ALEXANDER EB

[Felix Constantus Alexander]

This sounds Great!

I'm waiting on my copy of Alexander to try this out, just gotta wait 'til it arrives

I was thinking one way to test if the AI is retraining units is to check if the population changes in the city, I'd test it on the huge unit size setting.

Is there a way to check a city's pop without a spy or a unit next to it?

[Maksimus]

This sounds Great!

I'm waiting on my copy of Alexander to try this out, just gotta wait 'til it arrives

I was thinking one way to test if the AI is retraining units is to check if the population changes in the city, I'd test it on the huge unit size setting.

Is there a way to check a city's pop without a spy or a unit next to it?

Well... you know, I am not sure, It's a big surprise to me that my friend konny noticed this after I thought for a long time that it is either a bug or EBBS script that trrigers some armies to jsut pop-up!... The prob is that now that we know that - 'now' is the time to test .. because I am seriously doubting that AI is retraining troops!

So.. one can now see some situation in Campaign Map.. and then he could just follow the AI moves.. I never did that before really, I most start now.. but with a new campaign that has Immortal fix from the start!

[Maksimus]

Just to add a comment about the night battles.

First of all, Even in BI descr_start.txt only one general has 'NightBattleCapable 1' trait from the start .. In EB there are none..

So either you can play night-fights at the start with Pyrros (that has enough traits to pull that of right away, but 'no' he has no 'NightBattleCapable' trait) or any general that is 'strong' with his traits at the game start.
OR you can open eb/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign/descr_start.txt

And add 'NightBattleCapable' trait to anyone! That should look like this:


; ####################################################################
; ######### Start of factions section
; ####################################################################


; ---------------------------------------------------------
; ######### seleucide - SPQR (Romani) #########
; ---------------------------------------------------------

faction seleucid, balanced caesar
denari 5000
settlement
{
level city
region Latium2

year_founded 0
population 8770
settlement_tax 51
plan_set default_set
faction_creator seleucid
building
{
type core_building governors_palace
}
building
{
type uniques1 oneone
}
building
{
type defenses stone_wall
}
building
{
type amphitheatres game_field
}
building
{
type equestrian stables
}
building
{
type healing doctor
}
;WG building
; {
; type Barracks_A city_barracks_A1
; }
building
{
type smith blacksmith
}
;WG building
; {
; type hinterland_roads roads
; }
building
{
type port_buildings shipwright
}
building
{
type farms2 grain_silo
}
building
{
type market market
}
building
{
type hinterland_farms farms+2
}
building
{
type temple_of_governors temple_of_governors_large_temple
}
}

settlement
{
level large_town
region Etruria

year_founded 0
population 3980
settlement_tax 51
plan_set default_set
faction_creator seleucid
building
{
type core_building governors_villa
}
;WG building
; {
; type Barracks_A militia_barracks_A1
; }
building
{
type healing doctor
}
building
{
type amphitheatres game_field
}
building
{
type defenses wooden_wall
}
building
{
type smith blacksmith
}
building
{
type hinterland_farms farms+1
}
building
{
type farms2 granary
}
building
{
type port_buildings port
}
building
{
type market market
}
;WG building
; {
; type hinterland_roads roads
; }
building
{
type temple_of_governors temple_of_governors_temple
}
}

settlement
{
level town
region Umbria

year_founded 0
population 1950
settlement_tax 51
plan_set default_set
faction_creator seleucid
building
{
type core_building governors_house
}
building
{
type defenses wooden_pallisade
}
building
{
type amphitheatres game_field
}
building
{
type port_buildings port
}
building
{
type navy_port naval_bay
}
building
{
type hinterland_farms farms
}
building
{
type market trader
}
building
{
type temple_of_fun temple_of_fun_shrine
}
}

