Questions.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I usually play at H/M. However, after finding the level of difficulty very much unsatisfactory (on the campaign level; I do not care as much for the quality of battles), I am thinking on starting a VH/M campaign. My main concern was that AI will hire mercenaries, and therefore deplete the pools from which I was going to hire. So my first question is how often the AI hires mercenaries and how much does it hire? I am also switching to alex.exe BTW.


My second question is on the impetuous attribute. Despite it supposedly leading a unit to "may charge without orders", I have never in my RTW/EB history had a unit actually break out in a charge without me ordering it. Is it bugged? Has anyone had units perform that unordered charge?


My third question belongs more in the Bugs section, but I do not think it would be right for me to start another thread just for that. Anyway, my issue is that whenever I let the vanilla intro video play to the end, the game crashes after finishing the vid. If I do not watch the thing to the end, then no problems. Also, this only happens on my Vista laptop, but not on my XP desktop. This is not really a true issue for me, but I am nevertheless curious.

Oh, and yes, one final question: has anyone gotten the remove/add trait command to work? Just curious. I know how to do it, but it never worked for me. Reason why I am asking is because early on in my first ever EB campaign, the Romani one, I built Auguries. Now I know they are in the Tavern building slot, which explains all the drinking traits my generals ahve received. Now that I have several drunkards, I would like to fix that.


Thanks in advance.

[Decimus]

I play Vh/M on Alex.exe and the Ai does recruit mercenaries now and then, but only recruits serious numbers of mercenaries when It cannot train the needed soldiers necessary in a city. or when about to lose a city and a lone FM is nearby

[Africanvs]

1) Yes, mercenaries are very difficult to hire in any region that the AI is active in, and I often battle full armies of mercenaries which would indicate the AI is hiring them quite a bit.

2) I want to say I have had a unit charge without orders, but if it does happen, it is rarely.

3) I couldn't say, sounds like one of many vista-related issues.

4) I've never used it but I did have problems using the move_character function until I figured out how to type the names correctly. Marcvs Jvnivs Brvtus beomes "Marcvsjvnivs Brvtus".

[vartan]

I have the Alex executable but I could never quite figure out how to shortcut to it so that EB works and only utilizes the engine ( I don't want to mod, only use the engine ).

[penguinking]

1) The AI will hire a lot more mercenaries, especially some of the richer factions like AS and Carthage.

2) I am almost positive this just didn't get put into the game. I usually play as barbarian factions, and I have never had a unit charge without orders.

[Atilius]

Oh, and yes, one final question: has anyone gotten the remove/add trait command to work? Just curious. I know how to do it, but it never worked for me. Reason why I am asking is because early on in my first ever EB campaign, the Romani one, I built Auguries. Now I know they are in the Tavern building slot, which explains all the drinking traits my generals ahve received. Now that I have several drunkards, I would like to fix that.

I think we fixed that bug before 1.2.

...I did have problems using the move_character function until I figured out how to type the names correctly. Marcvs Jvnivs Brvtus beomes "Marcvsjvnivs Brvtus".

That absolutely will not work in EB.

On the general subject of giving Roman characters traits via give_trait: I invented the naming system that we currently use, so I know it inside and out. I can initially determine what a character's internal name is and give him traits. On a number of occasions, I've written them down so I don't forget them. And then at some later time, give_trait seems to stop working for all characters at once. I don't believe that this is caused by naming conflicts with non-FM characters, because I recall investigating that possibility. That's not a very satisfactory answer, but that's all I've got.

[seienchin]

I have the Alex executable but I could never quite figure out how to shortcut to it so that EB works and only utilizes the engine ( I don't want to mod, only use the engine ).

You can download that in the Minimod section. The guy, who made the Alexander mod also offers a normal download to just use the Alex.exe.

Actually the Ki also hires Mercenaries at M/M. Esspecialy if you have a bigger army and wait for the Ki to atack, than it just buys all the mercenaries of.

[Raygereio]

I have the Alex executable but I could never quite figure out how to shortcut to it so that EB works and only utilizes the engine ( I don't want to mod, only use the engine ).

Use this shortcut:
RomeTW-ALX.exe" -mod:eb -show_err -nm -noalexander
Then grab the chat_filter.san file from Alexander/data and put it in EB/data.

That should enable you to start EB on alexander. Nightbattles have to be enables in the trait files and descr_strat.txt.

As for the OP's questions:
I noticed in Rome.exe, BI.exe and Alex.exe that the AI will by as much mercenaries as possible, limited only by money and the actual number of mercenaries available. (hard & very hard give the AI more money to buy mercs with).
I think the amount the AI buys is also affected by the ammount of factions the AI is at war with and how much units the AI can produce. For instance, I noticed entire armies of mercs with the Arche Seleukia (who is at war with pretty much everyone in my campaign), while the Iberians have very little (in my campaign they are at war with just 1 faction).

Edit; which is pretty much what Decius already said. I need to read more carefully.

I never saw an impetious unit charge without orders. I did read about people claiming to have seen it, so maybe it´s just really rare.

As for your intromovie problem; I had that problem once (while vanilla RomeTW, using XP; I think it had something to do with either windows media player or a videocodec), try using the -nm command in your EB shotcut that will disable all movies.

