History GameBreaker / RealTimeStrategy

* ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings''

* In ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'', enemy agents [[YouCantThwartStageOne won't show up in your island before you reach the first objective]]. Therefore, if you build enough lockers to hold 100 [[{{Mooks}} construction workers]], get 100 of them, send them all overseas to steal money, and leave the game running for at least 2 hours, you'll end up with a strongroom holding at least... [[Film/AustinPowers *Pinky raise*]] ...''Three '''Million''' Dollars''!
** Plus Lord Kane's Smooth Operator ability will freeze any agent he targets with it until he gets into range to actually use the ability. Even your basic worker can knock out a Super Agent if Kane has a long way to run.
** If you manage to build an [[http://wiki.n1nj4.com/index.php?title=%C3%9Cber-trap Über-trap]] and put agents into it, you've got an instant and limitless cash cow, as the game awards monetary bonuses to trap combos. With several agents in the trap, you will never need to worry about funds again. Even more, there's a cap on the number of agents on the island, so if you have 50 agents on the island (on your trap) no more agents or super agents will come.
* In the game ''VideoGame/StarControl3'', the race of Doogs starts out an enemy, but can be converted into friends early in the game. Their ships are maneuverable, relatively fast, have a short-range cannon which can auto-fire on nearby ships, AND can quickly regenerate damage. No other enemy ship in the game comes close to challenging a Doog ship, making basically every battle after you get a Doog ship a matter of selecting the Doog ship and blowing up the enemy ship.
* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' will try to keep you in Earth's solar system until you gather the PlotCoupons with hordes of tough Slylandro probes. Fortunately, there's a Spathi ship lying nearby that's just ''perfect'' for killing them and gathering resources by the thousand before the game story hardly begins.
** That same Spathi ship walks all over the main antagonists [[spoiler:(the Kohr-Ah)]] when you run across them. Probably lucky for the rest of the galaxy that the Spathi are cowards.
*** Makes you shudder at the possibility of the Black Spathi Squadron.
** There is one ship that is banned from serious netplay, and that is the Thraddash Torch. While it does have a counter, it can destroy most of the ships in the game without much risk, due to the fact that it's a FragileSpeedster (in fact, the fastest ship in the game) and has the range to pick just about anything without giving the opportunity for return fire. It also makes the game incredibly tedious when someone does this, because said long-range weapon, while completely safe to use, [[DeathOfAThousandCuts does 1 damage and has a low rate of fire.]]
*** This ship is principally broken against the AI, which is often not smart enough to avoid running into its secondary weapon.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin 2}}'', you get purple Pikmin. They can kill around 90% of the enemies in a few throws, making most bosses ridiculously easy (in fact, this game's Prima guide just says to throw purple Pikmin on said bosses). Their weakness? They're slow. Yellow Pikmin in the first game may also count due to their ability to carry bomb rocks.
** Not only that but the purple Pikmin can home in on enemies which means you don't have to be that accurate when throwing them which can work wonders on groups of enemies. Even if they don't land on an enemy or boss they can still stun them when they land on the ground. (Bosses require more pikmin for this to happen.) They can also instantly disable geysers when they land on them.

