What is the diffrence between running EB on vanillia rome, BI, or Alex?

[Catmand0]

Enlighten me.

[Darth Feather]

I read somewhere on BI, you have special abilities for your unit's like shield wall, and they can swim.

On ALEX the AI is supposed to be smarter.

It has been some time since I played EB, so I might be wrong.

[rickinator9]

Enlighten me.

You need a different exe to play it on BI. Someone made a submod for BI on these forums.

[jirisys]

Try it yourself!

~Jirisys ()

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I play on BI. The AI does far more naval invasions on BI, so you feel less secure leaving your coastal cities almost unguarded.

I don't use any of the BI features like shieldwall or night battles though - night battles look silly IMO and aren't very historical.

I don't use the ALEX engine since I don't like the instant retraining of defeated AI armies that happens when they retreat into a city, it makes me feel that the battle I just won was meaningless.

[cahtush]

The descr_sm_factions has a "prefers naval invasions" option, but it's turned off for all.
Does that have the same effect as the BI exe on that regard?

[Catmand0]

Try it yourself!

~Jirisys ()

Stupid question do I need to first install BI and Alex to use this?

[Pezlu]

I don't use the trivial script myself, so I cannot answer that question. You surely need to install at least BI if you want to use BI, and at least Alex if you want to use Alex; I think nothing else is necessary, but the script might need both in any case.

As far as I know the main differences between the exes are:
- in BI you should see more naval invasions; also, there are some advanced features which can be modded in (swimming, new formations like shield wall, night battles, hording etc.) but they are not enabled in EB. You can add them yourself, but there should be a mod somewhere in the forum that does everything for you. If you only change the exe, you won't see these features.
- in Alex, AI should be smarter both on strategy map and battle map (including naval invasions), there is the night battle feature (but you still need to mod the game to add it, or use a pre-packaged mod), and AI will retrain units in cities without just merging them. Alex lacks all other "special features" of BI, like formations and hording. Also, in Alex some engine limits are raised, meaning you can mod in a few more units, for example.

Personally, I'm using Alex, and I actually see a greatly improved battle AI and a moderately improved campaign AI, but I've not seen any true naval invasions. I'm sure the AI uses some ships, since I've witnessed some strange movements when using toggle_fow to have a look to the map out of curiosity, like greek armies appearing and disappearing from Krete (which is still in eleutheroi hands, in my game). That wouldn't make sense without them using ships. BUT, I've not seen them use ships directly, and some of my provinces would be an easy prey if the AI really did naval invasions. So, maybe they use it, but still not much.

[jirisys]

Stupid question do I need to first install BI and Alex to use this?

Just the 1.2 fixes, if you want to play on BI, install BI, if you want to play on Alexander, install Alexander.

The problem with the Alex battle AI is that they will flank you like crazy, but they will split their forces into two groups, so you can just move your center and envelop them. Also, the AI's idea of flanking is more annoying than dangerous.

~Jirisys ()

[Catmand0]

So which would you suggest BI, or Alex?

[fallen851]

So which would you suggest BI, or Alex?

I suggest Alex. I find the Battle AI much more challenging. I used to abuse the Vanilla AI badly, but (as much as I hate to admit it) I've actually lost a couple of battles against the Alex AI...

[PetiteWolf]

I don't use the ALEX engine since I don't like the instant retraining of defeated AI armies that happens when they retreat into a city, it makes me feel that the battle I just won was meaningless.

So you don't like the fact that the AI can retrain their armies just like you can...?

So which would you suggest BI, or Alex?

As for this, I'd recommend Alex. The AI can actually retrain their armies, which adds to the challenge of the game, the battle and campaign AI are better... the engine is just better in general. I don't have much experience with BI, so I can't really talk about that, but from what I've heard in BI the AI LOOOOOOVE naval invasions. Maybe copy the folder you have EB installed in to, download a submod for EB on Alex and EB on BI and give both a try? I say copy the file so that you can simply install the BI or Alex mod - if you decide not to mod the game yourself - while still possessing a copy of vanilla EB.

[jirisys]

You remind me of someone I have not seen around these parts for a long time.

~Jirisys ()

[Atraphoenix]

Technically Alex is the last released exe which is more stable than others. BI has hording also night battles (Alex has also), it has religion which other exes problematic (I have added into rtw and alex but crashed at least may be added as cosmetic thing).
I prefer BI for any late empire mod because alex does not support hording, alex for early roman mods. For a modder Alex is best because it gives us more models so we can add larger different units but totally 500 total units still same with in all exes.
If you want strategical (campaign map) challenge try BI, if you want tactical (battle map) challenge try alex. I do not advice vanilla at all cost.

