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* ''Napoleon: Total War'' (2010)
* ''Total War: Shogun 2'' (2011)<ref> (where the name format was reversed to "increase Brand Awareness".)</ref>
* ''Total War: Rome 2'' (2013)
* ''Total War: Attilla'' (2015)
* ''Total War: Warhammer'' (2016)
The games' system is an interesting hybrid, with a continent-scale strategic turn-based game that jumps to real-time battles for resolving conflicts between opposing armies. The main campaign takes place on a [[Risk-Style Map]] divided into territories, cities, and fortifications. Here the player manages his or her empire, selects construction projects for settlements, raises armies, hires and dispatches agents, conducts diplomacy, and marches troops around. When those troops encounter a hostile army or attack a settlement, the game [[Astronomic Zoom|zooms in]] to the conflict and loads a battle map, where the engagement plays out in real-time.
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* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: Despite the fact that he just ''disemboweled'' someone, the Red Samurai in the intro sequence of ''Shogun 2'' has not a speck of blood on his sword.
** Averted with the [[Downloadable Content|Blood Pack DLC]] for ''Shogun 2'', which opts to include [[Overdrawn At the Blood Bank|gallons of it]].
** The Blood Pack DLC for ''Rome 2'', however goes further. But instead of being even [[Bloodier and Gorier]], it goes for being more ''realistic.''
* [[Blood Knight]]: A small number of units are explicitly this, including Slavic ''Peasants''.
** Your generals as well, with the right traits and/or a high enough Dread rating.
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* [[Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain]]: The original ''Shogun'' had such a near-future Japan as its victory cinematic.
* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: Wallachia (in one mod) can still have Chivalrous generals and family members, despite their [[Dracula|reputation]] and iconography.
* [[Darker and Edgier]]:
** ''Medieval 2'' is this to the original ''Medieval'', due to the more graphic detail.
** ''Napoleon'' serves as this to ''Empire'', in part to highlight both Napoleon Bonaparte's power and the nature of the Napoleonic Wars.
** ''Fall of the Samurai'' is this for ''Shogun 2.'' As it depicts Japan's bloodied march into modernity.
** ''Attila'' not only serves as one for ''Rome 2'' and the ''Barbarian Invasion'' expansion for the original ''Rome,'' but takes is considerably further. The game does this by showing the apocalyptic threat Attila the Hun posed and the more bleak consequences of war.
* [[Death From Above]]: Get yourself a decent number of heavy howitzers and bombardment mortars with percussive shells in ''Empire'', then repeat after me: '''And how!''' Incidentally, this function is actually what makes it safe to stick your own units in front of them... as long as you're not aiming there, anyway. For other games, any medieval archer unit with the "Long range" trait is capable of this; and always beware of archers in ''Shogun I'' and ''2''.
** The English longbowmen are pretty much the epitome of this in ''Medieval II''. You'll be hard-pressed ''any'' ranged unit that can consistently cause as much damage at long range short of extreme late-game artillery units like the culverin. Longbowmen can get into shooting matches with multiple artillery units and consistently win. Taken even further in the ''Stainless Steel'' mod, where the longbowmen have range comparable to most artillery units. And in that mod, [[Game Breaker|Scotland can use them, too]].
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** If you're trying to get your cavalry back behind your front line, don't charge them through your bracing pikemen in shieldwall formation. They'll kill your cavalry just as easily as they kill the enemy.
* [[Distracted by the Sexy]]: In ''Shogun II'', one geisha assassination involves this.
* [[Downloadable Content]]: Beginning with ''Rome: Total War: Alexander''. By ''Total War: Rome 2,'' full expansion packs have become this as well.
* [[The Dreaded]]: A character in either of the ''Medieval''s can keep order with a high dread rating. It even says that the room goes silent when your character enters the room in the first ''Medieval'' with a maxed out dread. ''Medieval II'' has dreaded characters lower the morale of entire enemy armies by their mere presence. This is very annoying when fighting the Mongols, who all have high dread generals. Use chivalrous generals to balance it up... or use a general of your own with ''even higher'' Dread to make the ''Mongols'' break first.
** With a general whose Dread is maxed out, it's possible to break an entire enemy army by simply ''charging them.'' You don't even have to hit them; simply charge the entire army straight at them, and there's a pretty good chance that the lower-morale units break immediately, starting a chain reaction of routing that sends the entire army fleeing. With your faction leader, if you push the Dread high enough and execute enough prisoners/exterminate enough populations, he'll end up with the moniker ''[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|"The Lord of Terror."]]''
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* [[Gameplay Ally Immortality]]: In ''Napoleon'', certain historical generals can only be wounded, even in the event of a successful "assassination" attempt -- they simply respawn later at their national capital. Subverted in that if he is wounded on the battlefield, his unit loses his special abilities and aura for that battle, essentially "mission killing" it.
* [[Genghis Gambit]]: All over the place, man. But in ''Shogun 2'', this is actually inevitable: when you control about 1/3 of the landmass, the Ashikaga Shogun will sic everyone in Japan who is not you, at you. It's called Realm Divide, and is the sole reason you [[Gotta Kill Them All|kill everyone on your way to the throne]] instead of [[Being Good Sucks|sparing them by making them vassals]]. Same thing happens in ''Rise of the Samurai'', only it's the Emperor himself calling the rest of Japan down on you.
* [[Genre Shift]]: Of sorts with ''Total War: Warhammer'', as the game takes place in the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] universe, rather than being based on history.
* [[Gladiator Revolt]]: The ''[[Thera]]'' mod for ''Medieval II'' has this as part of the background for the Uruk Dominion.
** Some cities in anarchy in ''Rome'' will also have "The Gladiator Uprising" as their rebellion, though it's not different mechanically from other rebels.
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* [[Rags to Royalty]]: Recruit a unit of peasants. Win enough battles with that unit so that its commander is promoted to a general. You can now make that general the faction heir or marry him to the ruler's daughter, depending on the game, and he can succeed as ruler.
* [[Reality Ensues]]: More than half of the failed assassination/infiltration videos involve the would-be assassins/spies getting caught doing something fairly obvious and getting killed instantly. Especially notable in ''Shogun II'' with one of the geisha assassinations where the geisha approaches two guards with polearms armed with two very short daggers. If successful, she kills both of them, while if unsuccessful....
** In ''Fall of the Samurai'', you'll eventually reach a point wherein sending traditionalist forces head-on against a modernized army of rifle infantry, Armstrong artillery and Gatling guns [[Curb Stomp Battle|is guaranteed to make them target practice]].
** ''Attila'' shows in more stark light the consequences of war and how taxing attacking, razing and rebuilding cities can be. Which in turn can affect morale among your men and across your faction, especially if you're at war for a prolonged period of time.
* [[Real Time with Pause]]: In the single-player battle portions. Extremely useful, as it allows effortlessly commanding massive armies, as well as minimizing casualties. The strategy part of the game is strictly Turn-Based. ''Shogun II'''s [[Harder Than Hard|Legendary]] mode throws a blinder at veterans by taking away the "With Pause" bit.
* [[Risk-Style Map]]: The campaign map.
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