* ''VideoGame/StarTrekArmada 2''
** The Borg fusion cube, in which 8 regular cubes are merged into one giant cube which has an insane amount of firepower. It can pretty much wipe the map on its own. But that's not the best part! The Borg also have the tactical cube, which is basically a regular cube on steroids with armor plating and super-charged weapons, and 8 of those can be merged into the unholy Tactical Fusion Cube! If you build a Tactical Fusion Cube, you're pretty much guaranteed to win that scenario. And just to put icing on the cake, a FC/TFC is not especially expensive to build.
** The Klingon Frigate, the Koloth Class, can qualify as well. Combine a couple with some Science Ships for the [[StatusEffects "Death Chant"]] buff and a fleet of heavy cruisers and watch your fleet tear through the enemy's fleet and base. It's not as durable as the Fusion Cubes but still delivers incredible mass destruction.
* ''VideoGame/EmpireAtWar'' introduced the Zann Consortium in an expansion pack. Nearly all of their basic units are far stronger than their Rebel or Imperial counterparts, and most of them can take on things they're supposed to be weak to after a single upgrade (even the base trooper). The ''Vengeance''-class Frigate, ''Aggressor''-class Destroyer, ''Canderous''-class tank, Skipray Blastboat, and ''[=StarViper=]''-class fighter are particularly overpowered and do an excellent job of covering each other's bases, making Consortium armies tricky to remove. In the Galactic Conquest mode, Consortium units all become available at Tech Level 2 while the other two factions have to build up to that level. Then there's a grab bag of other completely needless advantages, like cloaked infantry transports that can run infantry over despite being repulsorcraft, the Consortium's ground building being shielded unlike the other two factions, and Corruption abilities being utterly retarded and expensive to remove.
* Tzar: Burden of the Crown had a faction where you could spend money to create "relics" that could increase your units stats. Game broken when you could play with unlimited resources and have units carrying relics that increased stats by 10 times.
* ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' has always had some, erm, ''issues'' with game balance.
** The release version included balance issues that had been identified in the beta but not actually addressed, including the Cybran Mantis being ''ludicrously'' overpowered in the early game and the UEF Broadsword gunship likewise in the late game; both were nerfed repeatedly.
** Even with the units above, the entire Aeon ''faction'' were completely overpowered at release, typically having the best or at worst the second best of every unit type. Aeon were all but impossible to beat on water maps, trading the useless deck gun of other faction subs for a second torpedo attack and having a basic T1 tank that was amphibious; they also had a missile defence which couldn't be overwhelmed at all, a T3 artillery which was pinpoint accurate and fired twice, and the Harbinger, a Siegebot which had the best cost versus damage of any unit in the entire game. The Aeon superiority on maps with water was at one point so severe that ''all'' water maps were removed from competitive play.
** The ACU destruct nuke used to be a completely normal nuke; it was nerfed because every game was ending in draw-by-combombing.
** AA weapons used to have no priority system of any kind, leading to a common tactic of building a gigantic number of cheap-as-free Air Scouts to support a Strategic Bomber attack; this effectively made air defence a waste of time.
** An attempt to make the UEF T3 mobile sonar into something actually useful accidentally turned it into a ridiculously overpowered motor torpedo boat, requiring ''another'' patch to stop the ridiculous sight of flotillas of things which were technically buildings chasing battleships around.
** The Seraphim of the ''Forged Alliance'' expansion are far stronger than the other factions, combining the strengths of both the Aeon and UEF with none of the weaknesses. Every single one of their experimentals are potential game-ending units (including a nuke launcher that can build nukes in ''seconds'' and an extremely tough strat bomber that can destroy entire bases in one strike), destroyers that can submerge underwater, powerful and fast T2 and T3 land units, and their T3 Yathsou - a submarine that happens to be the most powerful naval unit in the entire game by a huge margin. Their only weakness? Their units cost more resources to field, which rapidly becomes a non-issue on most maps as the game progresses.
*** Play Seraphim. Get the rapid restoration upgrade on your ACU. Then march it directly into the enemy base. Only experimentals can stop a RRF'd ACU, and the Seraphim can get RRF by the beginning of T2.
** The [[http://supcom.wikia.com/wiki/TVG_(Total_Veterancy) Total Veterancy]] mod adds an RPG element to the game, but it stands out as it gives infinite levels to everything. These infinite levels apply to both combat units and production structures, the latter capable of gaining experience through merely existing. Expect your commander and builder units to be overpowered twenty minutes into the game and strategic missiles being spammed at a regular basis, though.

