Loads of Content
The Campaigns look like this:
-Crusades: Takes place right before the third crusade, when the Egyptian and Turk forces start moving on Crusader Territory. In this you can play as the Kingdom of Jerusalem, defenders of the holy city. The Principality of Antioch, their allies. The Egyptians, leading massive armies from the South and The Turks, the infamous Islamic Faction. You can also play as the Byzantines (who get the coolest unit in the whole game) who are against the Turks but are shifty towards helping the Crusaders. This Campaign I found fun mostly because of the immense amount of fighting your going to be doing. The Egyptians preety much send an army right off the bat to Jerusalem, catching you off-guard. Throughout the campaign there are what I call "twists" to the campaign such as the Arrival of Richard the Lion-Heart, the Arrival of the Venetians in the Fourth Crusade and the Mongol Hordes. Each one of these events have ramifications for the factions, the Mongols, will usually encourage you to ally with all the factions and team up on this grand horde. While the Venetians will start causing trouble for the Byzantines. -Teutonic Order: Takes place in Eastern Europe in what is today Russia, the Teutonic Order, a military order formed during the Third Crusade, will begin a series of attacks on the Lithuanians, the last of the Pagan Factions. Theres a lot of factions that take part in this and I will not list them out of lazyness. What I liked about this one was the set up of the Teutonic Cities, they are put in what appears to be a "hook" which will allow you to do some mischevious tactics on the Battle-Map. Should you get enough resources, it is possible to do a full out attack on two of the Lithuanian Cities, which when captured, will seperate the Lituanian Borders. If you have enough enemies you can go ahead and siege every city in this boundtry you have made and can quite possibly take a huge chunk out of Lithuanian territory in a period of 4-5 turns. One thing I don't like is the diplomacy, if you play as the Teutonics, you'll find yourself constantly losing friends due to the AI's over-enthusiastic ability to make allies. By the end of the campaign you could find yourself under attack on all fronts. -Britiannia: Didn't spend as much time with this one so I don't have much to say but it reminded me a bit like RTW: Barbarian Invasion where you seem to lose cities often and have to waste time and money to quell these Rebellions. It is possible to have all the other factions against you, within 10-13 turns I found myself being assualted on multiple sides.
-Americas: The Americas Campaign is a unique one in the Total War series, as you can't see the whole map, its black. You have to explore it using Guides or just by moving troops around. In this Campaign you can play as New Spain who will constantly have money to pay for Mercenaries (and there are a lot of them) to keep the fuels of conquest going. Or some of the Native tribes such as the Mayans who have a special ranged unit that throws Hornets Nests. This is probably the hardest of the campaigns and I recommend it to Total War Veterans looking for a great challenge. First of all, the Mercenaries you hire arn't the best troops, they are light infantry and can't hold off Jaguar Warriors as easy as standard troops. One unit I came to love in this campaign are the Sword and Buckler Men, they seem to be able to take on almost any unit and do well. If you play it on hard mode, you'll discover that if you march too far out you could get into deep trouble. An example is when I took over a Aztec City but suffered huge casulties. The next turn a huge Aztec army retaliated and sieged the city. At first it seemed hopeless, but when I decided to command the troops myself, I managed to hold back the army that not only out-numbered me two to one, but was made of tougher units than mine. At the beginning of the battle I had 600 men, only 20 of those who were Spanish Units. At the end I had 200 men, and 2 Spanish Men (Sword and Buckler Men, at the front lines the whole time) though it was a victory, I wouldn't be able to move out again for 6 turns. One thing that the campaign encourages you to do is ally with the smaller tribes. I immediadly allied with the Txlacticans who were already with war with the Aztecs. Throughout the campaign you'll get more supplies, more men and Gunpowder to fight the tribes to recreate the Genocidal take over of the New World.
In the end, Kingdoms is an amazing package. That will keep you busy for a while. Controlling Reinforcement armies is cool, but it isn't enough to really make a difference in battle and sometimes its better to have the AI take control. The Unique Units to the game are well made and are even. Still, the Greek-Fire is the most fun you'll ever have with an army that has purple colors.