A question for the Alex.exe users

[Shadowwalker]

Heya there,

I finally managed to grab a copy of the Alex expansion, should be here within the next week.
So I of course want to play EB via Alex.exe then.

I was searching around the forums but the more I read the more confusing it became to me.
Seems playing EB on Alex with a selection of personally preferred submods is a lot more difficult that doing so on BI.

My question is - how do I install EB for Alex at all?
(I do not want to use jirisys' modpack since it contains quite a few submods I don't want to use and furthermore seems to contain more CTD's than EB vanilla which crashes quite regularly for me; I don't want to use maksimus' Extended Alex mod either since it significantly raises the difficulty.... and EB is difficult enough for my taste ).

Oh and a second question.
I played EB with the following submods (on BI.exe, via Ferromancers great installation mod):

Win Conditions
City Mod 5.1a
EOM 0.4
Unit Card Info 0.3
Allied Legions
RSII environment (the "new" one)
Force Diplomacy

I will have to add "get rid of the giant trees" and the official fixes now since those two were included in Ferromancers mod.
Any suggestion about an installation order for these?

Thanks in advance.

[konny]

The only thing really needed for the Alex.exe is to add the Immortal Trait to EDCT, otherwise your FMs won't die of old age.

Win Conditions
Allied Legions

These two work perfectly fine with any exe.

[Shadowwalker]

With quite a huge delay - thanks for the reply, konny. Have used both mods in my current installation.
The game finally got delivered.
I ended up with using jirisys' mod compilation (adding a few things here and there - like the new RSII environment - and removing some other things, like the realistic movement).
So far I have been lucky in terms of CTD's, the only thing that is new are random (but rare) instant crashes from the campaign map to the desktop during my own turn. Never had that before. After-battle-crashes seem to have become less common though. Good thing!

I started a roman campaign yesterday and hells, the AI seems to be quite a bit smarter both on campaign and battle map.
Virtually every faction is expanding nicely (I am in 238 at the moment), only the KH got almost kicked out of Greece but at least shipped over the troops from Krete.
And the poor AS is eaten by Pontos, Ptolemies, Pahlava and Baktria, but so far manages to defend the mesopotamian/syrian core provinces (Antiocheia got lost in 271 but since then there's a raging war over Edessa that is still going on, same goes for Ekbatana/Susa).
There are exactly two rebel provinces around my borders (my empire is kind of "small" still because of the "No attack on non-hostile AI factions" rule - just Italy including Cisalpine Gaul, Sicily, Corsica/Sardinia, Massalia and the two upper Illyrian provinces) - everything else has been taken by the AI factions.
And no overwhelmingly strong faction yet, they kind of balance each other out for now.
Definitely the most interesting campaign (in terms of AI expansion and behaviour) I had so far.

[konny]

So far I have been lucky in terms of CTD's, the only thing that is new are random (but rare) instant crashes from the campaign map to the desktop during my own turn. Never had that before. After-battle-crashes seem to have become less common though. Good thing!

I can't even confirm the problem with crashes during my turn using the Alex.exe. It's definitly more stable than the RTW.exe, leave alone the BI.exe

I started a roman campaign yesterday and hells, the AI seems to be quite a bit smarter both on campaign and battle map.

One interessting aspect with the Alex.exe is that the AI is capable of retraining troops. It doesn't so all the time, but occasionally it does ending up with full strength silver and gold units. This can make AI settlements a real hard nut to break on autocalc, so in particular for other AI factions.

I hardly ever have any AI factions being destroyed by other AI factions. Usually they end up in a stealthmade or as client kingdoms to each other.

I also had made the observation that using the Alex.exe (in combination with win conditions) I no longer have any problems with a Grey Death dominating everything in the east. Usually the Seleucid Empire is slowly but steadily eaten up by the neighbouring factions, leading to a rather balanced set up there.