* While not breaking ''VideoGame/{{StarCraft|I}}'''s famously balanced multiplayer, Protoss Carriers with an Arbiter in tow are overpowered in single player scenarios against Zerg. The Arbiter generates an invisibility field, and while being visible itself the computer doesn't bother to go after it if it's stays in the background. As soon as you can build this air fleet, you'll be able to kill AI Zerg with impunity.
** And in ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'', anti-Zerg missions are easy with a large amount of Reapers, who are cheap, attack and move very fast, and do stupid-huge damage to buildings. They can also jump cliffs, meaning they can strike pretty much anywhere, anytime they feel like it.
** While were on the subject of ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'', might as well mention a few of the mercenary groups you can hire. The ''Siege Breakers'', the elite version of the ''Siege Tanks'', are just...not fair to the enemy. Have all the upgrades possible and these beasts can dish out 150+ damage on single-targets (in addition to having an extremely powerful splash-damage).
*** The triple ''Viking mercenaries'' aren't too shabby either. They are, hands down, the best anti-air units in the game, and the price to buy this group in-game is an absolute steal for what they can accomplish.
** In ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'', Protoss players in 1v1 Bronze league are notorious for using "Cannon Rushes", building pylons and Photon Cannons close the enemy's mineral line as soon as possible. What makes this a gamebreaker is that your oppponent will not have anything other than workers to stop the cannon if the rush is fast enough, and the cannon will kill a worker in 2 shots, while the opponent is probably throwing down 1-2 more cannons. The Cannon Rush isn't such a big deal at higher levels of play due to everyone being aware of it and its considerable shortcomings (if the cannon rush fails you have no tech, military or economy to speak of; meanwhile, the cannon itself can be overwhelmed with early t1 units or surrounded by workers if it isn't built fast enough, especially if the opponent is scouting his base perimeter and watching for "cheese" tactics), but newcomers will be overwhelmed and maybe even turned off by this seemingly unstoppable tactic.
* ''VideoGame/WarCraft''
** Bloodlust in ''VideoGame/WarCraftII'' is a spell which triples damage and is cast by the Orcs' primary attacking unit which is already somewhat of a LightningBruiser. The Humans' equivalent get extremely inefficient healing and a spell that only affects two, rarely-used, undead units (Death Knights and their Skeleton minions). Needless to say, Orcs have a huge advantage on land maps.
** The "Mage-Bomb" tactic is one strategy that can be game-breaking in the single-player campaign; If you're human, it involves making a [[GlassCannon Mage]] invisible and then sending that invisible Mage who can cast Blizzard into the enemy's gold supply lines, raining a deadly ice storm upon the line of workers harvesting gold. It is devastating, if not decisive against the enemy's army production. Playing as Orc, the same strategy is done with Death Knights, and an Invulnerability & Haste spell cast upon the caster.\\
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Mage-Bombs were fearsome in multi-player matches too. If the enemy was a Human player, the only way to ensure defense against this tactic was to use your own army to wall off your base. One false move, and a mage would be inside of your base and your workers would be dead in seconds. If your goldmine was within 12 spaces of a Mage, then the Mage/Death Knight does not even have to enter your base.
** In ''VideoGame/WarCraftIII'', the Orc Blademaster hero. He's among the fastest heroes, also among the toughest with his high armor score and agility, and with Critical Strike acting over his item-boosted melee damage, is easily the highest direct damage dealer hero. But the real kicker is his Wind Walk - a spell that not only allows him to move even faster and, at higher levels, stay invisible most of the time, but allows him to make rapid escapes whenever threatened by letting him move through other units and hence escape traps. Needless to say, he's one of the best hero rushers, excellent at hero killing, very hard to kill himself if properly used and generally a pain in the neck for any opponent, with no clear weaknesses.
*** Always having an item on-hand like the ''Gem of Trueseeing'' to be able to see the Blademaster when he windwalks and to reveal the fake clone images helps immensely.
*** There's also the Human Archmage to consider, having a level 6 ultimate that allows the Archmage to mass-teleport himself and a group of your units to the location of a unit you own. Kinda like the mage example mentioned above for ''VideoGame/WarCraftII''. A clever Human player can sneak a unit (especially with the Sorceress' invisibility spell) into the back of an enemy base and use the Arch Mage's mass-teleport to instantly get his army to where the workers are at and wreak havoc.
*** In the bonus orc campaign of ''Frozen Throne'' the tomes of Intelligence, Agility, and Strength that you can buy from certain vendor stores are this. If one is patient enough to grind gold to buy the tomes to continuously buff up the heroes they control (These being Rexxar and Rokhan, and later adding Chen and Cairne to the group), you'd end up with a group of overpowered heroes that would absolutely annihilate anything in their path.
*** And even that is nothing compared to the loot you get. An item that increases everyone's movement and attack speed? Sure, sure, but why not give it the ability to summon high-damage ranged units as well. Fountains of Health are nice (they passively regenerate 2% health per second) but let's make one portable, and have it restore 200 health to a unit on use as well. Need to give your healer a damaging spell? Here, have a gem that lets him cast ChainLightning. For no mana. And while we're at it, we'll throw in this nifty shield that sets enemies on fire while boosting your stats, that goes quite well with this spiffy hat that fries individual enemies. None of these are available in normal multiplayer for very good reason.
*** ''Frozen Throne'' also gives the player the ability to use a pseudo-5th-race at certain points in the campaign; the Naga. Because this race is only used in the campaign, Blizzard chose not to bother attempting to balance its units in comparison to the four main races. This is extremely apparent with the Naga's flyer unit, the Coautl. The Couatl are almost an exact carbon-copy of an Orc Wyvern, but Wyverns take four food to build while the Naga's Couatl only takes TWO. The 5th Blood Elf mission when you can just mass about 50 of these beasts to steamroll the Fel Orc bases is just...not fair.
** Against the AI, the Necromancer/Meat Wagon/Obsidian Statue combo is nearly unstoppable. Necromancers to swarm the enemy with multiple skeletons, meat wagons to create corpses when the enemy isn't dying fast enough (and shoot the enemy from out of tower range), and obsidian statues to refill life and/or mana to multiple units at the same time. Air units will put a significant crimp, but the AI never builds more than two or three at a time, and would you look at those Crypt Fiends just waiting to web something up.
** The Dark Ranger has hilariously overpowered abilities: the ability to drain large amounts of life very fast from an enemy, prevent multiple units from casting spells, creating tough melee units whenever an enemy dies, and a short-cooldown, low-mana, ''nearly-unblockable,'' '''permanent''', CharmPerson. The only ability that comes close to Charm is the Alchemist's Transmute, which instakills an enemy and gives you gold for it.
** In a rare example of the game (and the StrategyGuide) ''recommending'' a GameBreaker, Reign of Chaos had the Goblin Zeppelin / Sapper combo. Load the autocasting AoE explosion sappers eight at a time in the zeppelins, and watch them destroy a base with the enemy able to do very little about it. This was made impossible in the expansion, and carried over to the original if installed (yet the prompt to load them up still appears).
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsRebellion'' is full of these. The first is the Alliance Escort Carrier. Seems unassuming, until you realize X-wings are arguably the best starfighter in the game, until the TIE Defender comes along. You can easily take down a Star Destroyer. The second is the Death Star, but only as a defense platform. Put one around Coruscant with plenty of starfighter protection and a shield, with plenty of troops to protect the shield, and hilarity ensues.