settlement
{
level city
region Campania

year_founded 0
population 6740
settlement_tax 51
plan_set default_set
faction_creator seleucid
building
{
type core_building governors_palace
}
building
{
type uniques3 threetwo
}
building
{
type defenses wooden_wall
}
;WG building
; {
; type Barracks_A militia_barracks_A1
; }
building
{
type smith blacksmith
}
;WG building
; {
; type hinterland_roads roads
; }
building
{
type port_buildings port
}
building
{
type navy_port naval_bay
}
building
{
type hinterland_farms farms+1
}
building
{
type farms2 granary
}
building
{
type healing doctor
}
building
{
type amphitheatres game_field
}
building
{
type temple_of_farming temple_of_farming_temple
}
building
{
type hinterland_uniques2 uniqueroad1
}
}

settlement
{
level town
region Apulia

year_founded 0
population 1110
settlement_tax 51
plan_set default_set
faction_creator seleucid
building
{
type core_building governors_house
}
building
{
type defenses wooden_pallisade
}
building
{
type hinterland_farms farms
}
building
{
type market trader
}
;WG building
; {
; type Barracks_A muster_field_A
; }
building
{
type amphitheatres game_field
}
building
{
type port_buildings port
}
;WG building
; {
; type hinterland_roads roads
; }
building
{
type temple_of_forge temple_of_forge_shrine
}
}

; City: Rome
; Region: Latium
; --------------------
character Manivs Romanvs, named character, leader, command 0, influence 0, management 0, subterfuge 0, age 65, , x 95, y 127
traits NaturalIntelligence 4 , NaturalCharisma 5 , NaturalEnergy 3 , Temperament 2 , Selflessness 3 , Loyalty 4 , TurnsAlive 6 , ManivscvrivsBiography 1 , Plebeian 1 , notPlebeianTribune 1 , notPlebeianAedile 1 , notQuaestor 1 , notPraetor 1 , notConsul 1 , NovusHomo 1 , Censor 1 , CommandExperience 4 , GoodTactician 1 , GoodLeader 1 , GoodDefender 1 , PoliticsSkill 3 , GoodAdministrator 2 , Austere 1 , Disciplinarian 1 , YearsPassed 2, GensCvria 2 , CvrivsDentatvs 1, NightBattleCapable 1
ancillaries family_retainer

This is just an example.. In my opinion that NightBattleCapable 1 trait should only be given to the Barbarian and Nomad factions at the game start.. After EB 1.1 comes out, there will be one small balance mod for EB that is using Alex.exe .. Due to the much more advanced ALX.exe engine - The way EB gameplay is mented to be played by the EB team is now in question, at least for me that had some issues even for EB on RTW.exe - but I managed to play it anyways.. But after I used Alex.exe for some time I gain doubts

[konny]

W...What?! Are you sure I always thought that it was just my imagination .. now I am sure it is your's too

So, it is at least two of us ;-)

I think, I had not ended the turn in which the Epeirote army miraclous recovered, if so I will post a screen of what I have seen. I have also seen that same miracle in Pella: the garrison there was depleted to the strength of 1/4 stack, but when the enemies gave Makedonia a break of two turns the garrison was again a full stack. Not enough time to raise so many new units to merge them with the original garrison, and they didn't have any field armies or nearby towns to bring in reinforcements.

EBBS script is not a friend of EB on Alex.exe!

I am running my own money script anyways.

[Redmeth]

If they're retraining and abusing perhaps you should lower the campaign difficulty, we were thinking of changing the recommendation from VH/M to H/M.

I know that on M/M for example the AI does not recruit mercs. So maybe on H/M or M/M they won't retrain, AI doing mass retraining is an abuse as they often get away from battles with a few troops left of different kinds...

EDIT: What battle difficulty are you playing on, seeing AI elites is good but playing VH or even H against them will mostly frustrate you, not improve the difficulty...

[konny]

I know that on M/M for example the AI does not recruit mercs. So maybe on H/M or M/M they won't retrain,

I am playing M/M....

