Total War

My favorite of the old games was the Viking Invasion expansion, and Napoleon of the newer games.
But the greatest Expansion of all time was Medieval II Kingdoms - which added 4 whole scenarios as big as the base game. Best value for money ever.

Edit: and the worst campaign, in my experience, is Alexander.

Rome: Total War and trying to conquer all Europe

You missed https://store.steampowered.com/app/364360/Total_War_WARHAMMER/ on your pool!

The only one I've played to any extent is Medieval Total War Gold (a friend recommended it highly, and disliked Medieval 2. I trust his taste, as we like the same stuff, so i haven't tried M:TW2 yet)

Also, thanks for this timeline!

I never could get into the Total War series. After spending 5-10 minutes in one of those battles I forget what I was doing on the strategic level. I do better with games like Civilization or Paradox games where all the combat is abstract and simplified.

Always a pleasure to play a NTW campaign with LME mod. Can't say enough thank you to those modders who made the game (and the others) even better.
I also liked Empire but for me Napoleon is better. My last TW game was Shogun II, you know when the serie became more Total KIT War.

Total War's an interesting franchise for sure. I personally love Rome 1 for the campaign management and Shogun 2 or Rome 2 for the battles themselves. I definitely do think that the strategic complexity of the campaign map itself has been extremely dumbed down and become unbearably boring with anything after Medieval 2. With economy management becoming even more basic, no stack splits, no reinforcement, no populations, no culture, no historical effects like slavery vs. population and no population happiness management. It's now just a "click this for money or click this for alternate bonus" type of management.
Not saying Rome 1 was complex, but it was definitely more complex than what it is now.

Haven't played anything after Rome 2 though, so hopefully it's gotten better.

Caesar in Gaul - 58 BC, not AD

Favourite is by far Warhammer (not played Warhammer 2 yet). The reason for that is simple, Total War has always had a really lackluster AI. The AI ended up being really predictable, and that made the games feel repetitive. Warhammer has much greater unit variety that things feel more varied, so the AI issue does not cause the game to feel as repetitive.

I wish we had another pew pew Total War like Napoleon or Empire.

Total Warhammer

Warhammer AND Rome 2

Empire-Rome II. Not the bests, but my favourites

I loved Rome

Loved Rome, and really enjoyed Attila. I know it wasn't popular but it was quite satisfying to finish the Western Roman Empire campaign :D

Definitely enjoyed medieval 2 the most. Probably also played it the most but i wouldnt know, seeing as i had it on physical disc rather than steam.