I've got some questions about running this with Barbarian Invasion.

[tinceiri]

I don't have the Alexander expansion, and I'm wondering what I can expect by running this with only Barbarian Invasion.



Here are a few basic questions:

• Do I need to install this with any particular version of Barbarian Invasion, such as 1.5 or 1.6?
• How frequent are crashes?
• Is there any other bugs that I need to worry about?
• In terms of gameplay, does the AI act differently?
• Are there any units that I won't be able to recruit?

As always, I'd like to thank you guys for any answers you've got to give. This seems like it's a great project, and I look forward to combing through this project and letting you guys know about any bugs or historical inaccuracies as I encounter them.

[Scutarii]

1. 1.6
2. Not very. I've played 2 campaigns fairly extensively (Roma and Pergamum) and no crashes.
3. Not that I'm aware of.
4. Compared to Alex, no retraining for AI, and the AI isn't as good at combining armies. But that affects any mod.
5. No.

[Peregrinus]

I've a question too. Thinking of getting the Alex expantion, what do I need to do to start using Alex once its installed? Do I have to reinstall the mod? Can I use the same saves?

[RedFox]

You will have to reinstall the mod and the saves won't be compatible.

[Spartan 666]

Once you've installed ALX and then reinstalled the mod, you can make two shortcuts (just changing the target) to play with one or the other.

[Peregrinus]

Get it, thanks!

[RedFox]

Spartan 666: No, you can't. ALX and BI installations of DTW are different and not compatible.

[Peregrinus]

Ok, tell me something, does DTW make use of BI only features like night battles and hordes?

[CaesarVincens]

Night battles aren't BI only, and I think DTW uses them. Hordes are BI only though, so I don't know.

[Spartan 666]

@ RedFox: I have always played with ALX and yesterday I changed the shortcut to play with BI, just deleting that last formation in descr_formations_ai.txt. Both battles and campaign seems to work pretty fine.

@ Peregrinus: if you use BI and want shield wall, just edit export_descr_units.txt, it's super-easy to do!
If you want hordes you have to edit descr_sm_factions.txt.

[Peregrinus]

@ Spartan: About shield walls, is it just a matter of activating it in that file or do I have to make changes to every unit I want to be able to make shield walls? Would it be too unrealistic to give it to some early roman units to give them some advantages?

Hordes could be interesting for some barbarian factions, why havent you included the feature in the mod?

[Spartan 666]

You have to edit the stats of every unit you want to use the shield wall formation. Simply add ", shield_wall" in the formation line. Each unit can have 2 formations, one normal (square) and one special (shield_wall, phalanx,...) so don't add it to units that already have a special formation.

Well, if you give it to the Socii Hoplites and to Camillan Triarii, I think this is realistic and historically accurate.

This mod focuses on the Hellenic\Hellenistic factions, we never considered that idea. By the way, I think the only factions suitable to the horde ability are Parthians and Scythians.

[Peregrinus]

Thanks Spartan! I'll try that when I get home before I start a new game

[CaesarVincens]

Also, hordes only work on BI, so adding hordes to a primarily Alex mod wouldn't be a big priority.

[tinceiri]

Well, I've had the chance to try this out. And I've found that (to my shock) this works very well with Barbarian Invasion.

I have not had one crash with this since I've started playing it. I've played for a few hours as Aedui, Rome, Bactria, and Thrace. There are a few display bugs, but I haven't encountered anything that's caused a crash. This runs smoothly, and some of the combat bugs and unit imbalances that have always bothered me in Rome: Total Realism don't seem to be there.

It's actually hard to play as Rome or Carthage, and that's nice. Certain factions can still get a free ride if they know what they're doing, though.

[Spartan 666]

@ Peregrinus: You don't need to start a new game to use shield_wall. But if you plan to use hordes, yes, you have to start a new campaign.

@Tinceiri: I haven't had any crash either, I wonder why people complained so much...

[Peregrinus]

I started anyway because my last game was lost.
Played a few hours yesterday in M/H and everything is going well, gave shield wall to the units you recommended plus Socii Hastati. No hordes though.

I had crashes some time ago when the AI attempted to break a siege during their turn, and the resulting victory resulted in me capturing the settlement after the battle, CTD right then. Seems to have been fixed recently.

No problems now

[Spartan 666]

In my opinion hordes are also a little useless. Unless anyone wants to take up the Parthians and conquer India to form an Indian faction or something like this...

You mean you had these crashes before the latest patch and now you don't have anymore crashes?

[Peregrinus]

Well I remember I got those crashes 2 or 3 times when I first tried DTW, had to allow some of the AI's units to retreat so the city's defenders wouldnt be wiped out, then I completed the siege when my turn. But yesterday I had one of these battles and was unable (how sad) to let enough of them retreat Surprise, no CTD, Tarentum is mine without having to assault the walls
Maybe its a random thing, if not it was 1.04 that fixed it I think.

[Spartan 666]

In the 1.04 feature list there's a "improved stability on BI", but I have no idea what this means or how it has been done.

But yeah, that bug is quite common in RTW, I remember I got it quite usually playing Roma Surrectum or Total Realism with RTW or BI exes. With ALX it never happened.