Coverting SAI to the Alex.exe

[julianus heraclius]

OK,

Perhaps I'm tired or something but I am having difficulty with porting SAI over to the Alex.exe engine which is what I want to do as an option for people.

So, what I am asking for is some help by all SAI lovers with this. If anybody can find the way to port SAI over to the Alex.exe engine and also be able to run custom battles, I will shout then a keg of ale for a month over at the Tavern.

Please report your findings and successes back here.

Much appreciated

[goose134]

Hi Julianus

I know that Apple, DVK and Tone made RS2 compatible with all the exe's so I was going to suggest PMing them. I dont have any modding experience so its just a suggestion.

I wouldnt mind asking if your snowed under, as it benefits me because of my problems it seems running this mod on the BI exe yet I can run RS2 fine on the Alex engine, so I am hoping for the same result under Alex.

Kind Regards

Goose

[TW-fanboy]

Hi, I already ported several mods to Alex (for myself, but I released a few aswell, if I remember right...) I could do it for you, if you still are in need, but you should know that features like shield wall and hording don't work with Alex.

[julianus heraclius]

Hi, I already ported several mods to Alex (for myself, but I released a few aswell, if I remember right...) I could do it for you, if you still are in need, but you should know that features like shield wall and hording don't work with Alex.

I would dearly love you to. How long would it take?

EDIT: The issue I have found is to get the custom battles to work. I have managed to get campaigns to work with all the required changes such as no hording, no shield wall etc, but custom battles, no.

[TW-fanboy]

I would dearly love you to. How long would it take?

EDIT: The issue I have found is to get the custom battles to work. I have managed to get campaigns to work with all the required changes such as no hording, no shield wall etc, but custom battles, no.

So you already ported it? And there is a problem with your mod structure: The campaign installer in the SAI/options folder overwrite im,portant files, so you have to port it for every campaign...
I made custom battles work, but now the campaign doesn't work.
Here is a link where it is explained how to make custom battles work:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=263469
But I have to say that in my opinion, the BI engine fits your mod better than Alex.
By the way: Your mod is one of the greatsest total war experiences. To play the whole empire, the offices, ethnic traits, the named and numbered legions, and so on. Great work! +rep

[juvenus]

But I have to say that in my opinion, the BI engine fits your mod better than Alex.

yes, but Alex may allow for some additional juicy units

[julianus heraclius]

So you already ported it? And there is a problem with your mod structure: The campaign installer in the SAI/options folder overwrite im,portant files, so you have to port it for every campaign...
I made custom battles work, but now the campaign doesn't work.
Here is a link where it is explained how to make custom battles work:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=263469
But I have to say that in my opinion, the BI engine fits your mod better than Alex.
By the way: Your mod is one of the greatsest total war experiences. To play the whole empire, the offices, ethnic traits, the named and numbered legions, and so on. Great work! +rep

I have tried that set up in the link you showed me but I still haven't managed to get custom battles to work. If you would like to try I would appreciate that. I don't have that much time to make it work with Uni, RL and modding beginning on IB:RO. Any help would be extemely appreciated.

And yes, even though BI may be better suited to SAI, the ability to add additional units plus historical characters and with an apparently improved AI I think having an alternative version of SAI is not a bad thing.

Cheers

[Julianus Flavius]

Yeah the additional units and historical characters (I'd dearly love to see every singe general ever made by anyone on the campaign have his own unique model... asking too much? Probably haha) would be amazingly good, and we really NEED the missing Lanciarii...

[julianus heraclius]

I see that Spartan 666 has managed to port SAI over to the Alex.exe engine. I have been playing my 355AD campaign using the Alex.exe for quite a while. The main issue has been to get the custom battles to work. One way of doing this is to basically convert SAI over the RTW in that use the RTW faction list. I have listed an example of how the RTW faction listing would relate to the SAI factions. This would mean having to go thru all of the txt files that have the faction names listed and convert them to the RTW names. I think then the custom battles would work.

