M2TW or Kingdoms?

[Shahed]

Kingdoms is standalone ? Oh, I didn't know that. LoL!

[Paradox]

M2TW Kingdoms is an expansion and thus requires M2TW to play it.

[FactionHeir]

I would recommend you getting STW+MTW+RTW for the price of getting M2TW. Those together will be more fun than the latter overall IMO.

What the previous posters said is also true: Kingdoms is an expansion (well, a mod you pay for actually) for M2TW and is not stand-alone.

[Paradox]

I think he already has Total War: Eras, he mentioned that in the Entrance Hall. I think you should get both anyway.

[FactionHeir]

Ah I see.
Still, I wouldn't recommend Kingdoms.
It doesn't really improve M2TW that much (in fact, it is a separate mod rather than an expansion with very few minor exceptions) and doesn't fix any issues that M2TW has (and introduces some of its own).
Besides, there's also that thing about SecuROM depending on how security conscious you are.

[Paradox]

To be honest, the only reason I want this game is because of the Kingdom of Jerusalem faction, will I be disappointed?

[FactionHeir]

From the unit roster that I saw, it will basically the just another faction with a similar unit roster as the Antioch one (or even any standard M2TW faction) with units that only look slightly different in terms of color and names.

Oh, and you are supposed to get a "hero" character with some special ability, but every faction gets one and they aren't overly worth it to have you pay some 20 pounds for it.

[Zim]

I've enjoyed the Kingdoms campaigns, and hotseats for them, immensely. If you just want to play the KOJ though, a few mods for the game have them in them, and most likely with cooler units than CA made for the expansion.

Stainless Steel has a crusader faction, but I hear their faction color is a shade of pink more embarassing than the vanilla Hungary one.

To be honest, the only reason I want this game is because of the Kingdom of Jerusalem faction, will I be disappointed?