Total War: Difference between revisions

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''Total War'' is a series of strategy games developed by The Creative Assembly and published by [[Sega]]. The series combines [[Turn-Based Strategy]] with [[Real Time Strategy]] and each game takes place in a distinctive historical period.

 

* ''Shogun: Total War'' (2001)

* ''Medieval: Total War'' (2002)

* ''Rome: Total War'' (2004)

* ''Medieval 2: Total War'' (2006)

* ''Empire: Total War'' (2009)

* ''Napoleon: Total War'' (2010)

* ''Total War: Rome 2'' (2013)

* ''Total War: Attila'' (2015)

 

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.

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[The Alliance]]: And one you'll hate with every molecule of your being. Realm Divide in ''Shogun 2'' and ''Rise of the Samurai'' is essentially [[The Alliance]] of clans who aren't you, desperately fighting your titanic might from occupying Kyoto and declaring yourself Shogun. And you can't make a counter-alliance (or at least keep it for long), because Realm Divide also give you -50 to your diplomatic influence, [[It Gets Worse|with another -5 for each turn Realm Divide is going]]. (To give you an idea, -50 to diplomacy is equal to your daimyo publicly pissing on the tenets of bushido.)

** In ''Empire'' it's possible for Politicians to get "mistresses", heavily implied to be men. If your Monarch is female she may also take a female mistress.

* [[Anachronism Stew]]: The ''Total War'' games generally pay more attention to historical detail than other games of the same calibre. There have still been a number of minor mistakes in most of the games, albeit forgivable ones. ''Rome'', however, caused an outcry among history buffs in its fandom, regarding a large number of issues. Most [[Egregious]] were the Egyptians, who were closer to New Kingdom Egypt, i.e. several centuries before the game was set. A number of mods have since come out to make the game much more accurate, the most notable being [http://www.europabarbarorum.com/index.html Europa Barbarorum].

** Arrow towers, during sieges, continually shoot arrows at a machine gun-like pace. If you leave a unit in their range for a few minutes, you'll probably find a large pile of corpses and a few demoralized survivors. Furthermore, they never run out of ammunition, and they will continue to shoot arrows at your men until you capture THAT section of the wall or the troops manning the tower withdraw.

** In ''Medieval II'', the sheer power of archers gives England an absurd edge over its neighbors, thanks to their longbowmen coupled with reasonably strong cavalrymen and good infantry They're not [[Boring but Practical|particularly spectacular]], but they are ''nasty'' at range and can win most battles before the infantry lines ever meet. The ''Stainless Steel'' mod makes this even worse, as Scotland is able to combine pike formations with longbows (recruitable from any castle on the British Isles) which allows them to brutally reduce any advancing force until it crashes into their incredibly tough pike formations, which will eventually cause them to rout.

** Played straight with the Roman factions in ''Rome'', due to being able to use the testudo formation after the Marian Reforms event. This will allow your legionaries to march around unimpeded by arrows unless they're from the back, allowing you to approach walls with impunity. Roman legions in general tend to be tough to take down with missiles from the front anyway.

** The Naginata Samurai in ''Shogun 2'' have a lot of armor that prevents arrows from getting almost any kills against them. Most other units avert it to different degrees.

* [[Antagonist Title]]: ''Napoleon'' and ''Attila''.

* [[Anti-Cavalry]]: Comes in various forms across the games. In order of game release:

** ''Shogun I'': Cavalry were never best used from the front in the first place, but cavalry fell foul to spears (obviously) and units deployed in forests or on hills. As spearmen are your default pick for your armies being the most balanced, and hills and trees are omnipresent in the game, cavalry are at just about their weakest point in this game. The exception is the Mongol Heavy Cavalry, who might just manage to roll over an unlucky spear unit by sheer force. (Mongol Heavy Cav. are ''devastating''.)

** ''Medieval I'': Spears, trees and hills again. Also, camels are capable of taking down horse units of far greater quality than the camels, an effect that all later Total War games that had camel-riding cavalry incorporated; all camel units naturally give all nearby horse units significant penalties, because the horses can't stand the smell of the camels. Bedouin Warriors can become the bane of western crusader armies.

** ''Barbarian Invasion'': The expansion pack is worth mentioning because cavalry are far more effective in this version, as the quality of the Roman legions decline, phalanxes become extinct and the heavy cavalry of all factions get better. Spearmen once again become the real answer to cavalry; just throwing heavy infantry at the cavalrymen no longer guarantees a good result.

** ''Medieval II'': Spears as usual, but they have to be good quality spears. Heavy cavalry will just roll straight over militia spear units (unless they're Italian militia or in schiltrom formation; Heaven help the cavalry who try to charge an Italian spear militia formation in schiltrom) and you really need pikes or very heavy spears to guarantee bringing a cavalry charge to a grinding halt. Even then, a cavalry cycle might fail, but heavy cavalry will always be a problem for infantry if they are allowed to repeatedly charge them. Spears really come into their own as a counter if the cavalry can become bogged down. Certain archers also have an option to deploy stakes pre-battle, which can murder any cavalry that tries to cross them, but are immobile. If the archers need to relocate or the cavalry flanks them, they're useless.

