Installing RTRPE without BI

[Ham]

Hello,

I have installed RTRPE v1.6 over RTW 1.5. Is the gameplay suppose to be better if I installed it over BI though cuz I heard the AI is improved and there's night battles in the expansion. I haven't bought BI yet but I might if it improves gameplay in RTRPE.

[florin80]

Hello,

I have installed RTRPE v1.6 over RTW 1.5. Is the gameplay suppose to be better if I installed it over BI though cuz I heard the AI is improved and there's night battles in the expansion. I haven't bought BI yet but I might if it improves gameplay in RTRPE.

Three things:
1. you don`t need BI to have night battles. They are already there.
2. RTRPE is a direct port (more or less ) of RTR 6 Gold to the engine of RTW v1.5. However, it was dicovered that you can play it with BI.exe. Although at the begining there were people that said this is causing CTDs and other problems, it turned out that this was not true as we received reports of people playing long campaigns and having no problem. The problems were probably related to other mods used with RTRPE or with early versions of RTRPE. So we decided to give you a guide on how to play it with Bi.exe and have the improved AI. The link to the guide is in my sig. Now, about the Ai. It is clearly improved, but don`t expect miracles. It means more logical campaign map moves, less suicidal generals(they now tend to sit back), more naval invasions and this kind of things. For example. In RTW v1.2 the Ai almost never used naval invasions. In RTW v1.5 it used it to support its over sea cities, but once it lost them it did not attempt to take them back. With Bi, it seems that the Ai really makes naval invasions. It lands troops in places where it has no longer a province and it tries to expand over sea.
3. You should get the BI if you can as RTR 7 will be for BI and most mods out there tend to move to it. Even some mods for RTRPE were made for the engine of BI(but I think most can be played just with RTW v1.5).

In the end it`s your decision. Now, I`ll let others tell you about playing with BI.exe from their own experince.

[JoeyJubb]

Playing as the Romans, I had to re-think my strategy entirely when I switched to using Bi.exe! Instead of casually walking around taking cities as I please, knowing that nobody will ever try to take the Italian Peninsula, now I have a hard time fighting off all the armies trying for my precious cities!!!

Illyria continually makes attempts to capture Capua from overseas, the Greeks won't leave Croton alone after I captured it and the Carthaginians keep having goes at Roma too! I'm gradually pushing back their armies but I'd have no chance if Gaul decided they wanted a piece of me, lol.

In battle the AI is noticably smarter too, like florin80 said, the generals aren't so suicidal anymore. I've noticed a drastic improvement on how the AI uses skirmishers too.

If you can get BI easily, I really would recommend it! If you haven't got the money just laying around though, get it when RTR7.0 comes out, because that will be a blast.