Any recommended mods for Medieval II: Total War?

[TurinTuramba]

So I recently bought the gold edition of Mtw2 and after the usual fun with copy protection (cd-key missing --->stuck on the installation screen, where it asks you for a cd-key --> hit the internet --> find out you can enter any 18? letter combination during the installation process ---> continue) , I found the battle AI pretty lacking (Especially the 40 knights charge ---> 5 actually trample something ---> 10 start fighting, the rest stays behind watching curiously was rather immersion killing).

So is there any mod out there that polishes the game and improves the battle Ai? I´m not really interested in any realism or gameplay mod( unless they are exceptionally well done), but rather something that tweaks the game to be more enjoyable.

Oh and is there an easy way to download the English language files/texts? Sadly the game came only with the German version and the unit sounds are rather annoying (mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser, ja mein Kaiser, ja, Kaiser, Ja Kaiser, Kaiser? jawohl mein Kaiser, ich marschiere mein Kaiser).

Another point of curiosity: is there any blood in the English version of the intro? There is none in the German version, so the fight scenes look as if they are full of clipping errors with clean swords sticking out of body parts.

[spiffy]

Um, you downloaded the latest patch, right? I haven't had that kind of charging bug since 1.0.

[Enidigm]

It sounds the same in the English version, btw. Well, there may be some English, i forget. I think the Princesses spoke English...

[Lum]

There's lots of mods that change the battle AI along with lots of other additions/fixes.

I like Stainless Steel http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=126810

Deus Lo Vult is popular but too slow/too many radical changes for me http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=120728

Lands to Conquer is another good one, closer to vanilla, the mod author was hired by Creative Assembly (the M2W devs) I believe. New version isn't out yet, but promised "in a week". http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=302

[TurinTuramba]

It says Version 1.03 in my options screen. Is that the latest version? Would be pretty silly to package an unpatched game in a so-called gold edition.

Thanks for the recommendations Lum, I´ll check them out.