New to ExRM and a Question

[mdoolitt]

Decided to re-install RTW after a long time away. I've finished installing RTW & ExRM and wanted to find out before I started a campaign. Are there scripts running in ExRM and, if there are, what do I need to do to start them? Click on the advisor and then "Show Me How"? Or do the scripts run automatically in the background? Thanks!

[Caesar Augustus]

Hi mate, welcome to the forum

All of the scripts for ExRM are part of the 4 turns per year script. This is activated by clicking on the advisor's portrait when you start or load a campaign.

Note that to get the script to start if you leave the game and go back to the main menu the script will still be running for your other campaign, so the new save you load from the main menu or new campaign you start may begin at a really random year. To get the 4 turns per year working correctly (and to get you back to 280 BC), you will need to go to the in game options and reset the advisor. Then click on a city to bring her up, then click on her portrait.

Hope this helps

[Quinn Inuit]

Aye, welcome.

CA's right about older versions, but if you get the most recent one, the script usually starts by itself. Just to be sure, though, when you start a game, wait a moment. The advisor will appear, some text will appear, and then you can close it. If the advisor doesn't appear after a moment, just click on a city and it'll show up and run itself.

As for resetting the advisor, there's a trick we installed for that (courtesy of House of Ham, who scripted it). If you're going to close a game and you know you're going to re-open another one instead of quitting to the desktop, hit "escape", followed by the little question mark on the scroll that appears. We've hijacked that button to kill the script. Then you can quit and restart normally. It's documented somewhere, but the rest of the documentation tends to drown it out.

[Posantio of Umbria]

Aye, welcome.

CA's right about older versions, but if you get the most recent one, the script usually starts by itself. Just to be sure, though, when you start a game, wait a moment. The advisor will appear, some text will appear, and then you can close it. If the advisor doesn't appear after a moment, just click on a city and it'll show up and run itself.

As for resetting the advisor, there's a trick we installed for that (courtesy of House of Ham, who scripted it). If you're going to close a game and you know you're going to re-open another one instead of quitting to the desktop, hit "escape", followed by the little question mark on the scroll that appears. We've hijacked that button to kill the script. Then you can quit and restart normally. It's documented somewhere, but the rest of the documentation tends to drown it out.

Had a slight problem with that last night, i.e. I reloaded a game after I miss-clicked for army movement, did the movement right, hit end turn and got spammed with all possible historic events (including the capua plague and volcanic eruption).
Reloaded again, clicked the faction symbol and the lady-advisor appeared stating the year and season. hit end turn again to make sure and it was all in order, no events-spam and the advisor appearing with the next date/year

Clicking the ?-button in the faction window only gave me info about the faction window.

[Caesar Augustus]

Ah I'd forgotten about that bit

Shocking, I'm wrong again

[Quinn Inuit]

It's cool, don't worry. Your advice wouldn't have done any harm. Mine just had a couple more tricks to it.

[mdoolitt]

Thanks! now I have two more questions...

I've played a couple custom battles and the AI was up to its old tricks, ie throwing its general away on suicidal charges. Later I started a campaign, and in two battles and the AI is being very cautious with its generals - they spent the whole time lurking in back. One general even fled rather than die a useless death! Is this part of your improved BAI? And it doesn't work on the custom battles?

Second - I chose to play as Epirus. Is it normal that I should be bankrupt by the second turn? In fact, it looks like I'll have to conquer the entire Italian peninsula to turn a profit.

[Quinn Inuit]

1) No idea. I don't think the AI can use different formations in a custom battle. I think the problem is that the AI desperately wants to throw away its generals, but the formations text restrains them. Maybe something about the army you chose put the general in a position that the AI could actually get it into the fight. (I'm not trying to blame you. Controlling AI behavior in battles is very difficult, and can get bizarre sometimes. I certainly can't explain it completely...I doubt even the developers can.)

2) Ah, you avoided the fight with the Romans, didn't you? That opening army you have is much too expensive and needs to be whittled down in battle, and we set up a battle for you a few spaces from where Pyrrhus starts. If you fight the Romans fairly (e.g., don't line your guys up in a line across a corner of the map), you'll find that the opening battle is usually enough to take a chunk out of your troops.

[Dunadd]

I've played a couple custom battles and the AI was up to its old tricks, ie throwing its general away on suicidal charges. Later I started a campaign, and in two battles and the AI is being very cautious with its generals - they spent the whole time lurking in back. One general even fled rather than die a useless death! Is this part of your improved BAI? And it doesn't work on the custom battles?

I've never played custom battles but the AI in battles in campaigns seems pretty good - it almost never goes kamikaze with it's general at the start of the battle, though you can sometimes entice them to attack skirmishers and then surround them and finish them off. Generals' bodyguards have a very high armour rating which means they don't die too easily either.

Of course it's not as good as a human player in some ways, but pretty damn good as far as AI goes.

If you play with Very Hard campaign difficulty and Medium battle difficulty it should get more than hard enough (Very Hard battle difficulty makes it insanely hard to rout any enemy unit - many fighting almost to the last man and gives them plus 8 damage bonuses too - so it's neither historically realistic nor much fun as you take horrendous losses in every battle. Medium battle works fine along with VH Campaign)

Second - I chose to play as Epirus. Is it normal that I should be bankrupt by the second turn? In fact, it looks like I'll have to conquer the entire Italian peninsula to turn a profit.

Epiros is much harder that way than other factions -though the starting elephants have upkeep zero and most of your starting army are elite so i'd be unwilling to disband them personally. It's a unique case though.

Most factions you'll likely need to sack a few units of the starting troops to avoid bankruptcy - e.g if i'm playing Carthaginians i sack the elephants in the army in Sicily (you need a good economy before you can afford a unit that costs almost 3,000 a turn) and i sack all my caetrati cavalry (too expensive at pay 719 and you can replace some of them with Numidians, who generally perform better and have a pay of under 500.

You'll also need to put as many settlements on as high a tax as they can stand without causing a revolt at the start.

Other than that it's not too bad - so long as you're careful not to make armies bigger than you need (though that can be hard to judge and require some re-loads if someone attacks unexpectedly).

[Shiina]

When playing with epirus just auto resolve the large stacks battle it'll take out like half of your troops.
then take peastum, confinarium? and Rhegium. that should get your economy back on track.

[Quinn Inuit]

Ah, that's a known potential issue with the date script. What you need to do before you close a game with the intention of reloading is hit "escape", then hit the "?" button in the upper right of that scroll, then exit, then reload, and then make sure you click on a city and (if necessary, though it usually isn't) hit the "show me" button on the advisor.