The war in Ukraine has highlighted two things to Russia and the outside world: that Russia's much-vaunted military revolution has been exaggerated and that Ukraine's resistance to the invasion is total. Russia's military capabilities have been built up in Western eyes, particularly after its modernisation programme in the wake of the 2008 Georgian conflict. New equipment was ordered and training focused on realism as Russia's armed forces were put on a more professional footing. A new doctrine, designed to give the military greater flexibility in responding to a variety of scenarios, was also developed. Russia's new "hybrid" military tactics were highlighted by the relatively bloodless takeover of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, when "grey" operations – those below the threshold of actual conflict – were seen.

The first entry in the franchise, Shogun: Total War, balances the combat simulations that strive for realism and authenticity, alongside the political strategy that is aimed to give context and stakes to each conflict. The original Total War is set in 1530, during the Sengoku Jidai period of feudal Japan: a time largely popularised in contemporary fiction by the works of Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, with films such as Kagemusha, Seven Samurai and Ran proving influential on the design and development of the game - with clips of the latter being used as part of the games cinematics. Both the player and opposing AI assume the role of the'Daimyo': local-lords who control provinces of Japan with a need to conduct both diplomatic strategy alongside military movements. When rival factions are drawn into conflict, players take control of the'Taisho' (General) and move hundreds if not thousands of troops across the battlefield. Sengoku Jidai made for an ideal period of history for the game, given the politics and even the economics of the period was built around the logistics of fielding armies in defence of the Daimyo and his ambitions. Total War deviates from many traditional real-time strategy games in that it removes mechanics such as Fog of War from combat gameplay as well as the need for resource management outside of unit counts from combat decision making.

As the core systems of Total War have been established and redefined in the franchise - a point I have discussed in the first two parts of this series - there is always a need to strive for better. RTS games continue to be one of the most demanding domains for AI to operate within and as such we seek new inspiration from outside of game AI practices. With this in mind, I will be taking a look at 2013's Total War: Rome II - one of the most important games in the franchise when it comes to the design and development of AI practices. So let's take a look at what happened behind the scenes and what makes Rome II such a critical and vital step in Total Wars future progression. In part 2 of this series we concluded with an overview of the dramatic changes to the underlying AI systems in Total War with the release of Empire, followed by Napoleon in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Back in 2016, the current Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer revealed that his interest in the managerial aspect of the beautiful game came from a video game. Having led an illustrious career as a United striker, famously the super-sub who scored the winning goal in the 1999 Champion's League final, it was Solksjaer's experience with team sim Football Manager that encouraged him to continue a football career after he hung up his boots. He's not the only gamer who ever discovered a real-world passion through playing. Games can often offer a window on to other careers as well as other worlds, and sometimes inspire people to explore options they'd never considered before. Here, three video-game fans explain how their favourite games guided their real-life careers.

Welcome to part 4 of my series on the AI of Total War. A game that completely re-built the campaign AI systems to accommodate for an increasingly more complex series of mechanics, resources and consequences. Rome II's adoption of the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) algorithm is a critical step in bring the campaign AI up to spec for more contemporary entries in the series. In this entry I'm going to look at how the MCTS systems were improved upon, as well as how the diplomacy systems have been scaled up for the modern era as Rome gave way to 2015's Total War: Attila. Attila is the ninth entry in the Total War franchise and transposes the conflict to the late 4th and early 5th century: an phase of history known as the Migration Period.

It's been a few weeks since I've done a news wrap-up, thanks to a knee-deep pile of review games I'm still slowly churning through. But my Total War sensors went off this week, so it's time to return. Also up this week: Pillars of Eternity 2 hits beta, Thermaltake's new gaming chair cools your butt off, the end of Marvel Heroes, the start for Verdun sequel Tannenberg, and of course all the internet (and real-world) drama surrounding loot boxes. This is gaming news for November 13 to 17. We've got two free-to-try titles this weekend, with both available for steep discounts if you wind up enjoying the games. For strategy fans it's Endless Space 2, launched earlier this year and updated with new diplomatic options this week.

In the grand tradition of Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition, it's time to update our journal with another week's worth of video game news. Rocket League is getting Fast and the Furious crossover DLC, Total War: Warhammer 2 announced, Palmer Luckey departs Oculus, Battlefield 1 makes it easier to play with friends, The Secret World goes free-to-play, and more. I've been using Rocket League's Back to the Future-themed DeLorean for almost a year and a half now, but Psyonix may finally have found a car to convince me to switch: Dominic Toretto's Charger in Fast and the Furious. Seems a bit premature to announce a Total War: Warhammer sequel, right? I mean, I know the plan is to add not just new races but an entire new campaign map, then stitch the three planned Total Warhammer games together into one massive campaign with like, two-dozen armies or something.

When Firaxis launched the underrated Civilization: Beyond Earth two years ago, the game served as a showcase for what was possible using AMD's revolutionary "close to the metal" Mantle API, featuring unorthodox "split frame rendering" to deliver extraordinary smoothness in systems with multiple Radeon graphics cards. Two years later, Mantle is dead, subsumed by Vulkan and rivaled by Microsoft's own DirectX 12. But the close ties between AMD and Firaxis is not. Wednesday morning, the two companies revealed that they've partnered up yet again to bake DirectX12 support into the hotly anticipated Civilization VI. Split frame rendering won't be returning, sadly, but the game will feature a pair of DX12 highlight features: Explicit multi-adapter and asynchronous compute.