big deal" if you consider the defense boost too high.

[Dragannia]

Which AI would you guys recommend? There's that formation AI that I've heard good things about, but what about others?

[vartan]

Which AI would you guys recommend? There's that formation AI that I've heard good things about, but what about others?
Here's a great misconception. There are no AI mods out there my fellow Guildie. There are only the three engines and the various formation mods. IIRC there are EB-specific versions of Sinuhet's and Darth's formation mods (both are great; I suggest using both for yourself before choosing between them!) The three engines are actually the same, except they have different version numbers (1.5, 1.6 and 1.9) denoting the progressive releases as the engine was updated. 1.6 and 1.9 can exist regardless of the existence of the other (BI without Alex, or vice versa), and this is clear as not all 1.6 features are existent in 1.9 (shield wall being an ostensible example).

[Kikaz]

I like using BI, but I hate that custom battles don't work. Unusual things seem to happen a bit more often, but it's better than sedentary AI and makes things interesting. An example: In my Arverni campaign, Koinon Hellenon is constantly sending soldiers across the Adriatic to besiege Ariminum despite the fact that I share no borders with them and am not at war with any of their allies. Also, the shield wall feature in BI is superb, Hoplites and such actually move in formation now. I wasn't impressed with Alex as there are many little glitches that you have to deal with, both are more stable than the standard .exe though.

[Dragannia]

I've played it with Alex.exe now, along with that minimod pac that was released. AI is much better in terms of their layout and formation. It doens't seem particularly more stable than vanilla though, I've already had it crash 3 times in only 8 turns. I might go with BI but I do really notice the performance boost on large battles. Does shield wall matter that much though? Can't you just put them on guard mode?

[vartan]

I've played it with Alex.exe now, along with that minimod pac that was released. AI is much better in terms of their layout and formation. It doens't seem particularly more stable than vanilla though, I've already had it crash 3 times in only 8 turns. I might go with BI but I do really notice the performance boost on large battles. Does shield wall matter that much though? Can't you just put them on guard mode?
@Guard vs Shield Wall: depends on how imbalanced you'd like your game to be. As for performance, there's everything from disabling visual compositions, to using it in XP mode, to editing the file header to allow the allocation of over 2GB RAM, and so on and so forth.