what is better for using xgm rome total war 1.5 or barbarum 1.6?

[timdedarter]

what is better for using xgm rome total war 1.5 or barbarum 1.6?
what is more fun and less bugs?
i have now 1.5
so tell me

[Dom9127]

BI is best as it is less buggy and adds plenty of new features Horde, Shieldwall better AI etc.

[Scutarii]

BI is definitely better, all the new features enhance the game.

[Ephialtes The Dog]

Yes BI is great but if you don't have it the Alx.exe is pretty awesome too.

[Unknown Soldier]

Apart from swimming combined with fatigue - can kill your army faster than anything else

[Scutarii]

One reason why I leave fatigue off...

[cherryfunk]

BI!!!

[ThePianist]

Better with the expansion. AI is better and does more naval attacks (the Ptolemies just landed a little army in Cyprus in my current Greek Cities campaign. I was like ? That usually doesn't happen). You get shieldwall (especially important when using hoplite, it also helps the survivability of the Spartan phalanx that takes 30 turns to train) and any unit lighter than the medium infantry can swim during a bridge battle.

[Unknown Soldier]

Swimming = death

Units that can swim won't cross bridges or fords! Or even stand on a bridge!

[Dom9127]

I always turn swimming off for that reason or play on the Alex.exe where that feature is not included.

[Hippias]

I always turn swimming off for that reason or play on the Alex.exe where that feature is not included.

Me too - Swimmimg sounds like a great idea, but in practice I found in a pain in the bladder (trying to chase a routing enemy and finding all my light troops using breast stroke to chase them)

[Dom9127]

Lol whats even funnier is that the units can attack each other in the water. I remember in an earlier version of XGM I fought a river battle against the thracians, as the greeks. Are armys mainly consisting of thracian pelasts. It was ridculous funny as both sides threw there javelins, got into the water and hacked at each other whilst swimming all in there neon blue skirts

After that farcical episode I desided that disabling that feature would probably be best.

[Stilgar CG]

BI.exe ! As other guys mentioned, more features (night battles, hording, swimming), better AI (but still often uninspired), fewer bugs (in theory). In short, pleanty of reasons to play on BI.exe
You can try Alex.exe, but then you loose some BI features.
Good luck. ME

[DimeBagHo]

Whats even funnier is that the units can attack each other in the water. I remember in an earlier version of XGM I fought a river battle against the thracians, as the greeks. Are armys mainly consisting of thracian pelasts. It was ridculous funny as both sides threw there javelins, got into the water and hacked at each other whilst swimming all in there neon blue skirts

Nice. I do like the way swimming units make it harder to defend at bridges - you need to defend the banks of the river as well. Otherwise the implementation of swimming leaves a lot to be desired.

I play with the Alex exe now and i can't say I miss swimming units much. I do miss having hordes and shieldwall though.

[Stilgar CG]

About the swimming ... Nice feature, indeed. At the same time, I found it a bit annoying when the units able to swim prefer to have a bath rather than use the bridge, even if they are two steps away from the bridge Barbarians are particularly fond of taking a swim. I guess this is something to take into account when fighting at bridges.

Dime, if you are still around... what's new in 5.6.4 as compared to 5.6.3? Cannot not find this info. Is there an update, or a re-install is required to update from 5.6.3 to 5.6.4?
ME

[DimeBagHo]

XGM Version 5.6.4

-Revised stats for all chariot units
-Chariot units moved to barracks buildings
-Egyptian Scythed Chariots removed
-Bug Fixes

Saved games back to 5.6.0 should work, but the bugs in 5.6.3 were quite significant, and unfortunately the fixes will only work for new campaigns. There's no patch, so you need to re-install XGM.

[Stilgar CG]

Thanks, Dime.

[Hippias]

Alex exec for me every time now - playing for longer periods on it the campaign AI certainly does seem better - I am fighting bigger stacks invariably commanded by decent AI character generals. (and you get storms at sea again!!)

Being a defensive minded coward, I prefer the old style 'non swimming' bridge battles - I like using bridges as defensive choke points on the map (cheap I know, but i prefer to play the little guy factions trying to survive against the big guys)

[Rule_Brittania]

How do you take the swimming feature off?

[DimeBagHo]

Rule_Brittania: Open up export_descr_units.txt and remove the "can_swim" bit from all the units that have it.