[Macilrille]

Since EB is so long in loading I often click it then go do something else, shower, play a bit with my ferret, wash up, cook, whatever, my intro movie runs to the end, no crash. I use Vista...

Edited to add, and just now it did it...

[miotas]

Letting my intro play right through also causes a crash on my computer and i use xp. It hasn't really been an issue so i never asked about it.

[Silence Hunter]

1) I am currently playing with Alex.exe on Hard/Medium. AI hires quite a lot of mercenaries when it's in dire need of fighting men and has an FM. For example I got attacked by 3 Ptolemaioi armies in one territory and after I defeated 2, AI "made" an additional army composed solely of mercenaries. The similar thing happened when AI was fighting for it's survival and all of their regular armies were crushed. The services of highly trained assassin become very useful then (my sole assassin killed 10+ enemy FMs. No FMs roaming around=no merc armies).

2) Never saw that in EB, no matter what engine.

3) just use the -nm at the end of shortcut target line. This will disable the movie from playing at all.

[athanaric]

1) IMO, with RTW. exe or BI.exe the AI on Hard or Very Hard Campaign difficulties hires too many mercenaries. Especially the AS and the Ptolies. Prepare to find your desired unit of Thraikioi Prodromoi in enemy hands before you can hire it yourself.
Perhaps the Alex.exe makes things better.

2) No idea.

3) Same problem here. And I use XP (Vista is evil).

[Tollheit]

I play VH on BI.exe, and IMHO there are still enough mercenaries around. Sure, it happens sometimes that the AI factions hire ALL of them, but seldomly. I actually prefer it this way, since too many mercenaries to choose from just don't feel right to me.

[jhhowell]

Tollheit, you're lucky. I've gotten so sick of fighting the mercenary pool instead of the enemy factions that I'm trying to disable mercenaries entirely... In the past I've sometimes hired an entire region's merc pool myself and disbanded them, but that's a tedious and temporary solution.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Hmmm, this is not too promising. I like my Galatian Wild Men. And my Balearic Slingers. And the Cretan Archers, along with Thrakian Peltasts, as well Mercenary Phalangites. I do not want to let go of them

Is there anyone here who does not experience this swarm of mercenaries? Do the AI factions expand faster in VH? Are they stronger in general? That is why I want to switch to VH, but if there is not a significant difference in that, then I will not, since I like my mercenaries, even if I do not hire them :P I just like the way they look, and the fact they are so readily available.

[Africanvs]

Hmmm, this is not too promising. I like my Galatian Wild Men. And my Balearic Slingers. And the Cretan Archers, along with Thrakian Peltasts, as well Mercenary Phalangites. I do not want to let go of them

You will still have no problem hiring all of these mercs in the lands you control, but the enemy's lands will usually be pretty low on mercs.

Is there anyone here who does not experience this swarm of mercenaries? Do the AI factions expand faster in VH? Are they stronger in general? That is why I want to switch to VH, but if there is not a significant difference in that, then I will not, since I like my mercenaries, even if I do not hire them :P I just like the way they look, and the fact they are so readily available.

Every game is different. Sometimes a faction will expand rapidly, sometimes it will build a ton of troops and sit in one region. Most of the time, factions expand well enough. In my current game, the Pahlava are taking over the eastern Seleukid empire; Bactria has conquered most of India; the Saka and the Sauromatae have cut a swath across northern europe; Germania has carved out an enourmous chunk and share borders with the Sauromatae, the Aedui, and Rome; Rome is involved in a bitter war with the Aedui and Arverni for Southern Gaul, and has been for years; the Luso have conquered half of Spain; Carthage has conquered Numidia, the other half of Spain, and is fighting with Rome for Sicily, the punic wars have begun; Ptolies have conquered Syria and palestine; I as Mak have conquered Asia minor, KH, and Epeirus, but things seem to be going well. With Very Hard, if you share a border with another faction, they will almost always attack you. I say almost because I think it depends on the faction. I have shared a border with the Hay for years, and they have not attacked me, even though they have a full stack sitting there. As soon as I shared a border with the Ptolies, they attacked me with a full stack and have two more on the way.

I do not face what I would call a swarm of Mercenaries. I think the AI only buys hem if they think they need to bolster their troop numbers. For example, I have fought half stacks with quarter stacks, and the half stacks contained no mercs. But when I have more men, the AI almost always hires mercs if they can. Sometimes they will send a lone family member at me, and he will buy mercs all the way to his destination and finally attack with a full merc army. There is really no one way that everything happens.

If you go to VH, the campaign will get harder, but you'll still be able to hire mercenaries, don't worry.

[jhhowell]

I don't think VH has a huge effect on the mercenary issue, just that the AIs have even more money to hire them with. I don't know the difficulty of my current campaign (I started from the save game thread in order to skip doing the Camillan era yet again) but from AI behavior I believe it's M or H. Sometimes an AI faction will keep the peace along our border, or even offer peace of their own accord once I've smacked them enough! Personally I see little difference in AI strength or expansion between M and VH, but I could be biased by my fondness for periods of peace between wars...

If there are particular mercs you especially like (Balearics are a good example), you could leave them alone and just disable or reduce the max number of the ones you don't like. There's a considerable range of options between default EB and my attempt at eliminating all mercs (which I'm not sure I've successfully implemented).