Old player returning questions

[Galain_Ironhide]

1) Can't speak for Vanilla too much, however many of the mods have taken care of the annoying issues / bugs such as pikes. I would highly recommend playing a mod over playing vanilla.

2) If you ask me the whole Securom issue was a bunch of hooha - Something of which I must say I unfortunately, temporarily got caught up in. It probably stopped me from buying and installing Kingdoms for up to at least six months when the expansion came out -Thats six months I wont ever get back! I've had Kingdoms installed on my computer for a long time now and have no issues whatsoever - nor ever will. Not taking anything away from the endless threads that debated Securom's and Sega's integrity, however, don't get caught up with the hype is my opinion. The mini-campaigns are good to play around with too, however I generally only have Kingdoms installed so I can play Stainless Steel and now Third Age.

3) The best all-round mod I would recommend would be Stainless Steel 6.1 (Requires Kingdoms Expansion). It has a big extended map, loads of provinces, heaps of different units and about 30 playable factions. Also it has an Early and a Late Era option to choose from.
If you don't want to go with Kingdoms however, you could play Broken Crescent 1.05 which is just absolutely awsome. Also I think Factionheir's VanillaMod might also not require Kingdoms which is a good mod.

All the best, hope you enjoy it & may the power return to your sword swinging arm! (or maybe just your mouse clicking finger).