** ''Shogun 2'': Spears (''especially'' [[Cannon Fodder|Yari Ashigaru]] in Yari Wall formation), archers and guns will cause chaos amongst cavalry units, who aren't nearly as powerful as in ''Medieval II'' and are far more vulnerable to missile fire. If you're a swordsman, on the other hand... cavalry, while not as capable, are still formidable on the frontal charge against the right unit type, making anti-cavalry more relevant.

* [[Anticlimax Boss]]: The Mongols are scary as hell in the open field, and are hard to beat back. However, once they hit your cities or a defended bridge, their horse archers are just cannon fodder for your spearmen, archers, and crossbows. The Timurids on the other hand... there are a couple ways to defeat them at their own game in the field, but all require locking down their archers. And cavalry. Lots and lots of cavalry.

* [[Armor-Piercing Attack]]: Longbows, crossbows, axes... in ''Medieval I'' and ''II'', it may be a good idea to keep a few unarmoured units around specifically because of the vast range of units who ''actually get a bonus'' fighting heavily armoured troopers. This is particularly problematic for nations who invested heavily in upgrading their soldiers armour via the various armoury buildings, as even their militia may be armoured in heavy mail.

* [[Armor-Piercing Question]]: From ''Rome 2'', which is partially directed at ''you'':

* [[Arrows on Fire]]: You can order your archers to set their projectiles alight, but doing so makes them [[Incredibly Lame Pun|burn]] through their ammo supply twice as fast, and the arrows take longer to reload, are much less accurate, and generally don't do as much damage. However, they are quite effective as breaking enemy morale, and of course can set fire to siege equipment, buildings and ships. You can also order your catapults, ballistae, and cannons to fire flaming rounds. ''Shogun II'' has flaming arrows not only cause morale damage, but also cause more damage to the unit in general; a rather unrealistic feature.

* [[Art Shift]]: This is played with in the aesthetics of ''Shogun 2'' but is most evident with the ''Fall of the Samurai'' DLC. Complete with old-style photographs and Victorian-esque illustrations standing in for the usual Japanese stylings of the main game's interface.

* [[Artifact Title]]: The ''Alexander'' expansion for ''Rome'' historically takes place before Rome comes to power.

** In siege battles, attackers have a habit of standing right in front of your towers doing entirely nothing as they get shot to pieces, leading to easy, if rather uneventful battles. Sometimes said attackers are archers or javelin throwers who are hurling shit up at your wall defenders or even over the walls at your defenders on the ground, but melee units share the same tendencies, which is an incredibly stupid move even by units that have a chance of dealing some minimal damage before getting annihilated. It's ''extremely'' easy to exploit this; the AI seems to assume that you'll never actually try to disrupt the attack once the siege transitions to an assault; if you can hit the troops manning the siege equipment, if even for a moment, they'll drop their rams/ladders/siege towers to fight. Then usually forget all about the equipment even after the fight is over. It's possible to suck a large army into a brutal, costly entryway fight by destroying/disrupting their ladders and towers and forcing them to ram the gate, and then let them run inside. A good player can kill and possibly even disband a two-thousand man army with only a few hundred spearmen by just holding them like that and pummeling them with flaming arrows or catapults.

** For that matter, siege battles as a whole suffer from severe [[Artificial Stupidity]] from both computer units and your own units. You will almost always be guaranteed to have a group of units somehow end up with half its numbers outside the walls attacking, and another half stuck inside, running into the wall, or other such monstrosities of logic. Generally, it's a good idea to consider a unit on a wall as "committed" to that wall; trying to pull them off the wall for quick redeployment is not a bright idea unless you've got extra time to pull it off. On the one hand, defenders fighting on their walls get big combat bonuses. On the other hand, city squares are easy to defend/bottleneck, the enemy will tire itself covering the distance, you can easily shift forces from one side to the other should the AI try to encircle (which it rarely ever does), and your units instantly regain morale when they pass the flag line. Plus, it's mostly out of siege engine range. That said, an army outnumbering the player's army 2:1 can easily be beaten if you just place your archers on the walls and let them rain death on the enemy while you place your spearmen at the gates to slaughter the enemy cavalry as they ride in. However, avoid the wall if the enemy has cannons. Or catapults. Or ''any'' siege gear beyond ballistae. The AI will ''mercilessly'' pound any wall that has archers on it if it has any effective siege gear.

** In ''Shogun I'', it's perfectly possible to take a bridge, rout the opposing army, and then turn right back around and amass a staggering number of taken heads as the enemy's reinforcements arrive, presumably meaning to outflank you on the ground you have just left. If their comrades have already routed, they will first attack you and then try to run away across the bridge you are now guarding; the result can be some fairly skewed kill ratios. A somewhat more forgivable method pops up in ''Medieval II'', where if you manage to outflank an enemy unit during a city battle by getting troops in the street behind them, they'll likely rout straight through your flankers ([[Reality Is Unrealistic|though when you think about it]], [[Fridge Brilliance|there's no where else to run to]]).