* In the first two installments of the ''VideoGame/WarlordsBattlecry'' series, a character who was created for the campaign mode could not take part in skirmishes (and receive experience for it) until they finished said mode and exported their user data. In the third installment, these two modes were integrated (meaning skirmish matches could be played independently using the same campaign hero), letting a savvy player set up matches against ridiculously-hard AI opponents who had little to no resources, then reap hundreds of XP points in a short time. By combining this with a few upgrade points pumped into the Knight Lord skill for the Knight class, a player could conceivably start a campaign mode tens of levels higher than the initial difficulty, and (by spending all starting XP on Knights) have a posse of bodyguards who will ravage anything and everything in their way. Beating the campaign then becomes trivial; it's possible to use a Knight Hero with a handful of Knights to clear out an entire map using this method (even on hard difficulties).
* In early versions of ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'', an Ironheade player who spammed fire barons was virtually unbeatable. Fire baron spamming was so overpowered that it nearly killed the game's online multiplayer community. Eventually Double Fine released a patch that gave fire barons a much-needed {{Nerf}}.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Outpost 2}}'', Eden's [[LightningGun Thor's Hammer]] has the longest range, deals the most non-explosive (i.e., Starflares and Supernovas) damage, and ignores line of sight requirements. Due to the AI's [[ArtificialStupidity lack of finding alternate routes]], a couple of these set along the path the AI will take with some obstacles in the way to slow them down (or better yet, on a cliff) will render your base immune to direct attack.

* ''VideoGame/{{Achron}}'' has a major problem with air units in general. Air units are supposed to be balanced by their high cost and frailty. However, when massed, air is much more powerful than ground units can possibly be, because air units can stack up in the sky, creating a rolling wall of death that will focus tons of damage on anything in its way. By contrast, ground units are limited by the amount of space on the ground, so you can't have many focus on one point. Also, air units are several times as fast as ground units and don't have to worry about terrain obstacles, so a single death ball can threaten the entire map and fly circles around their supposed counters. If they are outmatched, they can quickly retreat to heal or attack somewhere else.
* In the single-player campaign of ''VideoGame/{{Sacrifice}}'' Sirocco the Dragon can be obtained at James' 2nd level. She is the HeroUnit of the dragon, Persephone's ultimate creature, and will one-shot wizards, buildings, creatures, and practically ''everything'' for the next 6-7 levels. She also flies and, to add insult to injury, can resurrect your other creatures. On the flip side, she will abandon you if you don't play for James, Stratos or Persephone. [[spoiler:And, if you play for Stratos, once he backstabs Persephone.]]

* ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilationKingdoms'' has the entire Zhon race as a gamebreaker, as they can create units anywhere without the need for buildings. The ability to conjure up an army at a moment's notice in almost any point of the map, not to mention that of relocating a base simply by walking most of it away, makes the Zhon much more versatile and efficient than the other races. As for specific units, the Zhon lightning tower is cheap, quick to build, powerful and long-range, making it ideal for both defending and attacking by fortification-walk.
* ''VideoGame/ImpossibleCreatures''
** Lobsters are surprisingly useful. They've got nearly unrivaled armor, the ability to swim, regeneration, and exceptionally powerful claws. Mixing a lobster with a large creature (hopefully with a powerful head-based attack like a crocodile) leads to a creature that is not only physically very powerful, but also just happens to have an array of surprisingly useful special abilities.
** The archerfish has a range attack that does a lot of splash damage. Just combine something big with one and watch them destroy herds of creatures. The attack also can be upgraded to do piercing damage, which makes it even more of a GameBreaker. The only downside is it's one of the few attacks in the game that can damage ally units.

* The King Tiger tank from ''VideoGame/EmpiresDawnOfTheModernWorld''. Extremely overpowered and for some bizarre reason, the fastest tank in the game.
* ''VideoGame/{{Constructor}}''
** Mr Fixit's plumbing sabotage. It can level an entire block, takes three repairmen to counter, and the AI doesn't know how to deal with it.
** Killing off the enemies repairmen. The enemy will have no defense against it and this works for any tile but the one where the enemy's homebase is on (all of the repairmen will go back there). Just attack them with your gangsters once you have the mafia (gangsters will get new weapons very fast). All of the enemies buildings will explode one by one, so this otherwise very hard game will be a piece of cake even on hard mode with two enemies (however the game will be an Early Game Hell until you have access to the mob)
* ''Noblemen: 1896''
** Even though it's only the 2nd weapon in the Tesla category, the Tesla Cutter is by far the best weapon for your Nobleman. Unlike the other Tesla weapons which are MagneticWeapons, the Tesla Cutter is a LightningGun that has almost HitScan levels of speed. All Tesla weapons have good to great armor-piercing, do a lot of damage (in fact, they get a further damage bonus on top of their already high damage base) and in a game where having a [[OneStatToRuleThemAll large ammo supply and]] MoreDakka can be the most important stats for a gun in this game, the Tesla Cutter has by far the largest magazine and firing rate. It's only drawback is its initially poor range, but with upgrades the Tesla Cutter can get a respectable amount of distance. In a game where, you'll often prefer duelling an enemy with your sword because aiming is so awful, the Tesla Cutter can wipe an entire enemy army off the map because it's so powerful and easy to use.
** Williams guns and Tesla Heavy Gunners are very effective high-tier units, but [[HeroUnit officer versions]] of them are far more powerful and can really dominate the landscape. Tesla cannons are clunky to use and have scant ammo, making it AwesomeButImpractical. However the Tesla Heavy Gunner (regular and officer version) override these weaknesses so that they're able to fire at a steady rate. While the projectile is a bit slow, they are accurate and have incredible range plus they cause an area of effect explosion and greatly reduce enemy morale per hit. Each shell has a very high armor-piercing capability and no other weapon matches the Tesla cannon per hit. Additionally Tesla Heavy Gunner officers have the highest health by a wide margin over any other unit in the game. The Williams guns can be fairly well-armoured, so officer versions can be very hard to damage with conventional weapons. Williams guns are artillery pieces that use an autocannon rather than a machine gun or large cannon that most other artillery pieces uses. This gives you a unit that has MoreDakka and high damage per hit plus very good armor-piercing from long range. If you fill all three officer slots with Tesla Heavy Gunner or Williams guns officers, then the only times you can lose is in skirmishes where enemy has far more heroes than you do.
** If you are lucky enough to get some legendary armor that has an armor rating of over 100, only enemies with the highest levels of armor-piercing can hurt them without a lucky critical hit (such as the mighty Whitworth cannon or enemies that carry Anti-Armor rifles like 15mm elephant guns or Tyrannosaur 15mm).
** There's a silver/gold exploit, where if you try to buy something from the War Shop and are short by up to 400 Silver or 10 Gold then the game allows you to watch an ad which will give you 400 Silver or 10 Gold. This bypasses the normal 20 minute cool-down time between watching an ad for currency. And normally most items in the War Shop cost between 25 to 375 Silver, so you can instantly buy them. So effectively you have near unlimited wealth.

