Using RTW:Alexander in other mods

[pere_ubu]

I'm not a big fan of RTW:Alexander, but since I began playing Diadochi - Total War, I realised the AI is much better. I got bored of most RTW and BI mods because, no matter how great they were, the AI was bad and repetitive, throwing one unit at a time against you in battle and so on, thus the only solution for the campaigns to get more interesting being to give the AI an insane amount of units and money. Not so with DTW played with Alexander: I saw the AI using its unit pretty well, on both strategic and tactical level.

So, why shouldn't all mods switch to using Alexander, since it improves a very important part of the game? What are the downsides (besides having to purchase Alexander, of course)? It seems to have wore camera control (but you get used to it after the first battle) and, if memory serves well, it lacked one formation (schiltrom or shieldwall?) Is it very difficult to change a mod made for BI to one playable with Alexander? Beacause, in my opinion, using RTW: Alexander is a major improvement. For me, at least, it made the game worth playing again (of course, it's also the fact that DTW is, by itself, a great mod, but there are a lot of great mods out there which, unfortunately, at least for me, are ruined by the fact that the AI is so bad - not that it's their creators' fault, of course).

[RedFox]

DTW was originally an ALX only mod, but since most people can't bother to 'acquire' ALX, BI and RTW support was also added. BI is very unstable though and the AI is not so great.

There are a few specific features unique to BI, but I don't see anything worthwhile there. DTW ALX and DTW BI are practically identical, just ALX has better AI and doesn't crash.

[pere_ubu]

Sorry I wasnt' clear enough. I meant other mods, like RTR or IBFD, besides Diadochi Total War. What would the downsides be of switching from BI (which, as far as I know, is used by 90% of the mods) to Alexander? Is it very complicated to make this switch or basically I could play a BI mod with Alexander without any problems (of course, after changing the target line from BI to Alex)? I mean, after 3 weeks or so of playing DTW (a great mod, goes without saying) I realized that playing against a better AI is all worthwhile (and I shouldn't mention the fact that, unlike most mods I've played, DTW didn't crash once - is it related to using Alexander, as well?)

[RedFox]

There are a few steps that need to be taken in order to turn a BI mod into ALX, but it's rather light weight modding. Only a few textfiles.
You can try running the mod with ALX exe, but if the mod uses hording, it will crash.

The thing about BI / ALX stability - it's rather subjective, but in the case of DTW, it doesn't crash on ALX, but on BI it's not that reliable.

[pere_ubu]

Thank you. So Alexander doesn't support hording... this is bad news, since I was hoping to play IBFD with the improved AI it provides. Well then, back to DTW!