Difficulty and a few other questions

**NoxNoctum** · November 01, 2009, 02:51 AM

I just installed the mod, gonna start a campaign in a bit. Haven't played RTW in nearly two years but was intrigued by the promise of "much better AI" thanks to the formations mod by Darth. That coupled with the battle generator looks great!

I'm a masochist when it comes to games and LOVE a challenge, but don't like the AI to get unrealistic bonuses (but I DO want it to be very agressive).

What are the best settings?

I found a discussion from about 8 months ago about this mod vs. the SPQR mod, and the RS team was talking about wanting to make the game tougher on the player, possibly with an interchangeable file that lets the game stay hard whether you're playing Rome or a weaker faction (i.e. strengthening Gaul when you're Rome and strengthening Rome when you're Gaul). What came of this?

**Brusilov** · November 01, 2009, 03:39 AM

Which game are you referring to - RS1.n or RSII?

The hardest game settings are H(strategy/campaign)/VH(battle). There is a known problem with RTW in that the AI gets less of a money bonus on VH(strategy/campaign) than they get on H.

The way to get 'better AI' is to use the RTW BI exe rather than RTW exe. However, if you have it then it's better to use the RTW Alex exe rather than the RTW BI exe.

**NoxNoctum** · November 01, 2009, 03:42 AM

How do I use the Alex exe instead? (I do have it)

RS *does* use the Darth mod right? Does it really make the battle AI a whole lot better?

**Kallides** · November 01, 2009, 05:00 AM

To use the Alex exe just make sure you have TW Alexander installed before applying the RS 1.5 or 1.6 mod. When the mod is installed you should have 3 icons on your desktop. One of those icons will represent RS Alexander, you can delete the other two if you wish. If you have already installed the RS and have been playing with BI you will not be able to put your saved game into Alex and will have to start from the begining. If you cant find the RS Alex exe and you already have RS installed, simplest thing to do is just run the RS Installer again and you will have the icons appear on your desktop. Remmember to backup your saves just incase.

**Brusilov** · November 01, 2009, 05:16 AM

It is possible to use the RTW Alexander exe after a RS install but it involves editing some files to stop the family members from being immortal. The details of how to do this are in one of the EB threads.

However, as Kallides has stated if the RS installer detects the presence of the RTW Alex exe in the game folder during the install it will do all the work for you.

I'd suggest a reinstall of RS as a number of people had problems getting all the manual edits mentioned in the EB thread to work properly. The reinstall is made easier if you haven't installed RS over the original game folder - the suggested method of installing mods is to do so over a copy of that game folder.

**NoxNoctum** · November 01, 2009, 05:46 AM

I had Alex installed before I installed RS yet I did not get the shortcut you speak of. I did get the BI shortcut though, and it didn't work "Failed to find Steam", so I doubt an Alex shortcut would work.

I'm no programmer, but could I copy paste the Alex exe from its separate folder into the RTW/BI folder and somehow trick Steam into using the Alex exe to run RTW Gold?

**The Sloth** · November 01, 2009, 06:14 AM

Also, if you're that interested in challanges, try a campaign with Pontus... without ever declaring war on neutral factions. It's not as devilish as it used to be, but it might still give you a good sweat or two. Or the egyptian campaign, it used to be quite troublesome in it's own way. I'm not sure if it still is in 1.6, though.

**Brusilov** · November 01, 2009, 10:52 AM

Did you have it (RTW Alexander) installed in the folder that you installed RS to?

**NoxNoctum** · November 01, 2009, 01:45 PM

No Steam automatically installs Alexander in a separate folder from RTW Gold (Vanilla+BI) and I thought I read somewhere you can't install RS into an Alexander only folder (it won't work)

**Brusilov** · November 01, 2009, 02:04 PM

OK, I've not bought any bits of RTW through Steam. It looks like that was a sensible thing to do.

RS needs either a RTW or a RTW / RTW BI install - the only bit of RTW Alexander that is needed is the exe and the chat_filter.san file.

It may be easier if you copy the RTW Alexander to the same folder as the RTW and RTW BI exes and also copy the chat_filter.san to the data folder (although I am fairly sure that the RS install will create that for you (chat_filter.san) in the right place). Once you've done that then install RS.

If you go down the route of using the RTW Alexander exe you will need to have the -noalexander switch set up.