[Maksimus]

If they're retraining and abusing perhaps you should lower the campaign difficulty, we were thinking of changing the recommendation from VH/M to H/M.

I know that on M/M for example the AI does not recruit mercs. So maybe on H/M or M/M they won't retrain, AI doing mass retraining is an abuse as they often get away from battles with a few troops left of different kinds...

EDIT: What battle difficulty are you playing on, seeing AI elites is good but playing VH or even H against them will mostly frustrate you, not improve the difficulty...

I am using VH/VH... And I want AI to be VH on campaign, that is as smart as possible and EBBS script can be altered.. But the point in my post was not the difficulty as such.
Well maybe VH for battle is somewhat really to much (because of +7 hidden moral and attack to your enemy), because you get to watch your elites slained by some native low-end units - and you don't want to look at that

My remarks were really about EB balance due to the game engine of ALex.exe
Because - ''Due to the much more advanced ALX.exe engine - The way EB gameplay is mented to be played by the EB team is now in question''
And that is true.. You see.. Alex is using it's options much better, even one EASY difficulty on ALX.exe is compared to MEDIUM on RTW.exe or Even HARD!

That is because ''Human has a brain and AI money and buildings'' solutins are widely excepted by various EB team members that answered my questions about EB balance. That is NOT a solutin for Alex.exe engine and AI it uses!

In EB game based on ALex.exe - it is really important to make Human and CPU more even.. And it is not acceptable for AI to have army and royal barracks in all of it's settlements until the age of 250BC Especially that remark goes for Seleucid's and Aegypt!...

There should be numerous solutions 'or just one'

[Redmeth]

Working on money scripts is really a delicate thing when you think you found a balance it may be just a fluke etc, you need patience to run a lot of tests.
Some tweaks to balance and the money script for 1.1 are coming but nothing spectacular.

If you cut the AI's money he'll stall and be engulfed by other factions, if you give him few barely enough the fool spams militia which is bad, too much money usually leads to a better experience but too many stacks for some factions like AS, Ptolies if you add retraining to that it's clearly hell.

First the EB team doesn't officially support Ales so If the Alex engine is all that you say it is (I'm sure it's better but I'm a bit skeptic about how much better) and you want to find a good balanced script for Alex make a small team or just collaboration talk to others interested in Alex or who worked with money scripts before as this kind of stuff needs a lot of testing to get right.

And really you shouldn't play on VH battle, did you play 0.81 btw are the AS spamming more stacks that in that version? The problem wouldn't be that they're a lot of elites among them but the fact that you can't destroy them before they retrain them.

[konny]

I think that should proof the AI ability to retrain units with the ALX.exe:



You see Taras one turn after the garrison was reduced to nearly nothing by fighting. You can see that all units are full strength. That is first of all impossible to get with merging units, because you will always have a very small unit of each type left.

The red marked units have a lot of experince and are supposingly the forces that fought the Romans the turns before. The last one (yellow) seems to be the unit that has been raised in this turn.

And here is one more:



This is Alexandreia-Ariana a few turns after it has been conquered by Baktria. There had been two MICs, the AS factional one is useless for Baktria, but with the regional MIC they are able to raise/retrain the marked units.

Now, see that all units that can be retrained by this MIC are full strength (green marked), while all those that cannot be raised there (red) are understrength. May be they had raised some of them meanwhile, but cetainly not the silver chevron archers. And there had been no merging only, because that must have - again - left some units understrength. I think that the last two (yellow) were raised since conquest because they seemed not to have been part of the conquest force.

[Redmeth]

That's a bit too much for to handle both for the player and for a weaker AI faction and coupled with the pop replenishment script and the money script makes the AI-owned large factions beasts...

And you say you play on M/M... it's nice to see the AI do it but it will create too many battles that are too tedious... I don't know why they didn't limit retraining to 1 unit or hell max 3.... bummer.

