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.
Empire: Total War
"Empire: Total War" ships with nine different versions of box art, eight of which represent the major faction for the market the game is sold in, and one general international version. For instance, German customers are presented artwork displaying colours with the Prussian eagle and Prussian army uniforms, whilst the American artwork shows the American revolutionaries and the Betsy Ross flag. A special edition version of "Empire: Total War" entitled "Special Forces" incorporates six elite faction-specific units: HMS "Victory", the French Irish Brigade, Spanish guerillas, Gurkha infantry, Rogers' Rangers and the Ottoman Ribauldequin. Additionally, three retailers were provided with a special unit for customers to receive; Amazon.com customers were given the Dahomey Amazons, buyers from Best Buy were able to receive the USS "Constitution" and customers buying from Game received the Death's Head Hussars. A further 14 units were added with the objective of increasing graphical and unit variety among the factions. These 14 units were released as part of the game's 1.3 patch in June 2009; accompanying the update was a second set of 14 units, released as downloadable content for purchase.