RTR PE vs BBW?

**Archaalen** · March 12, 2008, 03:32 AM

How does the Bare Bones War mod stack up against RTR

E? Is the AI really any good?

**Brusilov** · March 12, 2008, 04:00 AM

Originally Posted by Archaalen

How does the Bare Bones War mod stack up against RTR

E? Is the AI really any good?

Play them both and make up your own mind. I've never played Bare Bones.

**Tiberius Nero** · March 12, 2008, 04:20 AM

I haven't either, but afaik there isn't much you can do to actually affect the way the AI plays; you can do it more difficult for the player by giving the AI incredible advantages or by utilizing AI formations (such as in Darth's and Sinuhet's mods). The AI strategic movements on the campaign map are affected by the most minute of things, like say you place a tree in a bad spot and you can have a whole faction not moving its armies where it should, that kind of thing, so unless BBW features an extremely well studied campaign map (it might do, I honestly don't know), I can't tell how the AI would be much better in its strategic movements.

In my experience, the only thing that really affects the AI's competence is the version of the RTW .exe it runs on; 1.2 is transcendentally bad, 1.5 stupid overall, 1.6 (BI.exe) is semi-competent and I have heard that the best AI is to be found in Alexander.exe (which is version 1.9), but never tried this one.

Apart from that, try for yourself and hey, let us know (I am curious as well)!

**Pat89** · March 12, 2008, 11:10 AM

Perhaps you should use "RTR PE", "RTR-PE" or "RTR: PE" insteat of "RTR

E" as : P is this guy

But I've never seen Bare Bones before :hmmm: Sounds like fantasy?

**Tiberius Nero** · March 12, 2008, 11:20 AM

Originally Posted by PatricianS

But I've never seen Bare Bones before :hmmm: Sounds like fantasy?

afaik it is basically a super-AI mod for vanilla RTW, with gameplay tweaks, some new skins perhaps and an extended, reworked map. It doesn't change the factions from what I have seen, e.g. it retains the pharaonic Egyptians and the 4 Roman factions.

**Pat89** · March 12, 2008, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by Tiberius Nero

afaik it is basically a super-AI mod for vanilla RTW, with gameplay tweaks, some new skins perhaps and an extended, reworked map. It doesn't change the factions from what I have seen, e.g. it retains the pharaonic Egyptians and the 4 Roman factions.

Did it change hardcoded things? And I always thought that the AI was hardcoded

Or did they simply change formations, unit balancing etc ?

**jackwei** · March 12, 2008, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by PatricianS

Did it change hardcoded things? And I always thought that the AI was hardcoded

Or did they simply change formations, unit balancing etc ?

If you P*** off the AI off they will give you a good kicking and constantly attack you and ud have no rest plus all your frontiers get overwhelmed and attacked by several stacks especially the Germans and the Britons who keep landing stacks on the Northern gaul coastline!!

Don't forget the Marcus_Camillius Roman Leadership System and also a greek and barbarian one too with some of the best traits available.

The Romans have new skins and the Egyptians are much harder to defeat since their chariots are such a pain!!

**Tiberius Nero** · March 12, 2008, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by PatricianS

Did it change hardcoded things? And I always thought that the AI was hardcoded

Or did they simply change formations, unit balancing etc ?

There is no way to mod the AI itself, what they do is add formations and balance things overall so that the AI acts in a way to challenge the player.

**Archaalen** · March 12, 2008, 07:49 PM

Sorry about the smiley thing. Anyway, I still don't really have an answer to my question: how do they compare? Obviously there is no comparison as far as depth, but is the AI significantly more effective than it is in RTR games, either in battles or on the campaign map?

**florin80** · March 12, 2008, 09:20 PM

I now precious little about bbw and as you see most people here are in this position. From what I know though I could say that they`re rather different mods with different goals. So the chances to find someone who knows them both very well are not great. You`ll probably have to try them yourself.

**~~Tony83~~** · March 16, 2008, 01:51 PM

I played Bare Bones for a short while about a twelvemonth ago and started a Greek campaign. I can't remember now why I stopped, maybe it had 0-turn recruitment (something I've never got on with), or maybe my old PC wasn't happy playing it on Huge settings. Whatever it was I ended up coming back to RTR, as is my wont - lol.

I do recall it being very competent and having some excellent skins, and the AI didn't stand out as being either significantly better or worse than any other RTW mod I've tried.

Mods are such a personal thing that the best and only way to evaluate them is to try them for yourself. Why not give it a go? The only thing you lose by doing so is time!