[Sarkiss]

sorry, didnt go trough the whole thread... does AI retrain with 1.5?
i noticed that when a city (Ptolies) with unrest gets some population, soldiers killed the garison would be back to its full strength the next turn. i play with BI though, is it the same on 1.5?

[MiniMe]

I have a Collector's Total War edition that includes STW, STW-MI, MTW, MTW-VI, RTW, RTW-BI, stupid bonus material, and, what is of most impornace, Rome Total War - Alexander.
On my previous computer I had no problems installing it. On my new one installation procedure halts with message "error -1".
Anybody familiar with the problem?

2Konny: I feel total noob to ask it, but how do you enable "perfect_spy" in 1.0?

[Maksimus]

sorry, didnt go trough the whole thread... does AI retrain with 1.5?
i noticed that when a city (Ptolies) with unrest gets some population, soldiers killed the garison would be back to its full strength the next turn. i play with BI though, is it the same on 1.5?

You should just read the first thread.. but, ok.. IT DOES To install Alexander you need RTW + 1.5 patch even without BI.. so yes. It is also save-game compatible with BI and RTW EB 1 save-games..

[konny]

That's a bit too much for to handle both for the player and for a weaker AI faction and coupled with the pop replenishment script and the money script makes the AI-owned large factions beasts...

It is first of all a problem for the AI itself. The human player will most likely hunt down all enemy units on the tactical screen and take towns in the first attempt. The AI on the other uses autocalc, where always a number of enemies survive. And the AI usually needs three or four attempts to take a town.

That makes every province that has survived an assault or two a real hard nut to break. I see it the last now 30 years in Pella. It is constantly under attack by three strong factions but they are not able to take it because Makedonia has several tripple gold chevron full strength elite units inside.

It doesn't do so much on the AI field armies, because these often stay away from towns very long; and with the EB recruitement system units can only be retrained in their parent provinces (can be quite a lot, if you are for example moving an army of Hoplites around the Eastern Mediterranian).

So, no need to "panic" or change the script. The player must be aware that, using the ALX.exe, he has to strike fast, hard and brutal; otherwise he will breed the enemy an experinced crack army. RTW:Alexander was a game in which the player was expected to blitz the AI. Therefore, I think, was the AI retraining implemented. So, its missing in RTW and BI is not a bug, it's a feature to make the game easyer.

2Konny: I feel total noob to ask it, but how do you enable "perfect_spy" in 1.0?

It's in the EB-Script, quite to the top. Delete the ";" and you'll have him everytime you launch the script.

[Maksimus]

That's a bit too much for to handle both for the player and for a weaker AI faction and coupled with the pop replenishment script and the money script makes the AI-owned large factions beasts...

And you say you play on M/M... it's nice to see the AI do it but it will create too many battles that are too tedious... I don't know why they didn't limit retraining to 1 unit or hell max 3.... bummer.

Even if you are to use 'vanilla' EBBS for Alex on EB 1.1 - it would not be the problem as it is.

The prob is ''how to keep pace'' with CPU in terms of ARMY numbers and quality! Because, anyways, you can't keep pace in infrastructure constructions due to the EBBS.. but! -Army is something you need to win, and you don't have much money due to the current EB team politics - that is based on RTW.exe engine and ''slow motion''...

Most of players realy focus on their Army needs and on enemies Armies throughout the whole game. And because of very small construction time for barracks couple of factions that have 4+ regions are going to win always - while you are going to go bankrupt (or win only if One millitary genius comes to help everyone )

So.. I think there are numerous solutions for Alex.exe engine to be more playable and for anyone... I will just type two now:

1) First; Make all factions have at least one (or more for large factions) army barracks in their capitols from the start! And then raise construction times for barracks in general to about 5 or 6 times..

