Total War (series)
Total War is a series of strategy games developed by The Creative Assembly for personal computers. They combine turn-based strategy and resource management with real-time tactical control of battles. The first of the series, "" was released in June 2000. The most recent major game released was "" on 3 May 2018. The series has sold over 20 million copies.
Real-time strategy
Allgames lists War of Nerves! as the first RTS ever. Ars Technica traces the genre's roots back to "Utopia" (1981), citing it as the "birth of a genre", with a "real-time element" that was "virtually unheard of", thus making it "arguably the earliest ancestor of the real-time strategy genre". According to Ars Technica, "Utopia" was a turn-based strategy game with hybrid elements that ran "in real-time but events happened on a regular turn-based cycle." According to Brett Weiss, "Utopia" is often cited as "the first real-time strategy game." According to Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice, "Utopia" "helped set the template" for the genre, but has "more in common with "SimCity" than it does with "Dune II" and later RTS games." Barton also cites "Cytron Masters" (1982), saying it was "one of the first (if not "the" first) real-time strategy games." On the other hand, Scott Sharkey of 1UP argues that, while "Cytron Masters" "attempted real time strategy", it was "much more tactical than strategic" due to "the inability to construct units or manage resources". "BYTE" in December 1982 published as an Apple II type-in program "Cosmic Conquest". The winner of the magazine's annual Game Contest, the author described it as a "single-player game of real-time action and strategic decision making". The magazine described it as "a real-time space strategy game". The game has elements of resource management and wargaming.