Vanilla

[Veridious]

I keep hearing about this "Vanilla" thing, what is it, and what does it do?

[GORE]

vanilla is a fresh install of rtw with no patches or mods.

[Veridious]

What are the different patches available and what do they do?

What are the different mods available and what do they do?

[Peter]

read the readme´s

[Veridious]

Where?

[GORE]

when you get a mod or a patch it comes with a readme listing the major changes, search the forums its all available here. if you go into the rtw or bi general discussion the list of mods is stickied. for the patches you need to search, because different mods require the game to have a certain patch.

[Felixion]

Okay, basically a mod is a modification that normally changes unit stats, appearance and textures, and sometimes the campaign. A patch is issued by the game developers and it addresses and fixes any issues that came up after the release.

[Peter]

check out this link for various mods that are popular. There is specific forums for each to give you an idea what its all about in that mod
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=34

for patches there is

1.1
1.2
1.3
1.5
1.6

if you dont play mods you only need to install 1.3 followed by 1.6 depending if you got the BI expansion pack otherwise just 1.3 followed by 1.5 (or is it just 1.5?)

the BI expansion patch includes the 1.3 in the install

NOTE: certain mods requires different kinds of patching so you may need to check the requirements for every mod you going to play.

BTW. visit this page for the official patches http://www.totalwar.com/community/download.htm

[Flogger]

'Cherry Vanilla' is RTW without any mods or patches.
'Vanilla' is RTW without mods, but with patches.

[Drunken]

And, as far as I know, you must intall patch 1.3 before you can install 1.5.