** Even though it's only the 2nd weapon in the Tesla category, the Tesla Cutter is by far the best weapon for your Nobleman. Unlike the other Tesla weapons which are MagneticWeapons, the Tesla Cutter is a LightningGun that has almost HitScan levels of speed. All Tesla weapons hit hard (in fact, they get a further damage bonus on top of their already high damage base) and in a game where having a [[OneStatToRuleThemAll large ammo supply and]] MoreDakka are the most important stats for a gun in this game, the Tesla Cutter has by far the largest magazine and firing rate. Finally, it also has some armor-piercing capability too. It's only drawback is initially poor range, but with upgrades the Tesla Cutter can get a respectable amount of distance. In a game where, you'll often prefer duelling an enemy with your sword because aiming is so awful, the Tesla Cutter can wipe an entire enemy army off the map because it's so powerful and easy to use.

** If you are lucky enough to get some legendary armor that has an armor rating of over 100, only enemies with the highest levels of armor-piercing (such as the mighty Whitworth cannon or an enemy nobleman with an anti-armour gun and outfitting that with armor-piercing ammo for extra armour penetration).

** Williams guns and Tesla Heavy Gunners are very effective high-tier units, but [[HeroUnit officer versions]] of them are far more powerful and can really dominate the landscape.

** Killing off the enemies repairmen. The enemy will have no defense against it and this works for any tile but the one where the enemy's homebase is on (all of the repairmen will go back there). Just attack them with your gangsters once you have the mafia (gangsters will get new weapons very fast). All of the enemies buildings will explode one by one, so this otherwise very hard game will be a piece of cake even on hard mode with two enemies (however the game will be an Early Game Hell until you have access to the mob)