** Your artillery captains may need to be hung in ''Empire''. When told to cease fire, they tend to discharge their loaded guns directly into the line of battle. If they aren't relentlessly baby-sat, the second their target moves within musket range of friendly infantry expect embarrassing friendly-fire incidents. God forbid cannon arranged in a line, and the target moves to their immediate right or left. However unintentionally hilarious it is to see them shooting each other in the back from mere feet away, the fact that in many campaign battles friendly fire causes far more deaths than the enemy is frustrating indeed.

* [[Asskicking Equals Authority]]: If you're lucky, captains of armies not lead by officers can be promoted out of the ranks into the royal family after battle for their good work at kicking ass. (And [[Rags to Riches|become Emperor of Rome!!!)]] Unfortunately this costs a lot of money post-''Empire''.

* [[Attack! Attack! Attack!]]: Units with high morale don't balk at charging the entire enemy army unsupported. Impetuous units occasionally do this without being asked! This is less common in ''Shogun II'', completely outmatched units (particularly those that have already taken casualties in a previous battle) will flee before contact under the right circumstances.

* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: Played straight with Alexander, who comes with a 60-man strong unit of what might be the best cavalry in the entire series.

* [[Badass Beard]]/[[Beard of Evil]]: When a general gets older, they'll start to go gray, but during middle age their character portrait may show them sprouting a beard.

* [[Badass Boast]]: The intro of ''Napoleon'':

Now they say ''nothing.'' They fear me. Like a force of nature - a dealer in thunder and ''death.''

I say: I am Napoleon - I am '''EMPEROR!'''"'' }}

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Your generals can gain this trait, and it reflects in their pre-battle speeches.

{{quote|'''General''': ''"I am a well-read man, I have studied law and mathematics, decoded and scribed, yet I can still swing a sword and cleave a head or two!"''}}

* [[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.

* [[Bonus Boss]]: The Aztecs in ''Medieval II'' could count as such. Their continent shows up late in the game, and they have several full stacks of units to guard their territory.

** And unlike real life, those huge armies don't crumble as soon as you get a few horses and guns on the field with them.

** In ''Shogun 2'', in an army without a general or daimyo leading it will have the highest ranking unit in the army take on their role. It will even say "our general is in grave danger!" when they are attacked, and killing them, just like killing a real general, is vital to destroying an army's morale.

*** Not to mention that hero units are fully capable of taking on multiple units by themselves.

** The Bow Samurai have this as their personal operating philosophy in ''Shogun 2''. Switching to melee mode leaves you at least with a chance against charging melee units.

*** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] with the samurai units in ''Rise of the Samurai'', which are equally highly skilled with bow and sword. They're some of the best units at range ''and'' in melee.

* [[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.

** ''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.

** 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]].

*** Given the longbowmen's historical successes, this is pretty much [[Truth in Television]].

* [[Decapitated Army]]: Killing the enemy army's general causes its morale to drop like a stone, making it easier to rout them. In extreme cases, the general going down can, indeed, cause an entire army to rout. For example: an army of 800+ attacks a castle. Your walls are lost, the gate is down and you are pulling what is left of your infantry to support knights in the [[Last Stand]]. THEN, a lucky pikeman kills the enemy general. Outcome? ''Entire enemy army routs and flees after the first cavalry charge.''

** In the first ''Medieval'', if you try to engage the Mongol hordes when they arrive, you just might get lucky enough to kill the Khan. You will probably still lose the battle unless you had a huge force sitting on the eastern border of the map, but after the battle is lost the entire Mongolian army turns into rebel scum... albeit with very good units.

** In ''Medieval II'', nearly anything your generals do can earn them one form of trait or another. Have a general visit or become governor to a town with a brothel? He might pick up a trait about becoming a womanizer. Leave a general between cities at the end of a turn? Might gain a trait regarding logistics. Have a general regularly fight armies of a particular faction, and they'll earn a trait that has them ''hate'' that particular faction and get a bonus commanding against them. Hire mercenaries and get a mercenary captain in the retinue, visit a town with an artist's studio and the general becomes a patron of the arts, visit a region with high Pagan religion and get a pagan astrologer or magician in your retinue, and so on. This even applies to agents; for example, a diplomat from an area with majority of one particular religion will be religiously intolerant, while ones from mixed-religion regions will be religiously tolerant.

** 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.

** 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."]]''

* [[Dropped a Bridget On Him]]: A rare trait for priests in ''Medieval II'' is "Secretly A Woman." The character portrait even includes notably rosier cheeks if they have this, and with careful Papal politicking you can get a woman elected pope.

** Minor factions in ''Attila'' include the Magyars, a nomadic horde whose descendants would be known as Hungary centuries later.

