Total War: Rome II marks the eighth full release in the series' history (the 17th if you count all the expansions and DLC, and even more if you count the non-PC titles, Spartan and Battles). Though the series has been though a lot of changes over the last 13 years, a few things have remained constant. First, there's the smart combination of real-time tactical battles and turn-based empire management. Second, there's the emphasis on historical settings with lots of competition among powerful players and plenty of interesting technological. Third, there's all the cool toys like samurai, catapults, and legionaries.

To mark this week's release of Rome II, we're taking a look back at the PC games in the series' history, outlining when they came out, what they covered, and what they added to the series.

Steve Butts is IGN's Editor-in-Chief. You can follow him on Twitter, @SteveButts Lucas M. Thomas likes to make fancy infographics. You can follow him on Twitter too, @lucasmthomas