BI vs vanila: the showoff

[gamegeek2]

RTW + EB = 8.5/10

WHAT??? I PLAY RTW EB AND IT AWESOME!!!

[Recoil]

cute wolf, how come you have to lose so much of your land on BI as romans? eventually it becomes too easy for me, all hangs on the first few turns

[theoldbelgian]

I was actually talking about the difference with playing eb on vannila an on bi
the question wasn't clear because at the moment I posted this I came back from my birhtday-party and I wasn't sober anymore, sorry for that

[Smeel]

Well, we all learned a lesson.

"Don't drink and post questions in EB forums"

on a serious note, I think using BI.exe is superior to vanilla, and since the bi special formations are too bugged to work, i chose the better AI of Alex. Use Alex.

PS: Congratulations theoldbelgian :)

[pirates_say_arrgg]

So, who's in favor for using Alex. EB?

What does it actually make better.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

With Alex EB, I played two campaigns. As Getai I noticed that the enemy tried to overrun my skirmishers instead of just standing still and getting hit by them, and in another campaign they actually tried to surround my phalanx rather than getting away with a massive frontal assault. So I would say Alex EB is definetely worth it.

[Cute Wolf]

Recoil says:
cute wolf, how come you have to lose so much of your land on BI as romans? eventually it becomes too easy for me, all hangs on the first few turns

@Recoil
If I play the WRE, I must abandon my british holdings (sold them to celts), abandon my germanic holdings (sold them to franks), and some regions unfortunely revolt... if not (I will get a big economic hell... what can you do with - 2#### denarii) I will eventually die starving... I already try to manage AS THE WALKTROUGH IN WRE WALKTHROUGH IN THIS FORUM, but the Huns, vandals, Sarmatians, goths.... all play pranks on my cities, and eventually I must admit defeat... except on M/M. sometimes it works... if the sarmatians and huns (or vandals or goths, play pranks to each others first...)

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afterwards, I still think EB is the best... a lot of free historical lectures... the stupid ai is secondary... I actually wait for better EB II

[Intranetusa]

WHAT??? I PLAY RTW EB AND IT AWESOME!!!

Anything over a 5 is pure awesomeness

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

With the ALEX executable, the AI retrains its troops if they are understrength (and recruitable in the town the unit is stationed in.)

With the RTW and BI executables, the AI does not do any retraining, just builds new units.

Personally I don't like the AI retraining because it encourages the AI to spam armies and deplete its populations too fast.

So I use the BI executable.

The advantage of BI over RTW is much more naval invasions - the RTW exe hardly does any.

[Gais]

Actually the AI retrains in BI as well. What I've heard is that it won't do it consciously, in that it will at times - not always - retrain an understrength unit that somehow ends up in a town where it can be retrained. Perhaps the difference is that in Alex it retrains units consciously.

[I of the Storm]

Actually the AI retrains in BI as well. What I've heard is that it won't do it consciously, in that it will at times - not always - retrain an understrength unit that somehow ends up in a town where it can be retrained. Perhaps the difference is that in Alex it retrains units consciously.

Never ever use the word 'consciously' in context with AIs again!

[Cute Wolf]

Retraining units doesn't give much diffrences, except the ai had a lot of silver chevron units... survived...... I use ALEX and the ai does the retrain, but they stand no chance to maintain their elites.... Thanks to the great job of light cavalrymen when they rout...

The best thing ALEX offer than RTW / BI is: ai march in good stack... no more easy battle, picking off ai soldiers that run one or two unit alone... at least they will walk in 8 or 9 units...

[Olaf Blackeyes]

Hey Bi is pretty good too. Heck even the AI can give u an epic experince sometimes. Hell i think i already posted this but once playing as the Huns i had an epic Super battle experience were i took like 1000 troops and i had to defend against an entire Horde faction. In an epic six HOUR set of battles i destroyed the horde faction.

[Apgad]

The best thing ALEX offer than RTW / BI is: ai march in good stack... no more easy battle, picking off ai soldiers that run one or two unit alone... at least they will walk in 8 or 9 units...

A formation mod will make all the difference here. I agree with Mike - BI with something like Darth mod makes for some very challenging battles. Formations are completely save-game compatible, so try a few and see what gives you the best gameplay experience.

[Maion Maroneios]

With the RTW and BI executables, the AI does not do any retraining, just builds new units.

They do, you just haven't noticed. I play with BI executable and have experienced quite a few cases where the AI does retrain it's depleted troops.

The advantage of BI over RTW is much more naval invasions - the RTW exe hardly does any.

RTW has naval invasions, they're just not very frequent. I've experienced full stacks being shipped over with plain RTW in the past, though it's true that in BI they are much, much more frequent.

Maion