Computer too weak for EB, what's second best?

I've got a bit of an odd question, especially for this forum. But, I trust the group that posts here, so I figured I'd postulate this: if you have a PC that is too weak to run EB, what is the second best mod you would run?

The reason I ask is because I have a friend who is just getting into RTW, and I'd like tor recommend a mod that is somewhat more historically accurate than vanilla. His laptop unfortunately is incredibly weak, my laptop can barely run EB (crashes if I try to alt+tab or if I have anything else running) and it is a Ferrari compared to his. Otherwise I'd tell him to play EB. It can barely run RTW (everything on low settings with smallest unit scale), and it is sluggish. He probably needs a mod that doesn't have fancy graphics or a campaign script. And he does have BI and ALEX. Any recommendations?

Please take no offense EB team, can't tell you guys how much I appreciate your work and I can't ever imagine myself playing any other mod now that I have experienced EB.

RTR, or Rise of Persia.

IBFD
best after Eb

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Originally Posted by Leviathan DarklyCute

IBFD
best after Eb

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Seconded.

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Originally Posted by Leviathan DarklyCute

IBFD
best after Eb

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I've played alot of IBFD, really like it, but it does use a script so I thought it might not run that well. I wonder if it can run on his lappy, I'll have to try it. What would you guys consider the most "bare-bones" mod out there that is still reasonably good and more historic than vanilla?

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Originally Posted by Hax

RTR, or Rise of Persia.

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I was looking at RoP a while back, didn't realize it was out even, I'll have to check that out for myself. Good performance though? I heard RTR was somewhat bloated and uses scripts, but if it plays faster than EB I suppose it will work.

Thanks for the for all the good suggestions guys, appreciate it. Have to give some of these a shot. Any other ideas?

IBFD by default has no scripts (that btw are quite light)

Try SPQR or Roma Surrectum, not all balls historically accurate per say..but awesome game play.

Want light but good gameplay?
XGM could be your cup of tea and supports RTW, BI and Alex with a one-click installer.
It's not an historical accuracy focused mod but it's way better than vanilla in that respect.

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Originally Posted by stupac

I've got a bit of an odd question, especially for this forum. But, I trust the group that posts here, so I figured I'd postulate this: if you have a PC that is too weak to run EB, what is the second best mod you would run?

The reason I ask is because I have a friend who is just getting into RTW, and I'd like tor recommend a mod that is somewhat more historically accurate than vanilla. His laptop unfortunately is incredibly weak, my laptop can barely run EB (crashes if I try to alt+tab or if I have anything else running) and it is a Ferrari compared to his. Otherwise I'd tell him to play EB. It can barely run RTW (everything on low settings with smallest unit scale), and it is sluggish. He probably needs a mod that doesn't have fancy graphics or a campaign script. And he does have BI and ALEX. Any recommendations?

Please take no offense EB team, can't tell you guys how much I appreciate your work and I can't ever imagine myself playing any other mod now that I have experienced EB.

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i would say go for the good old RTR 6.0gold (the vanilla version, without any enhancements and minimods installed), it is for sure far far more historical concerned that many other mod (except EB), it's light (it dont have script, and the campaign map turn-skip is fast like light), it's not Hard Disk heavy (so an old computer dont have problems), and it have also a good graphic with reflections etc.

The only problem is that RTR use, if im right (but im not expert), use hight resolution textures (512x512) for every unit, so the battle could be not that smoth for an old computer, but if you set it to medium or large unit size and dont use shadows, and other effect, i say it is a very good install for a computer not much powerful and old.

IBFD or RTR I'd say (Hegemonia looks very nice too but I can't see that coming out anytime soon :no:)
Cheers

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Originally Posted by Obelics

i would say go for the good old RTR 6.0gold (the vanilla version, without any enhancements and minimods installed), it is for sure far far more historical concerned that many other mod (except EB), it's light (it dont have script, and the campaign map turn-skip is fast like light), it's not Hard Disk heavy (so an old computer dont have problems), and it have also a good graphic with reflections etc.

The only problem is that RTR use, if im right (but im not expert), use hight resolution textures (512x512) for every unit, so the battle could be not that smoth for an old computer, but if you set it to medium or large unit size and dont use shadows, and other effect, i say it is a very good install for a computer not much powerful and old.

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Great, I'll definitely have to give that a try on his system. Though, I'm little concerned on graphics, his lappy just has a cheap on board intel video chipset. But worth a shot. Might give XGM a try too, if RTR won't run well. My bud unfortunately isn't all that into accuracy anyways, but it stirs some terrible evil within me to see his all equites, wardogs, and incidiary pigs armies, and later on all the LS, lol. Thanks for all the great suggestions guys.

I second or third or whatever number RTR recommendations are on. Though I suggest you get RTRPE 1.9 instead of RTR 6.0 Gold as it doesn't use the 1.2 patch with its terrible save/load bug.

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Originally Posted by stupac

Great, I'll definitely have to give that a try on his system. Though, I'm little concerned on graphics, his lappy just has a cheap on board intel video chipset. But worth a shot. Might give XGM a try too, if RTR won't run well. My bud unfortunately isn't all that into accuracy anyways, but it stirs some terrible evil within me to see his all equites, wardogs, and incidiary pigs armies, and later on all the LS, lol. Thanks for all the great suggestions guys.

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I ran RTR (and vanilla RTW) on my old laptop without any real trouble and it also had generic intel for video. Only 2 problems I ran into were campaign map graphic settings (had to set it off max at any resolution due to some drawing issues that only appeared on VH settings) and had to run battles with Med unit sizes and med graphics with no shadows / effects. Anything larger for unit sizes and it crawled. You could probably run EB there as well actually I would guess. Might take a while after hitting the end turn button but so what. Unless the processor is really really slow it sounds like you problem will be from the graphic side and that will hit even with vanilla likely.

Edit: Or if the laptop is short on memory which again is going to cause issues even on vanilla. If it's running slow that might be your first thought for an upgrade.

Have a look at the multimod sampler to find quality mods. I'd certainly recommend to try FATW, RTR and ATW. You might also like Blue Lotus, although I found its gameplay too vanilla-ish.

BL's beta does have some bugs, but work arounds and fixes are avaible. Though a 1.0 version is comming. (And it'll have more content to it, and will be a bit less vanilla style).

I can also safely say that is one of the mods with the best artwork. Especially unit-wise.

The Fourth Age total war.
No scripts, small campaign map and it is the only mod apart from EB that feels "complete".
I would say SPQR, but you need a good PC as it MUST be played of large scale.