** The ''Age of Charlemagne'' DLC meanwhile adds in factions that would be known in the ''Medieval'' games as France, the Moors and the [[Holy Roman Empire]], among others.

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: The first ''Shogun'' and ''Medieval'' games could count, as many game play elements associated with the series debuted in ''Rome''. Among others, a stricter [[Risk-Style Map]] was used, meaning units could only move one province at a time every turn. In addition, the first games used 2D sprites over a 3D-rendered battlefield, in sharp contrast to ''Rome'', which brought the series fully into 3D.

* [[Easy Communication]]: Probably one of the most blatant examples in gaming. You can command a group of knights half a battlefield away from your general, and surrounded, to break off, struggle through the enemies, and reform, before having them charge right back into the enemy (assuming they haven't routed.) In ''Rome'' and ''Medieval II'' at least, you can select an option that forces the camera to stay at your general's unit to counter this somewhat. The [[Easy Communication]] on the Campaign map, on the other hand, can be explained by the fact that each turn lasts half a year, and it is entirely reasonable to acquire the status of every asset in your empire and communicate orders back in that time. Also this way in ''Empire''... but that was pretty annoying (11 years to research a technology?!), so each turn became half a month in ''Napoleon''. One can ultimately treat the whole affair as a [[Hand Wave]] on account of the player representing the whole of one's own force's commanders at both "overall" and unit levels, though of course the player still has the advantage of being able to see unit statuses exactly (i.e. morale), being able to give orders with the "big picture" in mind (nominally anyway...), and the complete lack of tactical fog of war unless a unit is hidden.

* [[Elite Mooks]]: Every single faction has them, and usually they are an extreme nuisance to kill, if not a threat all unto themselves. [[Despair Event Horizon|Unless you break their morale, that is...]] though one of the reasons the [[Elite Mooks]] are such a nuisance is that they're much less likely to break and run than other units. Hell, some of them, in addition to having innately high morale and traits giving them resistance to morale shocks, will have traits that cause them to inflict morale penalties on your troops by their very presence.

*** ''Rise of the Samurai'' is set at the tail end of the classical Heian period of Japanese history.

*** The main game's campaign, set during the Sengoku period, starts off towards the latter part of it, as what's left of the Ashikaga Shogunate struggles to survive.

** The ''Imperator Augustus'' campaign for ''Rome 2'' follows the last gasps of the old Roman Republic as a young Octavian asserts himself as Rome's first true Emperor.

** For ''Attila'':

*** The main game itself starts off in AD 395, at the tail end of Late Antiquity and with a weakened Roman Empire divided into East and West besieged by various enemies, as well as the titular figure.

* [[Enemy Civil War]]: Several games in the series allow for this, at least from the perspective of opposing factions.

** In ''Medieval'', a faction whose royal family was destroyed or are in possession of a particularly weak monarch could suffer rebellion as rival claimants attempted to seize the throne for themselves.

* [[Game Mod]]: The ''Rome: Total Realism'' and ''Europa Barbarorum'' mods are both ambitious and intricate projects attempting to more accurately portray Europe during the days of [[Ancient Rome]]. For ''Medieval II'', there's the ''Stainless Steel'' mod, which goes a step above, adding new units, retexturing many of the units, adding more historically accurate troops, a wider range of traits and titles, a realistic aging system, and including several of the Kingdoms factions while adding a few others (including the Mongols!)

** ''[http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=89 The Fourth Age Total War]'' is one based off [[The Lord of the Rings]] and Tolkien's abandoned story called The New Shadow. It deals with the Reunited Kingdom having to deal with it's people turning to evil. Still being updated and worked on today and is filled with references of Tolkien's works while made as detailed as possible.

** In addition, there's the ''[[Thera]]'' campaign mod, placing the campaign map in an alternate [[Low Fantasy]] universe.

** There's also ''Darth Mod'', ''Imperial Spendor'', ''Rights of Man'' and several other mods for ''Empire''.

** The XL Mod, one of the first mods for the first ''Medieval'' mods that while not changing core gameplay managed to expand the scope by introducing new factions and units, deserves mention.

* [[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.

* [[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.

** Most light cavalry units. Their light armor makes them exceedingly vulnerable in pitched combat, but they are ''fast'' and hit almost as hard as heavy cavalry on a charge. Just keep in mind that they have to be babysat ''constantly'' because if a heavy cavalry unit catches them, slaughter will ensue. It is not uncommon for a battle that inflicts even light casualties to take out ten to twenty percent of your light cavalry troops. On the flip side, they gain experience very quickly due to the high attrition rate.

** The No-Dachi Samurai from ''Shogun 2'' have a massive attack, a large charge bonus and an ability that gives them unbreakable morale for a short time, but they lack any kind of melee defense or armor, so one must get them into combat with a charge or watch them get slaughtered.

* [[Government in Exile]]: Even if you defeat a faction and take over their lands, if you don't keep your citizens happy you'll see revolts and the spawning of nationalist rebels.