* ''VideoGame/EmpireAtWar'' introduced the Zann Consortium in an expansion pack. Nearly all of their basic units are far stronger than their Rebel or Imperial counterparts, and most of them can take on things they're supposed to be weak to after a single upgrade (even the base trooper). The ''Vengeance''-class Frigate, ''Aggressor''-class Destroyer, ''Canderous''-class tank, Skipray Blastboat, and ''[=StarViper=]''-class fighter are particularly overpowered and do an excellent job of covering each other's bases, making Consortium armies tricky to remove. In the Galactic Conquest mode, Consortium units all become available at Tech Level 2 while the other two factions have to build up to that level. Then there's a grab bag of other completely needless advantages, like cloaked infantry transports that can run infantry over despite being repulsorcraft, the Consortium's ground building being shielded unlike the other two factions, and Corruption abilities being utterly retarded and expensive to remove. Despite having no basis in canon, they somehow managed to conclude the story having built up a massive fleet, dominated a good portion of the galaxy, handed the Rebels and Imperials their asses, and even gotten their hands on an Eclipse-class Star Destroyer. Somehow.
** It should also be noted that virtually every Consortium unit aside from basic infantry and the Vengeance frigate possessed shielding of some sort, which, by Star Wars canon is utterly ridiculous. And to make up for the lack of shielding (and make matters worse), Vengeance frigates packed [[GameBreaker mass driver]] weapons which [[ArmorPiercingAttack pierced through the shields of capital starships]] and wrecked fighters and bombers that tried to get close. Vengeance frigates were capable of tearing through most starships like they were tissue paper. ''And this was their mid-tier ship.'' The nearest Imperial equivalent, for comparison, is the Acclamator, a ship that goes up in smoke if the enemy so much as breathes in its direction.
** To win a game of Galactic Conquest, the Consortium only needs to fight using two standard units. In space, the Vengeance Frigate with the rapid-fire highly-damaging [[ArmorPiercingAttack shield-ignoring]] [[GameBreaker mass drivers]]. They do have more weapons, but they mostly serve as other targets to pull attention away from the mass drivers and engines. On land, the Canderous Assault Tank is also packing mass drivers. It may be their only weapon, but they can't be disabled until the unit is destroyed. They still ignore shields, which makes them devastating against the handful of shielded vehicles and structures, and are themselves shielded. A single tank on its own would lose in a fight against an Imperial AT-AT, [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu leaving the AT-AT crippled...]] [[WeHaveReserves but there are three tanks per unit, compared to the single AT-AT.]]
** The idea for "balancing" was the Consortium was the comparatively high prices their units had, but the existence of the Palace at a planet vastly increased credit revenue far more efficiently than Imperial or Alliance mines and only took up one building slot per planet. It is flagrantly obvious that Petroglyph never bothered to balance this faction.
*** It was even worse at launch, when the only space unit the Consortium needed was their fighters. Due to an oversight, the [=StarVipers=] were so OP that they could take out any other unit in swarms, which it was totally possible to have since they were cheap. Petroglyph knew about the tactic, but still took months to patch it.
** And let's talk about the Corruption mechanic. For a low, low price, it lets you create a web of corrupted planets throughout enemy territory. You can move your own troops with impunity, hamstring your enemy's resource production, steal enemy units and make them for yourself because you aren't overpowered enough already... And removing Corruption can only be done by certain units, and it costs a lot more money for your opponent to remove it than for you to set it up. By far the most infuriating one, though, is that you can cause a revolt on a planet. What's it do? Well, when your opponent tries to remove Corruption, they instantly lose control of the planet. Doesn't matter if they had an entire fully-upgraded base complete with orbital space station and thousands of troops on the surface, one revolt and all their work is for nothing.
** The Rebels have certain units (and certain unit combinations) that can be overpowered:
*** In space, the Rebels have Y-Wings, which can disable Imperial ships and space stations with only a few shots from their ion cannon special ability (even Star Destroyers) leaving them to be destroyed at leisure. While the disabling effect is temporary, a little time is all that is needed to destroy a crippled ship, or at least damage it to the point where it can't contribute to the battle anymore. Theoretically speaking, Imperial capital ships can spawn TIE fighter squadrons to protect themselves from Y-wings, but only 2 squadrons of fighters can spawn from a Star Destroyer at any given time (only 1 for other ships) and these are easily dealt with by the far-superior X-wing squadrons and anti-fighter/bomber corvettes. Cheap, low-tech, and contributing little to the unit capacity limit, Y-wings and X-wings can swarm in battle and they can be built almost anywhere. On paper, Tartan Patrol Cruisers cut through them easily, but with half as many cannons as the Rebel corvette (4 instead of 8) having them divert power to weapons is almost a necessity, though this means less power to their shields which in turn means they can be quickly destroyed more quickly. All Rebel frigates and capital ships also have the ability to divert power to shields, which means that a Rebel frigate can require the combined firepower of the Imperial fleet to be destroyed, and Rebel capital ships with this ability activated might as well be temporarily invincible. The Imperial counter to this ability is TIE bombers whose torpedoes can go past shields, but only a handful are deployed at a time (1 squadron per imperial frigate or capital ship, for a maximum of 6 squadrons since a maximum of 6 3-point frigates can be deployed at the 20-point cap) which can be easily destroyed by X-wings and corvettes. And this is even before the Ion Cannon comes into play: a ground-based structure that means the Imperials will have at least 1 of their ships (always their most powerful one) disabled for the entire battle; the Ion Cannon effect is temporary, but the recharge rate is faster than the duration meaning either multiple ships will be disabled at any given time (if the Rebel changes targets between shots) or that a single ship will be stun-locked for the entire battle if they focus on only one ship.
*** On the ground, the Rebels have Plex Soldiers, T4-B tanks, Airspeeders, and artillery spotters. Airspeeders are fast and as one of the only 3 flying units in the entire game (besides bombers on bombing runs are called and Boba Fett when using a special ability) can attack all Imperial ground units with impunity besides AT-AA walkers, which are overspecialized (useless against almost anything else besides Airpseeders) and tend to take considerable damage even while fighting the one unit they were made to counter. In addition, the ability to deploy tow cables to tie up and trip [[MightyGlacier AT-ATs]] means that the single most powerful Imperial ground unit can be take out in seconds by a single Airspeeder. While mid-late tech, even a single squadron (3 Airspeeders) can wreck havoc, and the Rebels on higher difficulties tend to swarm them in land battles. The Rebel Plex Soldiers are also a major pain for any Imperial player. Cheap, equipped with powerful rockets, and available at the lowest tech-level, Plex Soldiers are a solid and reliable counter for every Imperial ground vehicle up to and including [[MightyGlacier AT-ATs]], remaining a crucial unit from the very start to the very end of the game to which the Imperials have no easy equivalent or counter. Imperial infantry theoretically take care of them, but T2-B light tanks (another cheap low-tech unit) with regenerating shields in turn take care of Imperial infantry (it takes around 2 full companies of infantry firing constantly to gradually wear down the shields of a ''single'' T2-B tank, whereas a single company of these tanks has 5 of them), and this is before late-game vehicles and tech literally roll over Imperial infantry, which brings us to T4-B heavy tanks. They can switch between lasers that melt [[MightyGlacier AT-ATs]] and shield-penetrating missiles. They have absolutely no viable Zann Consortium counter except Rancors and hero units (Zann infantry are supposed to be able to take them, especially since they can't be run over, but the missiles do too much damage for the infantry to be cost-effective). T4-Bs can take out turrets and even shielded structures from outside turret range. The result of this and the above Zann balancing issues is that the Empire gets positively destroyed by the Consortium and to a lesser extent the Rebels, the Rebels can only stop the Consortium later on, and the Consortium ends up powerless if they don't stop the Rebels in time. And finally, Rebel artillery spotters have the innocuous ability to do a "sensor ping", revealing a small area of the map. This seems minor, but you can do this regardless of how far away the spotter unit is away from where you click, so you can essentially keep your units in a strong defensive position, do sensor pings all over the map until you find enemy units or bases and then call in infinitely-reusable bombing runs until they're all dust. Although, considering you will only have bombing runs when assaulting a planet, this is really just overpowered on offense.
** Let's not forget the Imperials: [[FourStarBadass General Veers']] AT-AT is this in the early game of Galactic Conquest. It's "Maximum Firepower" can one-shot pretty much any enemy in the game, has improved armor compared to a normal AT-AT, [[NoSell and even a snowspeeder's cable can't take it out]]. [[UpToEleven And he's free. At Tech Level 2, when most other factions have medium armor.]] The only mercy that the enemies of the Empire get is that there's only one of him.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': The developers added an option for the player to get their own game breaker. A Psionic race can enter The Shroud, a psychic realm where you can get various bonuses. You may also be given the chance to enter a pact with a psionic EldritchAbomination that will give you insane game winning bonuses. [[CosmicHorror For fifty years.]] [[spoiler:And then it utterly destroys your empire except for a single planet and a handful of pops and resources, [[ControllableHelplessness and then sets about destroying the galaxy while intentionally leaving your sorry little colony for last]]. And if someone somehow manages to beat it, they'll probably be out for your hide afterwards since you have a -1000 diplomatic malus for "dooming the galaxy".]]
** Materialists can get robotic Pops, which start out weak (Robots get a small bonus to Minerals production and the ability to colonise any habitable planet but ''massive'' disadvantages to everything else) but eventually can grow into Synths, who get a 20% to everything except Food production (which they don't consume anyway). Players in early patch cycles used to [[TheSingularity replace the entire population of their empire with Synths]] just to be that much more powerful, before developers made it a canonical option with the Synthetic Ascension Path.
** The Biological Ascension Path is difficult to use, but potentially even more broken. Synths get a 20% to everything? Please. You can genetically modify subspecies in your empire to be highly specialised and really powerful, with traditional limitations to the gene modding process - like the inability to remove positive traits or add negative ones - removed. For example, giving a slave race Industrious and Extremely Strong gives them a ''40%'' bonus to Mineral production ''plus'' another 40% to Army Damage. You can also hilariously [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZxBQlgXZ-Q genebomb enemy empires]]: genemod an entire planet's population to be useless at everything but give them Nomadic and Fertile, concede the planet to an empire who share a migration treaty with your rival, and then sit back and watch as the hordes of weak, stupid, hostile, politically subversive and genetically crippled untermensch flow into your rival's empire and outbreed the natives, bringing the rival to its knees.
** Pacifist Xenophobes get two civics to snowball their Unity gain: Inward Perfection gives a 30% bonus to Unity (plus some Happiness too) and Agrarian Idyll causes all farm buildings to produce 1 Unity. Combined with the Pacifists' natural enhanced Unity gain, it means they can blast through the Tradition trees of their choice and quickly seize powerful Ascension perks, such as the one (One Vision) that ''further'' increases their Unity gain.
** Cruisers with Medium Plasma Cannons. [[JackOfAllStats No, seriously.]] Good damage, good fire rate, good accuracy, good performance against both shields and armour... and then stacked with tier 4 sensors and sentient combat computers...
** [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/6ax3i4/the_stellaris_mp_meta_and_its_problems/ Naked Corvette Spam.]] Technology is actually quite cost-inefficient in the current meta, so often forming huge doomstacks of Corvettes equipped with the basic starter laser and kinetic weapons and [[ZergRush throwing them at the endgame Crisis or Fallen Empires]] can destroy them easily. It's really quite an absurd situation. This was patched out in the update to 2.0, though it's still a valid and disturbingly effective early-game option (if you can build a large enough navy, which is also patched to be more limited).

