I've played EB on both BI and Alexander.
Here's a list of strengths and weaknesses from what i've noticed so far (playing as Carthage and as the Dacians)
On BI:
Pluses
- Ferromancer's installer makes installation easy
- AI is more aggressive, making the game more interesting at the campaign level and more battles where the enemy outnumbers your forces, more of a challenge
- AI makes naval invasions from early on in the game (though often very small ones)
- You can use shield wall, swim etc
Minuses
-Battlefield AI is not as good as with Alexander, far easier to get enemy generals to kamikaze into middle of my army by using skirmishers as bait
On Alexander:
Pluses
-AI merges stacks before attacking
-AI almost always includes archers or slingers in its armies and does not kamikaze with generals in most battles
-AI more willing to negotiate ceasefires, trade rights etc unless you hold any of it's homeland provinces, when it won't
-AI bases decision on whether to invade by land on how strong your defences and garrison on its borders are (Ptolemaics attacked in my first game when i garrisoned Lepki too weakly; 2nd game when i garrisoned it strongly and watched them with spies and built up walls, they didnt)
- Battle AI generally a bit better (still not smart but less stupid)
Minuses
- Installation a bit more time consuming
- AI still often attacks with a force inferior in numbers and quality to the one they're attacking - once even two units against a full army
- Never seen an AI naval invasion playing from 272 BC to 245BC as Carthage (114 turns) - Romans never even invaded Sicily by land bridge, even though they have a far superior navy, they just use it for blockades, which does reduce my trade income but makes it quite dull and easy.
- AI's relative passivity makes playing against the Romans as Carthage especially dull and not at all historical (no counter invasions of Africa, Sicily or Spain) - (though this may be partly due to EB not representing Romans' massively superior manpower due to an attempt at avoiding 'Romano-centrism')
Overall i'm thinking i might wait for EBII, which will hopefully have better campaign AI and better battlefield AI since the AI in Medieval II is supposed to be moddable.
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