** In the original ''Medieval'', factions could occasionally reappear to try and reclaim their independence. In both ''Medieval'' and ''Medieval II'', taking control of Rome and defeating the Pope will result in the immediate election of a new Pope, who generally appears right next to Rome with a sizeable army.

** ''Fall of the Samurai'' plays with the trope. Japan is in the transition period between pre-isolation and the Meiji Restoration, so while guns are very much not worthless, it'd be wise to back them up with melee units in the beginning of the campaign; spears and swords are not out of the running just yet, and if you're not ready, they'll be more than happy to validate this trope for you.

* [[Harder Than Hard]]: Legendary mode in ''Shogun 2'' takes away the pause part of the [[Real Time with Pause]], removes the save function bar autosaves after turn passages and battles to foil [[Save Scumming]], and you still have to deal with the rules of Very Hard. As this can make coordinating your forces an absolute nightmare, and there are no second chances, even hardened veterans of Total War games will find this difficulty mode a struggle.

* [[Have a Gay Old Time]]: Invoked when ''Empire'' hails artillery-centric generals: ''"Here's a man who knows when to blow his load!"''

** Certain Greek cities might be ruled by "Lesbian Rebels" <ref>Rebels from Lesbos, that is</ref> during anarchy.

* [[Hero with Bad Publicity]]: In ''Rome'', it seems that the more the People loves you, the more bitter the Senate become toward you. Considering that crushing the Senate and ruling Rome by force is a winning condition, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

** [[Truth in Television]]: This is pretty much how the pattern went with Populari reformists, some of which were part of the Senate. Their fate was to be stabbed to death in increasingly creative ways by the senators. The example that ''mostly'' overcame this pattern was [[Julius Caesar]].

* [[Hit and Run Tactics]]: Possible after ''Shogun''. If you tried that there, your soldiers just randomly ran away. [[Honour Before Reason|Damn samurai honour!]]

* [[Honor Before Reason]]: All units in the mobile game ''Total War Battles: Shogun'' can only move and attack forward or forward-diagonally. Never to the side or backwards. The same applies to the enemy. This turns the game into a glorified chess game where every piece is a pawn. According to the game, this is because every Japanese warrior abides by the code of Bushido, which demands no retreat.

* [[Horse Archer]]: Present in every game in some form or another. Varies in deadliness from game to game.

* [[Mercy Rewarded]]: In one sense, as letting prisoners go will earn your generals in ''Medieval'' points for Chivalry. But there's nothing preventing those prisoners from fighting you in the next turn, so...

** And if you do it too often you start to lose dread. The best way can be the rather schizophrenic tactic of letting all of them go, then killing them all the next time. This only applies to ''Medieval I''; in ''II'' you get Chivalry as a reward for releasing captives.

* [[Mission Pack Sequel]]: Fans disagree as to whether ''Napoleon'' was this in regards to ''Empire'', or simply a stand-alone expansion. The Creative Assembly's silence on the issue just makes things more complicated.

* [[Multi Melee Master]]: Phalanxes in ''Rome'' and pikemen in ''Medieval II'' and ''Empire'' caught out of formation or at extreme close range will down spears (or, apparently, [[Hammerspace|stash pikes taller than they are in their trousers]]) and haul out short swords. Only the Spartans and a few really tough pike units (like Swiss pikemen or Spanish Tercios) truly fit the mastery of both weapons part of the trope however. For others, its an [[Emergency Weapon]].

* [[Multiple Endings]]: ''Medieval'' allowed you to declare victory after conquering 60% of the map or go for 100% instead. If you chose the latter course, the ending was suitably more epic... [[A Winner Is You|"more epic" meaning that the little cutscene was the same, but the text below was slightly different.]] Likewise, after finishing a Short Campaign in ''Rome'' (Capture 15 settlements and destroy/outlive one or two specific factions), you can continue your campaign as an Imperial Campaign (capture 50 settlements including Rome). Both give an identical cutscene with different text below. The game's text files also have text for conquering everything.[http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h270/AndarielHalo/My%20RTR%20pics/VICTORY1.jpg Here is an example]. It's from a mod, ''Rome: Total Realism'', but it's the same message and video you'd get as the House of Julii.

* [[The Musketeer]]: All gunpowder units can fight in melee. Why you'd want them to is another matter, as they generally have plentiful ammo.

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Anyone, potentially, as titles and nicknames are assigned based on traits, reputation, and deeds. What's more, if the character in question has high enough Dread, enemy forces often actually ''will'' run away from them. Nothing like seeing King Edward, the Lord of Terror, charging an army of several thousand all by his lonesome only to see them turn and rout at the mere sight of him.

* [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]]: There's nothing stopping you from fielding ninja warriors (kisho ninja) and sending them on a pirate ship. In fact, this is an effective combination if you want to strike a general who hides behind several layers of thoroughly garrisoned territories. Barring mods though, the game doesn't have zombies or robots.