That way, anyone that finds money (by sacking or great victories) could be able train nice units (even if it is only one) and the AI would not have EVERY town with Army or Royal barracks where he can train retrain elites all the time. This way, even if CPU has full stack's of army - it will be limited to medium of lower valueted units with maybe 10% of elites (let me add, that this way human has about 5 and CPU about 30% of elite units). And medium and native units you can kill. I have tested this and it is one clear solutin (note: construction times should be addressed for factional - not regional barracks)

2) Second; Make more money in stake for Human player so he does not have negative account in his next 2 turns. I have tested this by adding the +10 times value to resources - and that only allows some plus of about 850 minai for Makedonia per turn (for example) ... But there are other ways to add money..

Also, there are numerous versions of solving some nasty issues of this .. one can be City mod.. one can be EBBS script changes.. etc.. etc

Working on money scripts is really a delicate thing when you think you found a balance it may be just a fluke etc, you need patience to run a lot of tests.
Some tweaks to balance and the money script for 1.1 are coming but nothing spectacular.

If you cut the AI's money he'll stall and be engulfed by other factions, if you give him few barely enough the fool spams militia which is bad, too much money usually leads to a better experience but too many stacks for some factions like AS, Ptolies if you add retraining to that it's clearly hell.

First the EB team doesn't officially support Ales so If the Alex engine is all that you say it is (I'm sure it's better but I'm a bit skeptic about how much better) and you want to find a good balanced script for Alex make a small team or just collaboration talk to others interested in Alex or who worked with money scripts before as this kind of stuff needs a lot of testing to get right.

And really you shouldn't play on VH battle, did you play 0.81 btw are the AS spamming more stacks that in that version? The problem wouldn't be that they're a lot of elites among them but the fact that you can't destroy them before they retrain them.

I am very sorry to hear EB team does not support Alex.exe engine because this is just one formal way to use and play EB - I am sure all of use that use Alex.exe really support and care for EB team efforts and have the best wishes for all future developments of this wonderful RTW mod

And I am not sure for 0.81 and if you are skeptic about how much AI on Alex.exe is better - try it for 10 turns!

be well my friend!

[Maksimus]

And Konny.. Thank you for that post that proofs retraining. I haven't got the time to play my campaign for two days

[konny]

2) Second; Make more money in stake for Human player so he does not have negative account in his next 2 turns.

The situation with several factions is really odd when you won't make any money the first 20 turns and have to run around and fight. I think there can be some easy sollutions by rasing the game economy at game start - not dramaticly, but a little by adding a mine here and there, raising the population in this or that town, building a harbour or two etc.

That must not necessarily be in one of the players starting towns, but one that he has a fair chance to conquer very soon, like Pontos & Pergamon.


Changing the money script to your means is quite easy: Every money help has a cap. But that is very high, so lower it to, let's say, 5,000 or 10,000 mne (I have at 0, but that seems to be not enough with ALX.exe and VCs asingned). You'll see definitly a difference.

[Maksimus]

The situation with several factions is really odd when you won't make any money the first 20 turns and have to run around and fight. I think there can be some easy sollutions by rasing the game economy at game start - not dramaticly, but a little by adding a mine here and there, raising the population in this or that town, building a harbour or two etc.

That must not necessarily be in one of the players starting towns, but one that he has a fair chance to conquer very soon, like Pontos & Pergamon.

Changing the money script to your means is quite easy: Every money help has a cap. But that is very high, so lower it to, let's say, 5,000 or 10,000 mne (I have at 0, but that seems to be not enough with ALX.exe and VCs asingned). You'll see definitly a difference.

I agree, there should be changes made in that direction.. btw I have used your post-proof of retraining as one geat example in http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=134572.. thread ..and, konny.. did you get my PM?

[llib]

Fair enough.. I saw more AI advance moves as for Campaign AI - And that one i Much - Much Better... The AI is Actually spreading... Ill post you a picture!
of familly members on the map so you see Baktria! There could only be dreams of that move into India without Alex..
puffff...
be well my friends!

Playing AS on VH Campaign with RTW, Baktria conquered two cities in India while at war with me (I was quite holding back in cities defense, but not able to go out for some time), so they flanked on campaign map and started to bribe my cities after conquering part of India ;-). So that is maybe matter of particular camplaign more than anything else...

