Hi which option should I use in the Launcher? (Rome.exe, BI.exe etc)

[boratlike1]

A while ago I remember seeing a post which said the benefits of each one and I remember that BI had more common naval landings campared to the normal rome.exe but I cant find that same post and I'm wondering if its worth buying Alex?

[century x]

A while ago I remember seeing a post which said the benefits of each one and I remember that BI had more common naval landings campared to the normal rome.exe but I cant find that same post and I'm wondering if its worth buying Alex?

The AI in the Alex.exe is better in a way.
But in my opinion I have been using the BI.exe for years cause the AI is good they do naval invasions and my favorite the barbarian units can swim across rivers and it is awesome...

[Darth Bane1]

Also BI has shield wall. Perfect for Hoplites and spearmen.

[century x]

Also BI has shield wall. Perfect for Hoplites and spearmen.

Oh totally forgot about that. It has that too...

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

A while ago I remember seeing a post which said the benefits of each one and I remember that BI had more common naval landings campared to the normal rome.exe but I cant find that same post and I'm wondering if its worth buying Alex?

The best one overrall is BI.exe you have abilities like Shield Wall, Testudo, Barbarian units can swim on rivers, more naval invasion and still a better AI than the original Rome.exe.
Alex.exe has better AI but you loose some of the unique features of BI.

[Kirasy]

The best one overrall is BI.exe you have abilities like Shield Wall, Testudo, Barbarian units can swim on rivers, more naval invasion and still a better AI than the original Rome.exe.
Alex.exe has better AI but you loose some of the unique features of BI.

I disagree I would trade a few minor feature for A improvements which comes into play many times a turn. Testudo formation is in ALX not sure why everyone thinks it isn't. Bridge battles represent a insignificant percentage of battles or close to it (maybe 5% of my battles are on bridges even less if taking into consideration percentage of bridge battles fought against/with barbarians) and it only makes bridge battles slightly better. Weather or or not naval invasion AI is better in ALX or BI is extremely debatable. ALX makes fighting Greek factions a lot better due to improvements in phalanx formations along with it making playing the Greek factions much funner and less frustrating.

All in all I was quite surprised that everyone seem to lean towards BI in this thread since in previous threads there had been majority of post supporting ALX which made me make the switch in the first place. Well just giving my 2 cents.

[Davidos]

Right now I am currently using Alex.exe. The difference that I notice between Alex.exe and BI is that in the former the phalanx soldiers stay in their place and not foolishly dispersed with no reason. I am currently using Alex.exe in roman campaign. Will I do wrong if I choose the BI.exe in the middle of it?

[dvk901]

I believe you can go 'UP' mid-campaign...(start using BI if you were playing Rome.exe, or Alex if you were using BI), but not the other way. I have had CTD's that way.

It could be useful to consider that if you play Greek factions, ALEX would be a better choice to play with. Roman and Barb factions would be better with BI.

[Alavaria]

Heh, because that useful guide to using Steam had the RTW.exe, that was what I used, forgot I could use the "better" BI

Don't think I'll risk switching mid-way though.

[dvk901]

Oh my, don't get me wrong, there are really only minor differences between these exe's, with some strengths and weaknesses. The ONLY reason I don't tell people 'use ALEX' is because there is a known bug with ambushes in the formations file that RS2 uses, and the game will randomly crash in an ambush. If you FIX the bug in the file, then the game crashes in RTW and BI.

There are, however, alternate formation_ai files in '_important_stuff' that can be used for ALEX. So if you use ALEX get the file in the 'ALEX_ONLY' folder and overwrite the one in the 'data' folder. And then don't use RTW or BI and come back and say it crashes.

[Legatus Legionarii]

The reason why I switched from BI to ALEX during a Roman campaign (worked smoothley, BTW) was that Carthage sent stack after stack attacking Caralis... OK; naval invasions are nice, but the problem with that was, that Carthage focused so much on that, that they "forgot" their other, more threating front with the Gallaeci. Result was that Carthage was kicked out of Spain and that they even lost territory in North Africa (Tingis). Toggle_fow showed me, that after switching to ALEX, Carthage stopped their navel invasions in Caralis, but instead started to at least defend properly their African territory... So, apart from the differences mentioned in the posts above, I switched the EXE cause it helped Carthage to survey and thus made the campaign more interesting for me... I always hate to see Carthage being kicked ass by the Gallaeci...

[Kirasy]

Oh my, don't get me wrong, there are really only minor differences between these exe's, with some strengths and weaknesses. The ONLY reason I don't tell people 'use ALEX' is because there is a known bug with ambushes in the formations file that RS2 uses, and the game will randomly crash in an ambush. If you FIX the bug in the file, then the game crashes in RTW and BI.

There are, however, alternate formation_ai files in '_important_stuff' that can be used for ALEX. So if you use ALEX get the file in the 'ALEX_ONLY' folder and overwrite the one in the 'data' folder. And then don't use RTW or BI and come back and say it crashes.

I have played 100+ hours of Roma Surrectum and have never experienced this crash. It surely isn't all that common?

[century x]

You can turn off the naval invasions. Just needs a little modding.

[Legatus Legionarii]

You can turn off the naval invasions. Just needs a little modding.

Thanks, did not kow that...

[century x]

Thanks, did not kow that...

The file descr_sm_factions is your best friend.

[dvk901]

No....just irritating. And I am one of those modders who hates CTD's and will track them down like a rabid dog.