rtw.exe vs rtw-bi.exe

[TheFaceCC]

quick question i just installed this game on friends computer because he like me are huge Roman Era fans and he had the steam version of RTW so i used pheridads (might be misspelling so sorry) installer, everything worked find however i tried using the RTW-BI.exe instead of what i use which is the RTW.exe, in his first battle vs Hannibal it seemed super laggy, also had black screen things over troop numbers and then crashed, so i said ok well lets try RTW.exe, tried the battle again there was no lag no black screens and the game didnt crash the rest of the hour or 2 i was showing RS2 to him...that being said is RTW.exe more stable than the barbarian invasion exe, or am i doing something wrong

[Lü Bu]

well this mod is for rtw...not for rtw-bi....

[TheFaceCC]

yes but you can use all three exe's ALX and BI exes both work and ive heard phalanxes work better when using the ALX exe

[ur-Lord Tedric]

The mod works with all 3 .exe's; I certainly play with BI all the time.

iirc, however, you have to choose which .exe you are going to use the first time you start a campaign, so I don't think you can change thereafter.

You can also select the .exe to use from the launcher, but I don't know what effect that would have later on the first point. Certainly the 2 choices on starting a new campaign are: Use RTW; or Use BI or Alex (single choice).

Either way, it does work well on BI (which is a common choice as it allows use of the shield wall and night battles (rather pretty)).

I'm not used to Steam for RTW, however, and that may introduce its own series of complications.

[Primo]

we switched to his save from BI.exe to RTW.exe so im pretty sure it should work if you wanted to try to do the same, also i can do night battles in RTW.exe, hmm well if BI.exe works well it has to be steam because im positive i installed it right, i guess ill just tell him to use RTW.exe and suck up the possible issues with phalanx

I am pretty sure you will experience some heavy bugs. You can´t just change the engine.

The mod works with all 3 .exe's; I certainly play with BI all the time.

iirc, however, you have to choose which .exe you are going to use the first time you start a campaign, so I don't think you can change thereafter.

You can also select the .exe to use from the launcher, but I don't know what effect that would have later on the first point. Certainly the 2 choices on starting a new campaign are: Use RTW; or Use BI or Alex (single choice).

Either way, it does work well on BI (which is a common choice as it allows use of the shield wall and night battles (rather pretty)).

I'm not used to Steam for RTW, however, and that may introduce its own series of complications.

Night Battles work with RTW and ALX, too. ALX also has the best campaign AI, even able to retrain its units.

But this is a question which has been discussed often times.

[TheFaceCC]

we switched to his save from BI.exe to RTW.exe so im pretty sure it should work if you wanted to try to do the same, also i can do night battles in RTW.exe, hmm well if BI.exe works well it has to be steam because im positive i installed it right, i guess ill just tell him to use RTW.exe and suck up the possible issues with phalanx

[Ferdiad]

ALX exe is best exe. Least buggy with best AI and most importantly, Fixed Phalanxes.

[Soada]

ALX exe is best exe. Least buggy with best AI and most importantly, Fixed Phalanxes.

Granted that you're playing say the Seleucids or the Greeks or the Macedonians, though, for the fixed phalanxes. I often find myself playing as one of the Germanic tribes, so I'd definitely choose BI for the shield walls.

[GRANTO]

alex is better , its a smoother engine in battle gameplay , it can retrain its own units , it naval invades a lot more ,and is less prone to ctds in my experience , it does have an ambush bug thing going on , id also say that bi engine is more aggresive than alex , i use alex engine for all rtw mods , the ai can actualy mount a decent naval invasion against you when you dont expect it

[Primo]

alex is better , its a smoother engine in battle gameplay , it can retrain its own units , it naval invades a lot more ,and is less prone to ctds in my experience , it does have an ambush bug thing going on , id also say that bi engine is more aggresive than alex , i use alex engine for all rtw mods , the ai can actualy mount a decent naval invasion against you when you dont expect it

The AI can even launch a sea invasion on normal RTW. I check if I still have the screenshot from SPQR on normal RTW, where the greek cities invaded Sicily with up to 8 full stacks, using ships. Its just that the AI works on a condition based system, and if not every condition is true (and we don´t know the conditions), it won´t invade per sea, which is quite often the case.

[LoGaL]

i actually changed engine during campaigns when i installed alex ( went from BI to alex) without problems

[century x]

I find BI to be more fun. The swimming barbarians, your spear units ability to form shield walls. And with a little modding you can add that ability to your cohorts.

Naval invasions, a little smarter campaign AI...

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

And with a little modding you can add that ability to your cohorts.

I assume you mean this one: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=405970

Those in-the-know: is this still a separate sub mod, and not included in 2,5?

There seems to be confusion in the sub mod thread whether this works on 2.5B or not. I will give it a try regardless.

[CTD_or_Bust]

Let us know if it works, I'm interested.

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

I will, but don't hold your breath

With my turn rate it will be a while before I have hamata legions available...

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

Hmmm... I ran a quick test and unfortunately It seems the shieldwall doesn't work...

From the submod thread:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Unfortunately, either it seems this does not work with 2.5B, or I did something wrong with intallation of this submod.

I only have the tight and loose formations, and neither of them forms a shield wall.

[Ferdiad]

Hmmm... I ran a quick test and unfortunately It seems the shieldwall doesn't work...

From the submod thread:

That is shield wall, see how tight they are.

[Dramatic Cat]

BI is my favorite .exe so far.
Why? One word.

Shieldwall.

The game wasn't made specially for any engine, but it'll obviously run "better" on ALEX.exe.
It comes down to preference really...

[Ye Olde Fahrt]

OK, it was just that the shields were on their side when I tested ...

[Ferdiad]

You should have unpaused the game.