How to play EB 0.8 with the BI.exe

For those who want to try it out, here's a simple way of playing EB with the Barbarian Invasion executable file (RomeTW-BI.exe). Why would you want to do this? From experimenting with RTRPE and hearing feedback from people who have done the same, the AI is slightly better and naval invasions work better than in 1.5. It also enables a few other little features that can always be worked in with minimods and so on. Here is the method I used:

1. Install a fresh copy of RTW and BI, patch it to 1.6. This will be your backup folder - don't make any changes to it.
2. Select all of the contents except for the BI subfolder, right click and select Copy (or press Ctrl+C).
3. Create a new folder wherever you want, this will be the folder over which you install EB. I named mine EB 0.8. Right click anywhere in the folder and select Paste (or press Ctrl+V).
4. Install EB into this new folder as normal.
5. On the desktop, there should be an icon created by the EB installer called EB08. Right click this and select Properties. In the Target field, you will see the following:

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"...\RomeTW.exe" -mod:eb -nm -show_err

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The "..." is the directory where you installed the mod (it'll be different for most people). Change RomeTW.exe to RomeTW-BI.exe. Click OK to save the changes and close the Properties window.
6. Run the shortcut and start a new game as normal, except you will need to select Provincial Campaign from the Single Player menu rather than Imperial Campaign.

Voila, you're now running EB using the BI engine. It's savegame compatible, too, so don't worry about having to start a new campaign after doing this. It's a slightly longer method than for RTRPE because of the -mod: switch, but it still works fine.

Edited because I'm an idiot ~D You need a fresh install of BI1.6 in order for this to work.

Very nice. Is it guaranteed that there are no problems when doing so? Can this be confirmed by an EB member?

If you do this using the Total War: Eras or whatever it's called, you just follow step 5.

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Originally Posted by Wonderland

Very nice. Is it guaranteed that there are no problems when doing so? Can this be confirmed by an EB member?

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Can't speak on behalf of any EB team member, but from what I've seen with both RTRPE and EB0.8, it causes no problems whatsoever.

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If you do this using the Total War: Eras or whatever it's called, you just follow step 5.

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Forgot about that, but haven't really tried it anyway since this method is still pretty simple for me - I just copy my whole BI backup directory except for the BI subfolder and install mods over that, which gives the same result as the above steps. If you can give a brief run-down of what Total War: Eras is and what it does (including links) for those who don't know, it would be much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Wonderland

Very nice. Is it guaranteed that there are no problems when doing so? Can this be confirmed by an EB member?

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I'm pretty sure that not one of us has ever tried this! But if Cheexsta says it works, you can take that to the bank. :2thumbsup:

Thanks a lot Cheex! I tried it and it works! The only funny thing is an error you get after quitting the game that a character named Bhumaka doesn't belong to any family tree and "this is not a good thing" (sic). But I don't think it causes problems in game.

If you guys haven't played with the BI .exe I highly recommend it; playing RTRPE with it was a different experience as the AI is very much improved. It frequently makes naval invasions, it retrains, it plays its cavalry correctly in battle (i.e. flanks or tries to move behind your ranks and attack when you are engaged or goes after skirmishers etc) and generally makes the game more challenging.

Just for future reference does anyone know if it is possible to make some factions horde as you could with RTRPE?

Yes it's possible - you need to edit descr_sm_factions.txt and export_descr_units.txt (there should be some tutorials on the Org somewhere). Just note that if you give a unit the ability to horde (ie give it the can_horde attribute in EDU) then all factions listed in that unit's ownership field must also have the ability to horde. We've also found that there are some problems with playing as a hording faction because there are apparently some files locked away in one of the BI .pak files that are needed for the UI. Not having these files causes a CTD during the loading screen for that faction if it starts as a horde. I'm not sure if it still CTD's if the faction starts off normally, but I'm guessing that it will.

Hope that helps.

Out of curiosity, would it be possible to make this work with the 1.6 patch - and if there would for that matter be any value in doing so ?

I tried getting it to work with BI myself, since I have BI-1.6 (and thus RTW 1.5) installed it was only a matter of putting in the right CD and editing the shortcut to point to RTW-BI.exe instead of RTW.exe. But it didnt work.

So it turns out you have to use provincial campaign. Good tip, thanx!! Now it works perfectly.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

Out of curiosity, would it be possible to make this work with the 1.6 patch - and if there would for that matter be any value in doing so ?

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Oops, I should have mentioned - you do need the 1.6 patch for this to work. In which case using the BI exe file on the CD *won't* work, since it's only 1.4 (unless you're using the Gold edition, I believe). So you'll have to make a backup of 1.6 somewhere and just copy that exe across.

Sorry guys!

Edited the first post to make more sense.

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2. Select all of the contents except for the BI subfolder, right click and select Copy (or press Ctrl+C).
3. Create a new folder wherever you want, this will be the folder over which you install EB. I named mine EB 0.8. Right click anywhere in the folder and select Paste (or press Ctrl+V).

