Imperator II and alex.exe

[Ejergard]

Hello everyone, and thank you for a good mod!
Imp2 (v2.1) runs great with the bi.exe, but for a few reasons mentioned earlier by others, I've been trying to get it running using the alex.exe.
It hasn't been completely trivial, since alex doesn't support some features that are in BI, the most protruding one being hoarding.

At first when you change to the alex.exe it asks for the "chatfilter.san"-file. So I copy this one from the Alex-folder to the equivalent in the Imp-folder, and change my shortcuts targetline to
""D:\Games\RTW Vanilla\RomeTW-ALX.exe" -ne -mod:IMP -show_err -noalexander"

Then I found on a forum that you had to add some Immortal-lines in a few files which I did, otherwise the family members would be immortal.

After doing all this, I try starting it again. And I get a message saying there is an error in the "descr_sm_factions.txt"-file, and that the feature hoarding is not supported. After pressing OK, it goes CTD. So I open this file (make a backup ofc) and delete all the bits about hoarding. Save it and try starting it again. This time it works like a charm. I've only gone about a few turns, so I don't know if its stable yet.

But I have a few questions from anyone who knows anything about this:

1.) Does anyone else have Imp2 running with alex.exe?
2.) Did I screw something up by taking away hoarding? Is any faction supposed to use it in Imp2?
3.) Did I miss something, or was this the correct procedure to go about?

If anyone is interested, I can post a more detailed stepbystep of exactly what I changed to remove the hoarding and how I added the Immortal part.

Again, thank you for a great mod!

[Ejergard]

Been testing this a little more, and thought I came up with a CTD related to alex, however I was able to reproduce this CTD using BI aswell.
The thing is that if you check the detailed description of a building in the building queue, and then rightclick a unit that is trainable in that building (tried the italici velites and the fungitores), it crashes. The campaign selection screen is bugged with alex, however it is possible to start a campaign using BI and then loading it after you have alex running.

Am I chasing rainbows here, or is there really a treasure at the end?

Besides this, its a little disappointing that there are no sprites for the alae hastati and principe. Did anyone try to manually add in the sprites from the ordinary hastati/principes for the alaes?

[AqD]

Been testing this a little more, and thought I came up with a CTD related to alex, however I was able to reproduce this CTD using BI aswell.
The thing is that if you check the detailed description of a building in the building queue, and then rightclick a unit that is trainable in that building (tried the italici velites and the fungitores), it crashes. The campaign selection screen is bugged with alex, however it is possible to start a campaign using BI and then loading it after you have alex running.

It's a bug in all RTW versions, caused by complext building requirements in RTR.

[Ejergard]

Been trying alx.exe a little more and its very unstable, crashing all the time, but if I save my game play until it crashes and reload again I can actually make progress, and I can rarely ever reproduce the same crash again, seems rather random, however often connected to ending turns or getting in or out of battles.

Another thing I've noticed though is that my slingers sounds like archers when they fire. Is that due to a bad install on my part, or is this intended or overlooked for some reason?