new to EB - couple quick questions

[AstroCat]

Coming back to RTW and wanted to try out EB. I am definitely more of a "simulation/historical accuracy-first" kind of player.

1) Recommended Difficulty level= M/M? Campaign and Battle?
2) Any must have sub mods?
3) Should I use alex or bi .exe, I have both installed. Just want to know which will give me the best game experience.

I installed 1.1, 1.2 and then the 3 fixes. All on a clean RTW install folder.

Thanks for the help!!

[A_Dane]

Well, Personally I do Hard/Hard, but when i started out, it was M/M, because of a rather steep learning curve.
I don't do VH/VH, because the AI go crazy on that.

I'm personally just using plain RTW, as that's what the mod was made for :)

[Ca Putt]

welcome to EB Astrocat!

1. depending on your skill and the faction you chose something between M/M and VH/M some people e.g.: when playing rome/Carthage or the ptolomies you can really choose VH whereas for a first game with Pontos, Hayasdan or Bactria it may prove better to go with medium Campaign difficulty ;)
some people also play on hard or very hard battle difficulty but units are balanced for M and getting your Elites killed by some levy jjerks is rather annoying ;)

2. when roleplaying a lot the force diplomacy mod is very usefull. in the Submod section you can find some usefull modpacks.

3. personally I use BI.exe other people swear on Alex.exe it's mostly up to you, afaik BI.exe has less bugs/strange things that happen while many people say that Alex.exe has a better AI

[QuintusSertorius]

1) I don't like the way harder campaign difficulties break diplomacy. Nor the way greater aggressiveness doesn't translate into any better management of armies. If anything it's worse, I think on the harder difficulties you're more likely to get half-arsed armies of four units. Plus the AI gets bonus cash which again unbalances things. My personal preference is to use M/M and roleplay/houserule to increase the difficulty.

2) If you want any meaningful diplomacy, you need Force Diplomacy. I personally think the City Mod is brilliant for constraining population growth (which again makes things harder). I also recommend the Victory Conditions mini-mod, which might send the AI in the right colonising directions.

3) BI.exe is the worst of them, IMO. You get naval invasions, but more of the same useless 3-5 unit armies, and a never-ending tide of them from anyone who borders on the same sea as you. If you're going to use anything besides rtw.exe, alex.exe is the best bet. Personally, I use rtw.exe after bad experiences with bi.exe.

[The_Blacksmith]

Well... i play on M/H and i find it challenging in my ongoing Pahlava Campaign...

I use a mini submod that makes the water look like in canilla, it helps on the preformance...

Now, the AI in BI is better, ive heard people say that the Alex AI is more defensive...

[Drunk Clown]

You should try yourself what's best for you. As you can see the opinions are divided.

Just don't go for the battle difficulty at higher than medium for the first time, as said, it gives some unfair bonusses which makes levies professional.

Probably best thing to do is to play a clean version and later (if you want) install some new mods or change the difficulty.

[Ludens]

1) Recommended is M - battle, and H or VH - campaign. Higher battle difficulties will make the A.I. troops overpowered, but it won't actually make it smarter. Campaign difficulty mainly affects how quickly the A.I. will take a dislike of you. Since the A.I. is programmed to dislike the player, you may want to chose a lower difficulty. VH also gives the A.I. an additional cash bonus.

2) For more challenging battles, I would recommend the adapted version of Darth's or Sinuhet's formation mod (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?90313-AI-Battle-Formation-Mods).

3) I haven't played alex.exe, but I found no difference between RTW.exe and BI.exe other than that the BI-A.I. is more likely to carry out naval invasions. This can be good, but I've seen my share of stupid, pointless naval invasions as well. For example: in my old KH campaigns, the SPQR persisted in landing undermanned stacks next to Corinth, even though we were at peace, they had greater threats, and couldn't hope to hold the city.

[AstroCat]

I am thinking maybe getting one of these two:

New installer for Europa Barbarorum with Barbarian Invasion
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?105242-EB-1.2-MINI-MOD-PACK!

or

Europa Barbarorum 1.2 submod pack 3.1
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?105242-EB-1.2-MINI-MOD-PACK!

[QuintusSertorius]

I am thinking maybe getting one of these two:

New installer for Europa Barbarorum with Barbarian Invasion
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?105242-EB-1.2-MINI-MOD-PACK!

or

Europa Barbarorum 1.2 submod pack 3.1
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?105242-EB-1.2-MINI-MOD-PACK!

I've spoken my piece on using BI.exe. The submod pack is good, though as people allude to above, it might be a bit much for your first experience of EB to take them all on at once. Hard to unpick them as well if you find you like some of them but not others.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Check out the Gameplay and AAR forum for some excellent guides and tips.

The hardest thing for new players is the economy, most factions start the campaign losing money instead of making it - forcing you to either blitz a few towns straight away to boost your income, or disband half your starting units to save money.

[AstroCat]

I think as a strong nation such as Rome H/M would be my way but since it will be my first game I'll perhaps do M/M. I guess the biggest decision is which engine to use rtw, bi or alex. I've heard a case for all three, tough decision. For mods, seems like victory conditions and force diplomacy are two to have from the get go. Now, which engine... hmmm. Naval invasions seem like they could be a big deal but if they are bugged then probably not worth it, anyone have the naval invasion wok well?
Otherwise why not just go with alex?

Thanks for the advice!

[vollorix]

I don´t see any problems or inaccuracy with naval invasions performed by AI sending small groups to the coast settlements simply because i look at them as small riding parties. The only really sad thing is that AI would often send decent armies without FM, that makes them an easy prey for the player. Besides, after i´ve installed Feromancer´s BI version, i have, aside from some normal RTW bugs, no CTD´s at all, while vanilla EB installation used to crash very often - actually every time i fought two battles in a raw in a single turn, no matter how much time or different actions i was managing ( and though i ain´t got a newest PC, it´s still overpowered for the RTW vanilla specifications, with 2 gigs of RAM and dual core AMD ). So, EB became actually playable only after that "upgrade" for me.
Since i have no experience with ALX.exe i can´t say anything out of my own experience, but i think it´s going to be at least even matched to BI. and far more superior to vanilla installation.

Just my 2 cents.

[AstroCat]

Well here is what I am using to play my first game as the Romanii on M/M:

Europa Barbarorum 1.2 submod pack 3.1
* ALEXANDER.exe; thanks to maksimus for the wonderful instructions on how to make the swap between exes.
* AI Battle Formation Mods* ; by --Sinhuet and special thanks to Lysander13 for the compilation
* Spoils of Victory; by V.T. Marvin
* Some trait changes (command stars & cursus honorum) by konny.
* Win Conditions; originally by JRMC and special thanks to konny for making a new 1.2 version
* Roman Allied Legions; by konny
* Aquilifer unit; by lt1956, creator of the SPQR mod
* Force Diplomacy Minimod; by DimeBagHo , update byJarardo
* Darth Stalin's 1.1 Romani Fix with "corrected" Gallic Helm
* MP Swapper; by ||Lz3||

Phalanx mod
RS Textures
Naval strat map add on
Getting rid of the giant trees mod

I was considering the City Mod "A" version but for now will leave it out, I think I have enough to work with for now. :)

Still open to suggestions of course!