Seeker post actually.
I’ve been following the Total War series since the very first Shogun: Total War
Then Medieval: Total War, the one I played for the longest period.
Both of the above, despite their respectively taking place in Japan and Europe at critical points of strife, and having the map and factions to prove it, felt incredibly flat. Literally, in these two, you have an abstracted map of the region, like you had a paper map in front of you, and you move army tokens containing the actual forces around on this map. You pick them up, and put them where you want them. This abstraction, along with relatively light flavor, made the games sort of hollow beyond being a war game.
Enter Rome: Total War, and Medieval: Total War 2
These two overhauled the map system tremendously, now there are actual separate armies (still a single presence on a map) moving and having to pick paths and arrange ambushes and such, rather than literally being dropped into the next province. A lot of flavor starts to come into play, with voice acting and the usage of the Senate and Pope (respectively) as major bodies causing difficulties, it feels more cohesive and drawing.
Enter Total War: Shogun 2 (No I don’t know why they dropped the old naming formula)
When you start Total War: Shogun 2, this trailer plays as the very first thing after credits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EQWcB1vXXg
It only delves further into the Japanese feel from there. Every spoken line in the game is, while English, in a mild Japanese accent. Loading screens offer beautiful, simple Japanese paintings with short snippets from The Art of War or haiku poetry or similar. A little Ninja movie plays every time you have someone assassinated, replete with such gems as a Ninja throwing a Kunai to hit his target in the back of the head, the target blocking it with a small fan out of nowhere, a cut to the Ninja with his eyes wide, as if to say “OH F@$*”, and subsequently running like a bat of hell, chased by guards. There are epic speeches at the start of battles, delivered with decent context-detection by your commanding officer on the field. E.g., they’ll have something snide to say about the shortcomings or over-specification of the clan in question, will praise the aid of any present allies, and so on.
All of this detail leaves you transported. It no longer feels as if you’re playing on a drab abstract map – most of the map actually is one when you start playing, but as you bring units to uncharted areas, they “pop” off the page into a realistic rendering of the landscape. Already obscenely long story short, Total War went from a run-of-the-mill wargame to a game that puts you in the mood of what you’re doing, and in doing so went from modestly successful to a front-page item on Steam.