Both Pathfinder games have me totally hooked right now. In Kingmaker, I have created Helyn, the Magus as the Baroness. Then I went to the Pathfinder mercenary recruiter and created Drym, the Half-Orc Ranger Beast master. Then, when I got the money, I returned and created 3 more: a dwarf cleric with red hair, a dark skinned Aasimar monk with golden hair, and a blonde elf fighter wizard archer. So I can still take "origin" characters with me 1 at a time but still have a party of 5 of my own making.
I will say, the kingdom management thing was frustrating because they didn't really teach you very well how to build villages and such, so I have played through a lot of act 2 without villages. That sucked. Now that I know how to build them, though, it's MUCH better. I love that you can actually visit towns you built.
WotR wins in a lot of ways. I agree with you about a LOT of what you said. I am pretty much through 2 acts, and I will say that I still love it. There are some Combat heavy parts that get a bit tedious, but being able to switch to RTWP for those really grunt mass enemy battles helps speed it up tremendously. I don't normally like RTWP, but there have been a few battles that warranted it. That said, 95% of the game I've played TB and I still think it's awesome. I even love that mounts and animal companions get equipment too.