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Shouldn't it work just as well to move the BI folder elsewhere, in the case you don't want a backup folder ?

the creating folders and stuff sounds confusing - cant we just install EB over the BI 1.6 install? and mod the shortcut

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Originally Posted by Yunus Dogus

the creating folders and stuff sounds confusing - cant we just install EB over the BI 1.6 install? and mod the shortcut

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I just installed EB as it's supposed to be and instead of using the RTW.exe shortcut, I created a BI.exe shortcut and put the commands -mod and so on in there. Works.

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I just installed EB as it's supposed to be and instead of using the RTW.exe shortcut, I created a BI.exe shortcut and put the commands -mod and so on in there. Works.

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Same here. Only problem is I can't change game settings like turning off the battle timer. I think the only options are for the battle and campaign difficulty and the "manage all settlements" option.

However, I can start a game with romeTW.exe set my preferences, and then save and switch over to the BI exe. A bit of a pain, but only have to do it once per campaign.

I've found a problem with this - custom battles doesn't work. At least not for me, and I followed your steps completely (except that I made no backup, just moved away the BI subfolder and installed it right away).

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Shouldn't it work just as well to move the BI folder elsewhere, in the case you don't want a backup folder ?

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It should, yes.

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I just installed EB as it's supposed to be and instead of using the RTW.exe shortcut, I created a BI.exe shortcut and put the commands -mod and so on in there. Works.

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Huh, how 'bout that. I thought the -mod: switch would cause problems since the game would then look in the BI subfolder for files not in the EB directory (eg descr_beliefs, which would cause a CTD at the start of a campaign - unless map.rwm was already generated...).

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I've found a problem with this - custom battles doesn't work. At least not for me, and I followed your steps completely (except that I made no backup, just moved away the BI subfolder and installed it right away).

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Hmm, custom battles should work. Try running it using a shortcut to the normal RTW exe and see if custom battles are working at all. If so, then a few folders in the EB\data\worlds directory may have to be shuffled around, but I'm not sure. I'll investigate further when I have time.

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Originally Posted by Cheexsta

Hmm, custom battles should work. Try running it using a shortcut to the normal RTW exe and see if custom battles are working at all. If so, then a few folders in the EB\data\worlds directory may have to be shuffled around, but I'm not sure. I'll investigate further when I have time.

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Yup, it works with RomeTW.exe. The problem is only when using BI... :shame:

EDIT: NEVERMIND

Thanks Cheexsta! This is awesome!

how do you it with 0.81?

Same way.

every time I tried I got the lighting thing error,I am not good with computers.

Try playing the mod with the original shortcut properties. Does this error still occur? If so, you have probably run into some problem or other during installation.

Pretty cool you can run EB using the BI.exe, gonna have to try it out.

What does that mean anyway when you run the game using BI.exe? Does it just utilize the 1.6 AI? Does it use any other files etc in the BI folder?

I just want to make sure that if I play EB using this method, I get the full EB experience....well, and little better AI :)

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Originally Posted by Fleeb

Same here. Only problem is I can't change game settings like turning off the battle timer. I think the only options are for the battle and campaign difficulty and the "manage all settlements" option.

However, I can start a game with romeTW.exe set my preferences, and then save and switch over to the BI exe. A bit of a pain, but only have to do it once per campaign.

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You can change those through the game options while you are on the campaign map. It's a little different with BI but I thinks it's better that way.

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Originally Posted by Makr

Pretty cool you can run EB using the BI.exe, gonna have to try it out.

What does that mean anyway when you run the game using BI.exe? Does it just utilize the 1.6 AI? Does it use any other files etc in the BI folder?

I just want to make sure that if I play EB using this method, I get the full EB experience....well, and little better AI :)

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Search forum is your friend Makr :beam:


But the short answer is yes you get a slightly better AI...specially because it uses ships in a better/more agressive way and yes, you get the "full EB experience" also.

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Originally Posted by Cheexsta

Try playing the mod with the original shortcut properties. Does this error still occur? If so, you have probably run into some problem or other during installation.

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For some reason my regular rome hasn't worked for a long time,and then every time I use the original shortcut properties it does the same as the regular game,just cuts off at the loading screen

any findings with the custom battle problem cheexsta? Only reason I'm really interested is to see the sheild wall option for spartans, if they have any, would emulate a phalange perfectly.

Are there naval invasions in the standard rtw 1.5 +eb or only fewer than with BI.exe ? And is it possible to install BI later than EB ? Or do I have to go through the complete de-install/install thing again ?

Ps. Is the AI much better ? ( normally I win 99 % of all the battles at medium dificulty )

Naval invasions are more common using BI. Do *not* install BI over EB, make it the other way around. I haven't seen any improvement in battle AI, possibly some others have. Haven't been playing BI very much at all though.