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.
Total War (series)
"Empire: Total War" was announced on 22 August 2007 by Sega and had been secretly in development since the release of "Barbarian Invasion". It is set in the 18th century and includes features such as the Industrial Revolution, America's struggle for independence and the colonization of India. For the first time in a "Total War" game, players have the ability to play real-time 3D naval battles. Also a feature that had been developed in the game was the decentralisation of provinces, adding greater realism in that many features, from production to technological advancement, would now occur outside of the capital of the province. "Empire: Total War" was released on 3 March in North America and 4 March in Europe 2009. The expansion pack, "Empire: Total War: Warpath", was released in October 2009. "Warpath" is set in the Americas where it is possible to control one of five different Native American nations. While the game was critically acclaimed due to its innovative game play, the game has been subject to most of the criticism of the "Total War" series by many critics and fans after its release due to bugs; Sega claims nearly all issues have been presently resolved. The issues have been publicly explained by Creative Assembly several months after the game's release. It was the first in the series to use Valve Corporation's Steamworks DRM and achievements system, thereby requiring Steam to be played.