Very informative, thanks.

Will people have to buy Kingdoms to get the vanilla game re-balanced or will there be a free patch released at the same time?

Regardless, I am looking forward to the rebalancing as much as to the new Kingdoms campaigns.

I am a little curious about pikes though:

Quote Originally Posted by blog
Very weak when flanked and not as good as spears against other types of infantry.
Does this mean that even frontally, pikes are not as good as spears against other types of infantry? I would imagine that frontally a phalanx would be formiddable even against infantry, but that it would be very weak if disordered or flanked.