¬ Faction Names
{ROMANS_JULII} Imperivm Ivliani EMPIRE_WEST
{ROMANS_BRUTII} Imperivm Constantii II EMPIRE_EAST
{ROMANS_SCIPII} Romanum Rebels EMPIRE_WEST_REBELS
{ROMANS_SENATE} Not Used EMPIRE_EAST_REBELS
{MACEDON} Burgundii BURGUNDII
{EGYPT} Lakhmid Arabs MOORS
{SELEUCID} Indian Guptus Empire ROMANO_BRITISH
{CARTHAGE} Vandals VANDALS
{PARTHIA} Sassanids SASSANIDS
{PONTUS} Kidarites ROXOLANI
{GAULS} Franks FRANKS
{GERMANS} Alamanni ALEMANNI
{BRITONS} Gaelic Tribes CELTS
{ARMENIA} Armenians SARMATIANS
{DACIA} Quadi SLAVS
{GREEK_CITIES} Huns HUNS
{NUMIDIA} Berber Tribes BERBERS
{SCYTHIA} Iazyges LOMBARDI
{SPAIN} Greuthungi Goths OSTROGOTHS
{THRACE} Thervingi Goths GOTHS
{SLAVE} Free People SLAVE

Now if Spartan 666 or anybody else would like to take this on I would be truly happy. We could launch it as a separate download.
Because the alex.exe allows more units I have included additional roman units.

Cheers

[Spartan 666]

so you say to change the BI faction names to the old RTW ones? Never heard of it, but it's surely worth trying. Gonna do that tomorrow and post results

[Constantius]

Yes!! JH does the AI retrain it's units? More Roman units? looking forward to seeing which ones.
Any thoughts on how you could use the unique character feature?
@Spartan ..good luck and well done - will get lots of REP when you pull this off

[Spartan 666]

Damn guys, I have bad news: I thought I could replace faction names very quickly with the Faction Swapper tool, but it doesn't work as intended, nor the way I thought it did.

I have a list of the files that need to be edited, though. It's a long task, and I can't simply use Notepad++ to replace all, say, burgundii entries with macedon, this because also unit names would be changed from western_peasant_burgundii to western_peasant_macedon. To be honest, right now I don't have the time to go through all those files and check carefully that nothing wrong happens.

I can just release the ALX port without the custom battles for now, and if anyone is willing to give a hand to carefully edit all the files, than in the future we might have a fully working port!

[Constantius]

Just release campaign for now

[Spartan 666]

if there are no suggestions for the ai_do_not_attack feature then it's basically ready to be released! Campaign files and the shield wall.

[First Citizen Gallienus]

I only have Alexander on Steam. You guys think that'll work?

[Constantius]

if there are no suggestions for the ai_do_not_attack feature then it's basically ready to be released! Campaign files and the shield wall.

Off hand cannot think of any, but not hard to add ourselves later

I only have Alexander on Steam. You guys think that'll work?

I have no idea- I hate steam..my ETW doesn't work not that it's a great loss

[Spartan 666]

Here is the first version of my ALX port. Still needs to be properly tested, so take it as a semi-experimental version. For now, it has worked perfectly on a 4tpy, 355AD, vanilla soundmod, RS II vegetation campaign. It's quite stable, but feedback on possible problems and improvements is welcome! Unfortunately ALX doesn't seem to be less prone to post battle CTDs.

Basic things to know:
-required SAI 1.2
-custom battles don't work
-modular (no dozens of subfolders, but files with specific suffixes that must be renamed)
-backup of original files is welcome
-not savegame compatible
-delete map.rwm file before starting a new campaign, even if you don't use my modified campaign map files

All instructions are included in a readme.

[Constantius]

Will give it a try, I am in the middle of a very good ConstantiusII campaign though at the moment +REP when I have spread it around

[Spartan 666]

JH, any news on those new units for ALX?

[julianus heraclius]

JH, any news on those new units for ALX?

Yes, they are done. I just have to find time to upload them. They consists of 2 more Auxilia Palatinae and two Legio Palatinae units.