* [[No Arc in Archery]]: Averted. If the front rank of a unit of archers or crossbowmen has direct line-of-fire to the enemy they'll take a straight shot, but otherwise archers will, well, arch. This lets them fire while safely behind tougher units or hit enemies on the other side of cover, but such volleys are less accurate and damaging than direct arrow fire. Archers in earlier games and ''Shogun II'' have an unfortunate tendency to shoot shielding units in the back.

** Wonderfully averted in ''Empire'': even individual bullets from infantry volleys receive realistic arcs. This aversion is also the point of using howitzers, although their different ammunition from foot and horse artillery (cannons) can be a nice, nasty touch. It's also the only safe way to use cannons behind one's own units, if said cannons are also overhead.

* [[Not Playing Fair with Resources]]: The AI in ''Shogun II'' gets discounts on unit recruitment on Hard, Very Hard and Legendary, allowing it to assemble larger armies than the player.

** It's still possible - [[Harder Than Hard|if difficult]] - to save and reinvigorate the Western Roman Empire in ''Attila''. But the very technologies and developments you need in order to make it so encourage decentralization and have elements reminiscent of medieval feudalism.

* [[One-Man Army]]: Thoroughly averted for the most part, save in the case of the Kensai unit in ''Shogun'', a master swordsman capable of tearing through entire units or holding a choke point all by his lonesome.

** Subverted in ''Shogun'''s Tokugawa campaign. You command a unit containing three of them, and your opponent on the same map also has one.

** Many of the elite units across the series are drawn from military units that historically were body guards to national rulers. Byzantine Varangian Guards, Napoleon's Imperial Guard, and many different nations' Life Guards/Republican Guards in ''Empire'' and ''Napoleon'' are some examples. Really, pretty much any unit with the name "Guard" in its name has a good chance of fulfilling this trope.

* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]: Almost inevitable, given the nature (and the design) of the game. In ''Shogun 2'', you can actually have a Pyrrhic Victory if you have too great a loss in a battle you won, though depending on the circumstance this can be a mere [[We Have Reserves|annoyance]].

* [[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....

* [[Scripted Event]]: ''Rome'' has the Marian Reforms. ''Medieval II'' has five: the Mongol Invasion, the Black Death, the invention of gunpowder, the Timurid Invasion, and the discovery of the New World.

** ''Barbarian Invasion'' gives us the emergence of rebel factions if a settlement belonging to either the Roman (Western Empire), the Roman (Eastern Empire), or the Goth rebels. If the Western Empire loses control of Britannia, the Romano-British emerge, and at a certain year the Slavs come into the game.

* [[Secret Police]]: The metsuke in ''Shogun 2'', bureaucrats who also double as judges and spies. While they can't be normally dealt with by armies, they can be neutralized, [[Faith Heel Turn|one way]] or [[Ninja|the other]], by enemy agents. They can learn iaijutsu to make them more resistant to assassination attempts.

* [[Sedgwick Speech]]: Your general gives an inspiring speech before every battle, even when utterly outmatched. These vary in quality based on the general's leadership skill, from "I have never lost a battle in all my campaigns!" to "Maybe we'll survive if they do something utterly stupid."

*** ''Fall of the Samurai'' has [[More Dakka|Gatling Gun]] units with an inscription on the body which, upon closer inspection, reads [[Auto Tune the News|"Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband."]]

*** Listening closely to your routing Bear Line Infantry in ''Fall of the Samurai'' can allow you to hear some of their retreating dialogue. One of which is a panicked yell of [[Iron Maiden|"Run to the hills! Run for your life!"]]

* [[Smash Cut]]: The trailer for ''Fall of the Samurai'' begins with a philosophical and peaceful, yellowish introduction of the process of forging and wielding a Katana, as well as its strong and ancient cultural ties to Japan. It stops abruptly in the very middle, and then cuts to a bluish view of the same samurai from the intro [[Curb Stomp Battle|being mowed down]] by multiple ''[[More Dakka|Gatling Guns]]'' handled by Imperial Japanese soldiers, with a [[Large Ham|hammy]] [[Eagle Land|American]] voice-over moderating the technological peculiarities of the weapon, and then asking the listener whether they now want to sign the contract.

* [[Springtime for Hitler]] : See [[Uriah Gambit]] below. Sometimes, you just prefer that the heir of the throne is that epic conqueror with eight stars in command and seven in dread, instead of a shitty governor from nowhereland, since it gives bonuses (i.e. counter assassination attempts). So you send the 0 star general and have him attack Milan alone, facing his personal guard of at most 30 men against at least 300 soldiers. He wins. And gets a trait which makes him much harder to kill.

* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: Once you acquire gunpowder, this is your assassins' favorite method of either killing or sabotaging.

* [[Suicidal Overconfidence]]: The strategic AI tends to gravely overestimate its chances and will gleefully attack an empire five times its size and three times as powerful. They'll also refuse terms if you try to reason with them, somehow still confident that they can destroy you with one city. On the tactical level, however, the AI will form a defensive block or flee outright if you clearly outmatch it.

