Total Annihilation
"Total Annihilation" was one of the first RTS games to feature radar that showed enemy units within its radius on the minimap. This added an additional element of electronic warfare to the game: players could construct radar jammers that prevented units in a small radius around them from appearing on radar. Mobile radar jammers could be used to create surprise attacks, necessitating the deployment of scout units on a regular basis to reveal said units visually. In addition, radar jammers could disguise the presence of visually cloaked units, such as the commander or land mines. Radar fields rendered cloaked units detectable; a radar jammer could make said units undetectable until the radar jammer was destroyed. "Total Annihilation" was also one of the first RTS games to point the way towards battlefields with hundreds and thousands of units. Previous games could field a hundred units or so. However, Total Annihilation initially permitted 250 units per side which was later patched to 500. A third party patch allowed up to 5,000 units per side.
Medieval: Total War
The Creative Assembly's creative director, Michael de Plater, stated in an interview that "We were never 100 percent satisfied with the name "Crusader"...it didn't cover the full scope or the rich diversity of the game". The focus on the medieval period was chosen because "it was perfectly suited to the direction in which we wanted to take the gameplay...we wanted to have great castles and spectacular sieges." Designer Mike Brunton wrote before the game's release that sieges were one of the most important features to be added to the "Total War" series, explaining how it led to increasing the troop limit from twenty in "Shogun: Total War" to over a hundred in "Medieval: Total War". For increased authenticity, research was carried out into the medieval period aspects such as assassinations and historical figures. Leaders from the period were included in the game; to represent their personalities and actions the "vices and virtues" system was incorporated into the game, designed to make characters more realistic in their actions.