Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population.

In the mid-19th century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, there is less differentiation between combatants and civilians than in other conflicts, and sometimes no such differentiation at all, as nearly every human resource, civilians and soldiers alike, can be considered to be part of the belligerent effort.

The phrase can be traced back to the 1936 publication of General Ludendorff’s World War I memoir Der Totale Krieg ("The Total War"). The concept is extended by some authors back as far as Clausewitz’s classic work On War as "absoluter Krieg" (however, the relevant passages have been interpreted in diverging ways by different authors), and to the French "guerre à outrance" during the Franco-Prussian War.

USAF General Curtis LeMay updated the concept for the nuclear age. In 1949, he was first to propose that a total war in the nuclear age would consist of delivering the entire nuclear arsenal in a single overwhelming blow, going as far as "killing a nation".

Not to be confused with MediEvil 2.

Medieval II: Total War, the indirect sequel to 2002's Medieval: Total War and the fourth game in the Total War series from The Creative Assembly, is a game of turn-based strategic rounds and real-time tactically-oriented battles, released in November 2006. The game is set between the years 1080 and 1530. Like the original Medieval: Total War, it focuses on medieval warfare, religion and politics in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The timeframe stretches into the era of the historical discovery of the New World, and simulates the discovery and conquest of the Americas. Medieval II is built on the code base of Rome: Total War.^{[citation needed]}

Similar to previous titles of the Total War series, the game consists of two modes of play: battles and single-player campaign. Battles can be played in multiplayer, in user-defined scenarios, or in historical scenarios which simulate real battles such as the Battle of Arsuf or the Battle of Agincourt. Battles are also featured in the campaign.