Confused about bug/patch/mod

I don't play a whole lot of comp games, m2tw is the newest game i got in a long time (x-mas gift from girlfriend) and i am pretty clueless about a lot of 'techie' stuff when it comes to games.
I got the 1.1 patch for M2TW, but i've noticed on this site people talking about all sorts of mods, or what i figure are alterations(i keep reading this 'vanilla' thing and others over and over). Playing the game its come to my attention there are problems and bugs and it would be nice to have a few basic changes to make it better.
Can anyone give me some recommendations for some kinda patch or something like that which could improve a few things - especially the two handed axe units, and the way the ai reacts during sieges - without crashing my game or making it unable to play in the multiplayer?

thx a bunch.

I can answer one of thosse questions. Vanilla means un-modded. I play vanilla myself so have no clue about what mods to get and whatnot. Hopefully some other people answer your questions!

A mod is an unofficial alteration to the way the game plays by dedicated people within the player/fan base of the game with the intention of either creating a better game. Or in some cases they produce a total conversion mod.

Total conversion don't add to the basic game at all they literally remove the basic game and replace it with a completely new game.

Mods of any kind, (even total conversions), do not actually change the default game, instead they use various methods to install their changes alongside the vanilla game in such a way that you can either play vanilla OR the mod. You can also have several mods installed.

You'll find my ProblemFixer Mod in the thread linked to in the first link in my thread. Installation is very easy so don't worry about that.

Another good mod by a fellow modder is Lusted's LTC2.1, this can be found here

PrestigeX,

There is a new patch, 1.2, that CA/Sega has in "final development". It is supposed to address many if not all of the current bugs and conflicts in the game. The release date was last week, but they found a couple of last minute issues that has delayed the release.

If you are uncomfortable in tinkering with mods, you could wait until this patch is released and just play with the game to get the basic concepts down.

I wish I could tell you when the release date for this new patch was, that is the $64,000 question we all have now.

Hope this bit of info helps.