[Maksimus]

Playing AS on VH Campaign with RTW, Baktria conquered two cities in India while at war with me (I was quite holding back in cities defense, but not able to go out for some time), so they flanked on campaign map and started to bribe my cities after conquering part of India ;-). So that is maybe matter of particular camplaign more than anything else...

You don't use Alex?.. Well, the bribing part is due to EBBS script and the fact that any level of palace can train diplomats (and that is not good)..
And, can you specify the year in wich Baktria took Indian provinces.. The one in this thread is 246bc...

[Redmeth]

It is first of all a problem for the AI itself. The human player will most likely hunt down all enemy units on the tactical screen and take towns in the first attempt. The AI on the other uses autocalc, where always a number of enemies survive. And the AI usually needs three or four attempts to take a town.

That makes every province that has survived an assault or two a real hard nut to break. I see it the last now 30 years in Pella. It is constantly under attack by three strong factions but they are not able to take it because Makedonia has several tripple gold chevron full strength elite units inside.

It doesn't do so much on the AI field armies, because these often stay away from towns very long; and with the EB recruitement system units can only be retrained in their parent provinces (can be quite a lot, if you are for example moving an army of Hoplites around the Eastern Mediterranian).

So, no need to "panic" or change the script. The player must be aware that, using the ALX.exe, he has to strike fast, hard and brutal; otherwise he will breed the enemy an experinced crack army. RTW:Alexander was a game in which the player was expected to blitz the AI. Therefore, I think, was the AI retraining implemented. So, its missing in RTW and BI is not a bug, it's a feature to make the game easyer.

I believe the AI is the one unable to cope with this too, I guess this accounts for the slow expansion Tellos noticed in a pic of an Alex campaign, the Romans would have a hell of a time taking Taras if they ever could, and in Gaul the civil war will probably be never won since autocalc gives such results. I believe Alex was you Alexander vs the computer Persian Empire and there was no computer vs computer action going on or very limited... Unless there's an exe switch to turn off retraining or some sort of option I'll stick to BI the AI expansion and different scenarios playing out are a good part of EB, and plus I like to roleplay and not have to fight a lot of battles each turn.

[konny]

I believe the AI is the one unable to cope with this too, I guess this accounts for the slow expansion Tellos noticed in a pic of an Alex campaign

I suppose that was more the result of Epeiros killing so many AI factions. I have a Casse campaign in the 240s with ALX.exe and there is a lot of more expansion on the map (screenshot tonight).

and plus I like to roleplay and not have to fight a lot of battles each turn.

I don't think that there are more battles for the human player, in particular because the AI is much more merging its stacks and does not have the money to raise more armies than with the BI.exe. The difference is that the AI armies are now much better - "You have the brain, the AI has the chevrons".

[konny]

I agree, there should be changes made in that direction.. btw I have used your post-proof of retraining as one geat example in http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=134572.. thread ..and, konny.. did you get my PM?

Yes, you have a PM.

[Redmeth]

Interesting konny, looking forward to those screenshots. I'm curious about how strong the Seleucid and Ptolemies are in 240.

I'm interested in this but sadly don't have the time or the free HDD space to keep multiple versions of EB. I haven't played a campaign since the beginning of summer, modding is appealing cause you can make changes to the game but on the other hand the moment you feel there's something wrong you stop playing and start changing it thus abandoning your campaing. I keep planning a great Getai campaign for when EB will be complete, but it's been hard to get myself to start it knowing that the project was not 100% complete yet, I hope 1.1 will also bring me the peace I need to give myself the ultimate EB for RTW experience that I contributed to this project for.

[Maksimus]

You can contributed to this project to... If EB team is allowing it? What do you think..?? Konny and I and Lgt are wanting to work on this when 1.1 comes.. can you help?? My neighbor !

[Maksimus]

Yes, you have a PM.