* [[Suspiciously Small Army]]: Despite being one of the most realistic representations of battlefield tactics in the gaming industry, Total War does this, or at least the earlier games do. A unit's standard size in ''Rome'' is between 40 and 60 men, and even at the huge unit size, where unit sizes can reach a massive 240 men, armies can't exceed 4800 men. The actual Roman army, meanwhile, could number tens of thousands in single battles. Naturally this is due to graphical limitations, a 10,000 man army would break all but the most advanced computers. Every faction bringing that many or more to the field would make the game impossible to run. There is however a mod for empire that increases unit size to about 500 man for each unit making a full stack grow close to 10 000 man.

** ''Shogun 2'' is set to expand this, though, with each side being capable of fielding up to ''sixty-four thousand men'' in a battle.

* [[The Thirty-Six Stratagems]]: Well, obviously in a series like this they're going to come in. #16 is most obvious, though - a surrounded enemy who would otherwise be 'broken' will 'fight to the death' if there is no avenue for escape. As soon as you ''create'' one (by ordering a unit to break off), they'll down tools and leg it, allowing you to butcher whatever's left of them with zero losses.

* [[Thieves' Guild]]: Building one enhances your spies and assassins. Conditions have to be right for it to appear however.

** For ''Shogun 2'' it happens twice.

*** ''Rise of the Samurai'' turns the clock ''back'' to the end of the Heian period of Japanese history, during the Genpei Wars that signified the Samurai's [[Title Drop|rise to power]].

*** ''Fall of the Samurai'' fast forwards to the Boshin War, Meiji Restoration and Satsuma Rebellion in the 19th Century, following Japan's opening to the Western world.

** Happens as well in major DLC for ''Attila''.

*** ''Age of Charlemagne'' goes even further, starting off in 768 and following the rise of Charlemagne and the [[Holy Roman Empire]] in the ashes of the long-gone Western Roman Empire.

* [[Title Drop]]: In the opening cutscene for every game, the narrator will manage to work "Total War" into his final sentence, often rather [[Large Ham|conspicuously.]]

* [[Video Game Caring Potential]]: Pay your captured soldiers' ransoms and hear them sigh in relief and cheer, or free captured enemies to earn Chivalry points in ''Medieval II''...

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: ...or refuse to pay for your underlings' failures and butcher captured foes so they may never oppose you again. Assassinate your own family members. Order your princesses to marry their brothers. If the Pope excommunicates you, order him assassinated. Sack your neighbors' cities or exterminate the population. Order a Spy from a plague-infested town to spread his contagion through your enemy's empire as one final act of spite. Send [[Uriah Gambit|units or family members you don't want]] in charges against vastly superior forces. Then there's Rome's incendiary pigs. 'nuff said. Conquer and sack a city in the Middle East between two Muslim nations. Sell it to the Papacy for a few thousand florins. Watch the hilarity ensue. And in the original Medieval, you could actually use Inquisitors. Leaving your inquisitor alone in an enemy province for a few years has interesting results. {{spoiler|Your inquisitor starts a rebellion and usually hundreds or thousands are killed.}} One writer once had 90,000 people killed in one round. Someone really piss you off? In ''Rome'', take a town, exterminate it, recruit peasants en-masse until its down to 400 people, demolish all the buildings, leave it to revolt and send an infected spy in to give it the plague. Congratulations, you have effectively depopulated the region for decades to come, and ensure that province will never advance much beyond village potential. ''This is recommended on the official site''. Deny adopted sons and distant relatives freedom to marry in order to purify the bloodline? Check. [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]] captured cities? Check. Try to assassinate leaders from a rival religion, get fed up and declare brutal holy war (which encourages the [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]] solution to alien cities), then assassinate your own pope because he soured on the war when you attacked those stupid Byzantines? Check, check and check. It's sometimes quite a bit harder to not be extremely cruel and effective than it is to become globally notorious and effective.

** If you actually listened to the credit songs whose lyrics are listed below, doing any of the above may induce a [[What the Hell, Hero?|What The Hell Hero]] to your conscience. [[You Bastard|Yes, you]].