[jirisys]

RTW 1.5 also has night battles.

Rule of thumb is, if you have an expansion, don't use the Rome engine.

~Jirisys ()

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

So you don't like the fact that the AI can retrain their armies just like you can...?

I never retrain units in EB - not ever.

In BI (and in RTW and ALEX too) there's a bug which is HELPFUL to the player, but which I don't like. When retraining units, the unit being retrained does NOT lose experience chevrons relative to the proportion of new manpower joining the unit.

IMHO, this is unrealistic. New recruits just joining an veteran unit should not automatically have the awesome fighting skills of the surviving veterans. Instead, the experience level of the retrained unit ought to reflect the proportion of highly-skilled veterans to new recruits - overall, the unit ought to be less experienced than it was before it was retrained, but it will be back up to full manpower strength.

This is exactly what does happen in EB when a unit is merged with another unit of the same type, instead of being retrained. So this is what I do - instead of retraining depleted veteran units, I recruit brand-new units of the same type (new rookies) and merge the new unit into the veteran unit. The fewer men the veteran unit has left, the more rookies come into it, and the more experience chevrons it loses. A veteran unit down to half strength will lose half of its experience levels when merged with newly-recruited rookies.

This is more realistic IMO - it becomes much, much more difficult for my units to gain triple gold chevrons of experience, because my veteran units are constantly losing experience through being merged with rookies to bring them back up to full strength. So no 'uber-units' exist in my armies - the only units with massively-high experience levels are the general's bodyguards, which also don't lose experience when replenished automatically.

[lionhard]

I only use BI and Alex when playing EB because they both have good effects on your campaigns and depending which faction you play, you may want to use a different exe.

For example i use Alex when playing as the romans because i want more of a challenge on the battlefield, enemies will fight better trying to flank you and armies will retrain when depleated, but their wont be any decent AI campaign expansion which it does promise..... which isnt a huge loss as it wont matter seem as you are the romans and will pwn them anyway its only a matter of time before your on their doorstep so the biggest advantage to the AI will be more numbers and better fighting abilities with the flanking and such.

I use BI with almost all other factions as i find that the romans will invade carthage by sea also the islands of corsica and sardina, also factions are a lot more aggressive campaign wise and naval invasions are frequent making it a hell of a lot more entertaining. both addons allow night fights but i find BI to be more frequent and shield wall ability is enabled with BI which isnt a huge asset but can be cool in some circumstances. I played a huge seleucid campaign with BI because i wanted the roman's to take western europe whilst i took the east, and whilst sending an invasion fleet to greece the romans met me with one of their own fleets which was the funnest thing thats ever happend in a RTW campaign for me, the romans took all the near by islands and push into africa which had never happend in any campaign previous to me trying EB with BI. I really wanted the romans to act out like they did in history as normally i find they are pushed back by the lustanna's by 200 bc and are not even a challenge which they should be historically.


Over all its down to your personal preference but as i said i have tonns of campaigns on both alex and BI and have seen nearly all outcomes from all factions and i am 100% that if you want better campaign experience you should use BI and if you want more of a challenge on the battlefield you should use Alex. I also recommend using RS textures for the campaign map it really brightens it up and makes it a little more graphically superior to the vanilla EB map, which is still ok but when ur running a good pc with up to date graphics your really gonna want as much as you can get graphically. Anyways GL this post was late so you probaly already chose what you were gonna do, but i was bored anyway so :/

[vartan]

If you play EB Online, you'll find yourself using vanilla. Otherwise, if you own expansions, I recommend trying out EB on both expansions, to see which you prefer.

[Rovert]

I have played quite a bit on all 3 , and I prefer just RTW 1.5 , when I run on BI all the computer does is send 2 units in a boat to attack you once in a blue moon , they don't by any means use this in any way that matters.
And for Alex.exe it was really no different then BI except for some retraining of units and also it crashed the most with Alex.exe.

There is a reason they released it on RTW 1.5 , any mods or exe changes just adds to crashes and what not.
Just my 2 cents though.

[King Philip II]

I play on the BI engine, but would probably use ALEX if my version wasn't STEAM. The retraining logic is a major problem in BI as the AI has difficulties gathering some hard-hitting stacks. The naval invasions on the BI engine are funny as hell - I found out that Rhodes is a death trap :) Don't be surprised to see the macs go after Syracuse either.