Excellent! ..

[Gerhard]

On my previous computer I had no problems installing it. On my new one installation procedure halts with message "error -1".
Anybody familiar with the problem?

The ALEX-installer has a bug. It checks the drive C for enough discspace, regardless of the installationdrive.

Fortunately you dont have to install ALEX to play EB on ALEX. The only files that are needed are chat-filter.san and the RomeTW-ALX.exe.

The exe can be directly copied from the CD.
chat-filter.san is packed in the CAB files on the CD. CAB-extractors can be found on the net, i used a tool called "i6comp".

Hope that helps.

cheers
Gerhard

[Redmeth]

You can contributed to this project to... If EB team is allowing it? What do you think..?? Konny and I and Lgt are wanting to work on this when 1.1 comes.. can you help?? My neighbor !

Sure, I guess I could help you guys but it depends on what your scope is and what you want to do, I'm not for major changes to infrastructure or stuff like that and I also worked on too much money script stuff to last me at least a year . But I'm interested in trying EB with Alex when 1.1 comes out for sure and if you guys hope to improve the gameplay and the experience it provides without turning it into something else then I'll see what I can help with.

[Maksimus]

The ALEX-installer has a bug. It checks the drive C for enough discspace, regardless of the installationdrive.

Fortunately you dont have to install ALEX to play EB on ALEX. The only files that are needed are chat-filter.san and the RomeTW-ALX.exe.

The exe can be directly copied from the CD.
chat-filter.san is packed in the CAB files on the CD. CAB-extractors can be found on the net, i used a tool called "i6comp".

Hope that helps.

cheers
Gerhard

It does help really it's just that it is not that easy to make post like yours in the main post.. see, I never used CAB .. and tell you the truth I am not sure if the whole engine is just in *exe.. so.. I am no expert at that.. but thank you very much

[konny]

Interesting konny, looking forward to those screenshots. I'm curious about how strong the Seleucid and Ptolemies are in 240.

Human player: Casse
ALX.exe
Difficulty: M/M
Money script: Konny's for EB 1.0
Victory towns assigned: Yes
descr_strat: changed

(so, probably the most "irregular" EB conditons you can play)

Somme comments:

The Victory Conditions seems to have an impact on the Roman AI. They had conquered Taras in 272 BC, Rhegion short thereafter. Then they went for the Northern towns, but did not go on in the North when they lost Taras by rebellion a couple of years ago. They even managed to lose Capua to the crack Epeirote garrison in Taras, but took it again in 234 BC. Now they are going again for Taras. They had also attacked Messana, causing the scripted war with Karthago. But since the Poeni refuse to fight there is nothing going on on Sicily.

I am a bit worried about the Romans becuase they have the smallest army of all factions. I thought my money script responsible for that, but they have some 25,000 mne cash and top level barracks in all towns. But may be they even need more. I will change that script on the weekend.


Another one who seems to be much influenced by the Victory Conditions is AS, but in a negative way. They allready hold so many VC towns from the start that they are not really defending themselves. I think, that is reason, because I hardly see any AS armies but strong garrisons everywhere. Something that has to be changed too.

Baktria and Armenia are pushing into AS territory and leave the steppe alone, that's fine too.

Definitly a result of the ALX.exe and the retraining is the existence of Makedonia at all. They are under constant attack by Epeiros, KH and Getai for now about 40 years, and were not only able to hold Pella but to expand as well (what had them brought a war with Pontos, BTW). The same is for Epeiros@Taras.

So, if we would make a building that allows the Eleutheroi to retrain their forces in specific towns, we wouldn't need any scripted Zombee stacks to prevent the AI from expanding in those regions with the ALX.exe. The human player will be able to take these towns and, if he wishes, build a Roman Empire along the Baltic Sea. The AI can't do so because it is making the garrison with every failed attack stronger.

Of course, that should not be in all provinces, only in those along the Danube or in the Alps that we don't want the AI to conquer.