* [[Video Game Historical Revisionism]]: Though it's obvious the developers are doing their research, sometimes there are goofs. The page mentions ''Medieval II'''s portrayal of Finland as an example. Despite it's great gameplay, ''Rome'' also murdalates history with its depiction of Egypt. Egypt in the time the game starts was dominated by heavy Macedonian/Greek influence, and had armies similar to that used by the other Diadokhoi (Seleucid Empire, Macedonian Kingdom, etcetera), but for reasons ranging from "it looks cooler" to "we don't want to make an 'Egypt: Total War'", the game developers make the Egypt faction one straight out of "The Ten Commandments" and "The Mummy Returns", complete with makeupped Pharaohs and chariots and soldiers wearing headdresses and wearing armor made of gold and outdated bronze. Not to mention the splitting of the nation of Rome into three separate Roman nations, seemingly ruled by family lines ("The House of Julii", "The House of Brutii (sic, Bruti)", "The House of Scipii (sic, Scipiones)"),<ref>Although, if you really want to be pedantic, they're actually ''gens Julia'', ''gens Junia'', and ''gens Cornelia'' respectively, but that might be expecting a little too much.</ref> though this is forgivable, as it is done to characterize the Roman Civil wars (although the expansion pack ''Barbarian Invasion'' had a much better and more realistic way of dealing with that, with scripted events.) Urban Cohorts and Arcani were ''not'' elite troops, and the Britons certainly wouldn't hurl severed heads at enemies. Most Roman crosses had no top bars, and resembled a 'T'; the bar on the Christian cross was added to post the "King of the Jews" sign. All this in one game. This is the reason for several realism mods such as the appropriately titled ''Rome: Total Realism'' and ''Europa Barbarorum'', both of which many fans swear by.

* [[Violence Is the Only Option]]: You can ''try'' diplomacy and being nice to people, but either the AI will force you to fight or you'll get tired of your annoying neighbors. That said, it's possible to bribe armies to disband or settlements to defect to your side... except there is no more bribing armies in ''Empire'' due to the revamped diplomacy system, and in ''Empire'' the AI will eventually declare war on all neighboring nations regardless of public opinion. In ''Medieval II'', the AI never seems to learn. You'll be thrashing it, then either the Pope will make you stop, or they will offer you a substantial amount of gold to let them go. Then a few turns later they seem to forget this and attack you again. This can lead to several long and costly wars throughout the campaign. The AI in general is famously stubborn. At times, it will not even accept a ''gift'' of all the territories the player has seized in a war, and that is a ''gift'', with no ''ceasefire''. This is averted in ''Shogun I'', or the easier settings at least. It is possible to win the game without ever declaring war on any rival clan, and to make alliances with them to this end. Said method, however, is to create dozen of spies to forment rebellions in enemy provinces again and again and then sweep in yourself after the old clan was expelled, and to train a few Geisha and unleash them on your allies until, sooner or later, you inherit half the country. The only time you are at war is against peasant rebellions, and they are the most likely to flee without fighting, though eventually they will run out of places to hide and you will be pitted against an amalgation of armies in one final, climatic super-fight.

** Played straight in ''Shogun 2'' with the "Realm Divide" event. Once you have control of about one-third of the map, the Shogun will send ''EVERYONE'' against you. All of the remaining clans (except those allied with you, but don't expect them to stay that way for long) will also promptly stop fighting each other, ally with one another, and declare war against you. And they'll often each send an army of about twenty units (of varying degrees of quality) at a minimum. At this point, diplomacy is worthless.

* [[Word Salad Lyrics]]: The lyrics to the "map view" music in Rome are just a disconnected series of Latin nouns. Which is, admittedly, characteristic of some Roman poetry.

* [[You All Look Familiar]]: Especially in the early games. In ''Medieval II'' the series added more randomization to soldiers' faces and uniforms, but made them all have the same face again in ''Empire''. Fixed in ''Napoleon'', where there's differing (though often similar or reused) appearances for individual soldiers, but named historical generals will have their their distinct looks. For example, Thomas Picton appears in a long red coat and top hat (his luggage having not arrived to Waterloo in time), while Napoleon wears a long gray overcoat and distinctive hat.

** Zerging is a viable strategy against the Mongols and Timurids, too. When they first appear, they're just unsupported armies with no cities backing them up, which means that any Mongol or Timurid warrior you kill ''stays'' dead and cannot be replaced. Since by the time the Mongols show up you'll already have a strong empire that can take some losses, it's possible to simply keep sending waves of suicide armies against the Mongols and the Timurids to batter them down. You can replace your losses; ''they'' can't.

** Semi-averted in ''Empire'' and ''Napoleon'' due to the presence of field artillery, and almost completely averted once the enemy infantry or cavalry are in range for canister shot. This can work against if the numerical advantage is sufficiently lopsided or if advancing against infantry, but usually by the time you can effectively zerg, you've tended to have gained the advantage anyway. On a campaign scale, however, Zerg rushing is still a viable tactic and is usually called "blitzing". At the beginning of the ''Empire'' campaign, each province - especially for the larger empires - only has a minimal amount of units, meaning that if you can build up a stack fast enough, you can sweep up most of their territory before they are able to muster up an army large enough to halt yours. If you use the [[Game Mod]] that enables minor factions, Persia is good for this, as it is able to recruit Bedouin warriors (who are cheap but plentiful) and borders two overstretched empires - the Ottomans and the Mughals. The main obstacle is keeping your newly-acquired provinces under control while your army immediately moves on, although all but the capitals require a token occupation force and tax exemption status to be kept under the boot.

[[Category:Ancient Rome]]

[[Category:Video Game Long Runners]]

[[Category:Total War]]

[[Category:Video Game]]