** The Klingon Frigate, the Koloth Class, can qualify as well. Combine a couple with some Science Ships for the [[StatusEffect "Death Chant"]] buff and a fleet of heavy cruisers and watch your fleet tear through the enemy's fleet and base. It's not as durable as the Fusion Cubes but still delivers incredible mass destruction.

** [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/6ax3i4/the_stellaris_mp_meta_and_its_problems/ Naked Corvette Spam.]] Technology is actually quite cost-inefficient in the current meta, so often forming huge doomstacks of Corvettes equipped with the basic starter laser and kinetic weapons and [[ZergRush throwing them at the endgame Crisis or Fallen Empires]] can destroy them easily. It's really quite an absurd situation.

* ''VideoGame/{{Achron}}'' has a major problem with air units in general. Air units are supposed to be balanced by their high cost and frailty. However, when massed, air is much more powerful then ground units can possibly be, because air units can stack up in the sky, creating a rolling wall of death that will focus tons of damage on anything in its way. By contrast, ground units are limited by the amount of space on the ground, so you can't have many focus on one point. Also, air units are several times as fast as ground units and don't have to worry about terrain obstacles, so a single death ball can threaten the entire map and fly circles around their supposed counters. If they are outmatched, they can quickly retreat to heal or attack somewhere else.

