Return to RTW after 6 months

[suspectchin]

I played RTW a lot when it first came out and am curious for some updates on significant positive changes that have occured in the recent months. I stopped playing RTW around the time barbarian invasion expansion was released, and I am considering getting that and the alexander expansion and trying the game out again. I know it is pretty hard to sum it up, I think there have been two or three new patches, however is there anything significant that is worth noting?

I always loved the battles in RTW, however I found the strategic map portion and running an empire to simplistic, and lacking in later dates. The main issues I had were that there were too many "epic" feeling battles that really have no impact on the outcome of the game. For instance destroying an entire enemy army just to see it be replaced within a few turns. I noticed there seems to be a lot more mods out now, the only one I really tried was RTR which made some nice changes. Are there any others worth looking into? Has the Ai made any large leaps in ability in the past few patches? Are there any major changes to the strategic map portion of the game or any other major additions or changes?

[Kaidonni]

Well, here is the full low-down on the patches...

-1.0 is vanilla RTW.
-1.1 and 1.2 are patches for the original RTW. They are no longer necessary whatsoever.
-1.3 is for RTW. But ONLY if you haven't got BI. Vanilla BI is 1.4, it auto-patches RTW to 1.3.
-1.5 is for RTW. But ONLY if you've got 1.3 and haven't got BI. You install 1.6 over BI 1.4, it auto-patches RTW 1.3 to 1.5.
-I never bothered with the Alexander expansion.

As for other things...mods...Terrae Expugnandae is a great mod by Lusted. And RTR has a port to 1.5 now (don't know where it is, though, you'll have to search around). Chivalry: Total War is in the late beta stages, I believe. It is downloadable. I play MTW: Gold Edition now, though. I've abandoned RTW.

[Steuner]

What about that Alexander fingie? Isn't it 1.9? lol