PC Gaming

Total War is probably the deep end.

I'd direct you towards XCOM 2 or Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children instead. These are more tactics games, rather than strategy.

You might also try Against the Storm or Starsector.

Personally I think if Civ was a little daunting I think the TW series could be too.

Whatever you do, I'd consider your own interests first before picking which to start with. Are you into ancient Rome? Go with Rome. Napoleonic era Europe? Go with Empire. Fantasy? Then Warhammer. That'll help you stay engaged while getting over the learning curve.

If you're into space or sci-fi you could try Sins of Solar Empire or even Stellaris. They aren't TW but are good space fleet strategy games. Stellaris would be the tougher of the two to get into.

Total War Warhammer is great for “watching tanks go boom”, but it has a pretty steep learning curve if you want to play well.

The stats on units, spells, and abilities are comprehensive, but not necessarily intuitive to read. It will take a while before you can tell what’s good just from reading the stat card.
You’ll also be spending plenty of time on the map screen, trying to figure out which building to build where and how to use that weird faction-specific resource you keep earning.

It’s not cheap either. You have to buy the older games and dlcs to use the factions that came with them, and most of the most interesting lords were added by dlc.

All that said, I love the game and I think it’s a really fun strategy game. Once you understand what things do, the battles are pretty simple, and it’s really fun to blow up a unit with a magic volcano or charge your army of tyrannosaurs into a horde of rat men.

Any of the Total War games are awesome for that. If you can get your hands on the original Total War: Shogun, that’d be a great entry point.

Total War: Rome. Also good.

I think those give you the basis for how all of these ones work. I’d also keep handy a copy of Tsun Su’s Total War. That book is what these games are based on.

Any Total War game is excellent if you want a balance between real time tactics and grand strategy elements. They separate the gameplay between a turn-based campaign map that is somewhat reminiscent of a more simplified version of 4x games; and real time battles with good tactical depth. So it can scratch both itches while never getting you tired of either.

With that said, you might want to take a look at the whole catalog of the series in case you find the historical-based entries more appealing than the Warhammer ones. And if you are more interested in Warhammer, of course keep in mind that 3 is the latest one and you might be able to find the previous ones cheaper/easier to get into.

Ultimately, the Total War games that you end up more interested about will come down to how modern you want the game to be and what setting you find most interesting. In case you need a summary of the choices:

Oldest/Earliest Total Wars - The ones that are partially 2D (Early 2000s)

• Shogun Total War - Feudal Japan
• Medieval Total War - Medieval Ages

Early Full 3D Total Wars (Mid 2000s)

• Rome Total War - Roman Republic/Roman Empire - This has a great remaster called Rome Total War Remastered
• Medieval 2 Total War - Mid to Late Medieval Ages - One of my personal favorites

Modern Total Wars (from late 2000s onwards)

• Empire Total War - The 1700s
• Napoleon Total War - The early 1800s
• Shogun 2 Total War - Feudal Japan
• Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai - The early 1800s in Japan
• Rome 2 Total War - Roman Republic/Roman Empire - My personal favorite
• Attila Total War - Fall of the western Roman Empire/Hun invasion
• Thrones of Britannia - Late 800s in the British Isles
• Total War Warhammer - Warhammer Fantasy
• Total War Warhammer 2 - Warhammer Fantasy
• Total War Three Kingdoms - 200s in China
• Total War Troy - Greek mythology
• Total War Warhammer 3 - Warhammer Fantasy

As you can see there's a miriad of choices but you can't go wrong with most of them, and most will provide 100s of hours of game.

One last thing, if you go with Warhammer, you should know that by acquiring 1 and 2, you can play an expanded version in 3 that includes the maps and factions of 1 and 2. So if you get the third one and find yourself liking it, know that you can get even more content for it.