How to play EB 0.8 with the BI.exe

[Cheexsta]

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:

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

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 You need a fresh install of BI1.6 in order for this to work.

[Dooz]

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

[Gazius]

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

[Cheexsta]

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

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.

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

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.

[Kull]

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

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.

[Tiberius Nero]

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.

[olly]

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

[Cheexsta]

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.