RTW-BI Compatibility with 081

Having just completed an EB 080 Seleukid campaign which lasted 2 1/2 months real time, 200+ game turns, I'm completely hooked on EB :beam: . My thanks to all who work on this excellent mod.

Now I want to move on to EB 081. However, I am also planning a shared PBEM campaign with a friend using RTW-BI. I'm concerned about compatibility issues :inquisitive: .

Right now I have vanilla RTW installed, patched to version 1.5, with no Alexander and no BI. I installed EB 080 over RTW 1.5 as recommended.

My question is: what order of install/uninstall/patch/bugfix should I go through to have both a functional RTW-BI and EB 081? Right now I have no previous savegames to worry about, so I can uninstall everything, both RTW & EB if necessary, and start from scratch. I've tried to piece the answer together by reading various threads, but I haven't come up with an answer I'm comfortable with.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

First step (if you dont want to redo your video settings and other settings) is to backup the preferences folder of EB: your RTW install folder\EB\preferences. For instance you can place it on your desktop until your done reinstalling.

The best way is to uninstall EB, then uninstall RTW and make sure your RTW folder is gone. In the meantime download the latest full installer of EB. Its better to use that then incremental patches (use the patches if your internet is real slow)

Then start fresh with RTW 1.0, patch it to 1.3 and then to 1.5.
Now (if you have enough space on your HardDrive) copy your entire RTW folder and rename the copy to "RTW 1.5 EB" or something similar and install EB into that folder.

Then you can proceed to install BI and 1.6 and PBEM into the original folder, which contains RTW 1.5.

Oh and you can now move the preferences folder back if you made a backup.

Well, here's how I did it...

Install RTW. Install BI. Patch to 1.6. Make a copy of the folder so that you can use it if anything goes haywire without reinstalling...

Download the full 0.81a full installer. Install. Make sure it is working by running it. It will run on the 1.5 RTW original exe, not the BI one...

Download the Rebel CTD fix. It is to be found here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=81220

Then go and download all the permanent labeled fixes from this thread: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=82256. And I mean the top three...

Now again test to see if EB loads up a campaign. Again on the RTW 1.5 exe...

Now to switch to the BI exe. Do this:
- Make a shortcut with a target line: "your install folder\RomeTW-BI.exe" -mod:eb -nm -show_err"
- Make a copy of: "your install folder\eb\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign"
- Rename that copy to "barbarian_invasion"
- Make a copy of: "your install folder\eb\data\text\imperial_campaign_regions_and_settlement_names.txt"
- Rename that copy to: "barbarian_invasion_regions_and_settlement_names.txt"
- Delete
"your install folder\eb\data\world\maps\base\map.rwm"

Run the new shortcut created above and see if all goes well...

Hope this helps...

You could also take a look at Watchman's minimod for some changes to the game using the BI.exe...

Thank you, gents. Though I endured an "uninstall disaster" :juggle2: , I survived it thanks to a registry cleaning utility and I'm now up & running with a variety of versions of RTW & EB.

Thanks again...