What you had in Command and Conquer is purely real time, as compared to the board game of Risk, which is turn based. The Total War series is a mix of real time and turn-based gaming.

During a turn, you're looking at a strategic map. How much detail you can see depends on whether you own it, or have spies there or some other way to peek into enemy territory. You decide during a turn what you will move, what tasks to assign to agents, tax rates, what to build and train, and once you've done all the micro-managing you want to, you click the end turn box. After resolving the computer moves, combats are resolved. You don't have to run the battles yourself, but I suspect most people do, most of the time. Resolving it yourself puts you into the real time tactical combat mode.

What I like about the real time in TW as compared to C & C is that in C & C, you didn't actually have formations. You could group individuals, but they still functioned as individuals that had all been assigned the same task, not as a cohesive military unit. They also didn't have a front, which meant there was no advantage for hitting anything from flanks or rear.

To put it simply, do not be intimidated by the combat. In the first place, there is a tutorial that will give you a lot of help, I recommend it. If you don't really need it, it won't take long, if you do need it, it's worth the time.

Second, time moves slower than you might expect. Usually, forces start fairly well apart (not always though. ugh, that was a nasty experience, but never mind.) You'll usually have some time to adjust your deployment once you can see the enemy. My guess is that most people will be using the speed bar to make it go a little faster by the third battle.

Now, Multiplay is a little different; I only have done that on the older Shogun TW, but it was strictly the tactical real time aspect. Not only 1 on 1, but teams were possible, though I never did that myself.

The process for online was basically someone sets up a battle, choosing the map and how much you could spend on troops, and some other things like weather and time limits. You join the battle and pick your army, and after that, battle is joined like the single player version.

I don't advise jumping into online play until you have the mechanics down in singleplay. I'm not suggesting you should be able to win against the computer. If you are not tactically skilled, you'll learn more losing to a human than beating the AI. Just get to where if you lose, it isn't because you didn't know how to make your archers fight hand to hand, or set up waypoints so your cavalry would go around that unit of spearmen, or hadn't learned how to get your reserves onto the field (all of which have cost me battles at one time or another.) You also need to have a basic understanding of the game effects of Morale, Leadership, Valor, and Fatigue; not details, just know what they are before going online.

If you are one of many people that don't care about the turn-based game, you can play single tactical battles with the computer. Like online, you set the parameters of the battle, then the AI chooses its forces, you choose yours, and away you go, without all that pesky building and diplomatic stuff.

It's a great game. Why wait?