Total War: The real way.

[Veho Nex]

Total war is a military conflict in which nations mobilize all available resources in order to destroy another nation's ability to engage in war. The practice of total war has been in use for centuries, but it was only in the middle to late 19th century that total war was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare. In total war there are no non-combatants;everyone is a soldier.

The basic plan...

Burn across Europe and the Americas you reach a town burn it to the ground nothing lives.

Objectives: Make the known world a pure race, yours. Complete the holocaust of the world and make sure there is never any doubt in your rule

Do's: kill every one. recruit peasants and send them to die first, recruit your main guys and send them to slaughter what is left of the enemy.

Don'ts: Listen to the pope, kill him as fast as possible. Don't pay attention to other countries one ask for a cease fire agree only if they allow you to move freely then kill each one of them systematically.

Lets see how every one does, I'm going to post a few more of these strategies hope some are actually tried out.

[Brave]

This I would try in a campaign where I was not playing properly if you know what I mean. I do not find this kind of play enjoyable and rather a chore, I can see the beauty of the strategy though.

[Ramses II CP]

It's easier than you think. You'll have to place further restrictions on yourself if you want to make it a challenge, like limiting the number of your 'home' provinces. Extermination produces more funds than occupation, and with a 10 province France I had few problems occupying all cities, releasing all prisoners, and leaving all of Europe to the rebels in the Total Independence campaign.

There are some technical hurdles to overcome, but I'd suggest doing this as the Mongols. As a Horde faction you can literally burn every settlement, and your limitation is the fact that you only have your starting armies, no new training.

[Rhyfelwyr]

What you describe is basically the blitzing strategy, although that would mean sacking rather than exterminating settlements early on. And you may also wish to use the Pope for the benefits of Crusades.