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.
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 14:41 12-01-2008
Originally Posted by 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.
Never ever use the word 'consciously' in context with AIs again!
Cute Wolf 06:28 12-02-2008
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 07:36 12-02-2008
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.
I switched from RTW to BI a few months ago, and it is definitely a huge improvement. Before I gave up on AI sending naval invasions because they were so few and sporadic, now with BI its always becomes a constant threat by 220 B.C. Also, AI is a lot smarter. Things I have also noticed:
When using CityMod since there are less buildings to build due to the restriction of the majority of cities to only go up to "city" level, in the long run it makes for a quicker AI mobilization of "good" stacks since in the long run they don't spend as much on construction due to there being less buildings available to build.
AI Battle Formations mod also helps the AI greatly because I usually need to adapt to them and not the other way around, making the battle more challenging, (esp. with BI its a vast improvement over reg. RTW).
Also, phalanx mod makes battles against Greeks twice as challenging. Especially the elite hoplites, they can literally become an immovable wall due to their tighter formation when before I could just have my troops run right into their ranks and have them all spread out pretty easily.
I use all three of these minimods (except phalanx mod for the time being because it has not been updated for 1.2), and along with BI, its probably the closest thing to a "good" AI as you can probably get, except maybe using them with the Alex. AI.
Celtic_Punk 09:34 12-02-2008
Celts in BI are hard. put it on H/M or VH/M and youll know the meaning of pain.
You gotta expand along the baltic. but your holdings can easily be overrun. (your only salvation is the fact that you are relatively safe on the isles.)
the only campaign i can think of that is truely harder is the Ui Neil clan in Arthurian Total War.
Originally Posted by
Cute Wolf:
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 14:38 12-01-2008
Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato:
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.
Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato:
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
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