** Against the AI, the Necromancer/Meat Wagon/Obsidian Statue combo is nearly unstoppable. Necromancers to swarm the enemy with multiple skeletons, meat wagons to create corpses when the enemy isn't dying fast enough (and shoot the enemy from out of tower range), and obsidian statues to refill life and/or mana to multiple units at the same time. Air units will put a significant crimp, but the AI never builds more than two or three at a time, and would you look at those Crypt Fiends just waitng to web something up.

* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpires''
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar''
* ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron''
* ''VideoGame/IronMarines''
* ''VideoGame/TotalWar''

* ''VideoGame/EmpireAtWar'' introduced the Zann Consortium in an expansion pack. Nearly all of their basic units are far stronger than their Rebel or Imperial counterparts, and most of them can take on things they're supposed to be weak to after a single upgrade (even the base trooper). The ''Vengeance''-class Frigate, ''Aggressor''-class Destroyer, ''Canderous''-class tank, Skipray Blastboat, and ''[=StarViper=]''-class fighter are particularly overpowered and do an excellent job of covering each other's bases, making Consortium armies tricky to remove. In the Galactic Conquest mode, Consortium units all become available at Tech Level 2 while the other two factions have to build up to that level. Then there's a grab bag of other completely needless advantages, like cloaked infantry transports that can run infantry over despite being repulsorcraft, the Consortium's ground building being shielded unlike the other two factions, and Corruption abilities being utterly retarded and expensive to remove. Even in the game's Campaign Mode, the Consortium have a strong whiff of VillainSue about them; despite having no basis in canon, they somehow managed to conclude the story having built up a massive fleet, dominated a good portion of the galaxy, handed the Rebels and Imperials their asses, and even gotten their hands on an Eclipse-class Star Destroyer. Somehow.

* The Balance in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', especially in the early installments, tended to be a little off. It's gotten better in recent times, but {{Game Breaker}}s still pop up.
** Early ''Command & Conquer'' games were infamous for having tank spamming being virtually uncounterable strategy except by an opposing tank spam, giving them game ending status. In fact, it wasn't until [=RA3=] that this strategy was finally wrestled under control, by making anti-tank infantry much more viable.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn'':
*** The first game had GDI grenadiers. Capable of superior [=AoE=] damage against infantry than minigunners and decent damage against structures and vehicles, the grenadier could also be built both early and cheap, allowing a GDI player to just spam them to victory. Though the minigunners were cheaper, the grenadier could hit all of them with a single grenade, allowing him to wipe out many times his own number. Fortunately, they were toned down in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'', where the Soviet version did slightly reduced damage and, to prevent spamming them, exploded upon death, which could set off groups of grenadiers like firecrackers.
*** The AI would not try to destroy sand bags that blocked its movement. (It would shoot through walls and fences that blocked line of fire, destroying them in the process, but sand bags didn't block [=LoF=], so they would never be destroyed unless they were close enough to another target to be hit by stray shots). This meant that if you could build a sand bag wall round you base, far enough out from any target, then the enemy would be unable to get in. Then you could extend the wall into the enemy base, and wall off all their unit factories. Or build [[{{BFG}} Advanced Guard Towers]] / [[DeathRay Obelisks of Light]] inside their base. Or build a barracks in their base (particularly effective if you simultaneously build an Engineer, timed to complete just after the barracks completes, for instant AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs).
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'':
*** Before the ''Firestorm'' expansion pack the game had the bugged Nod Artillery unit, which could always hit its target even if the shell itself didn't hit anything, and the range and damage is insane. While GDI Orca Bombers are arguably their counter as they are helpless against air units and NOD's mobile anti-air units are somewhat weak, they are also higher on the tech tree and much more expensive per unit.
*** The GDI disc throwers have a combination of good damage against everything (unlike the Nod rocket infantry, which had a crippling weakness against infantry), low production cost, quick production time, and a GoodBadBug that allowed them to throw discs ''across the freaking map'' basically meant building an army of disc throwers was a perfectly viable strategy for most levels.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'':
*** There's the extremely broken French subfaction, which came with the Grand Cannon, a huge defensive artillery piece which could destroy any enemy in the game with ease. As air units, its only counter, were rare and underpowered, a French player could simply slowly creep his base towards the enemies under the constant protection of his cannons, until he was shelling the enemy base.
*** The British subfaction has Snipers, who could insta-kill any infantry unit in the game.
*** Yuri, the faction added in the [=RA2=] expansion, was a game breaker ''faction''. Its mind control tech was an instant game breaker in and of itself, making any notion of cost-effectiveness totally null, especially as he could recycle these units for cash. Their resource gathering mechanic allowed them to expand lightning-fast and claim new ore fields that the enemy could never touch, and their Floating Discs could shut down whole bases with ease in a game where flying units and the defenses against them were both seriously underpowered, and even steal from the enemy directly. Yet, even with all these advantages, Yuri was no worse in direct combat than his foes, with good tanks, rock solid defenses and excellent basic infantry. A few examples:
*** Initiates are far and away the best basic infantry unit out of the three main factions, and they become killing machines when garrisoned.
*** The Virus is basically a beefed-up Sniper that doesn't need a British subfaction to unlock.
*** Magnetrons are great anti-building siege units, and become downright ridiculous against any enemy vehicle with good micromanagement. Either destroy instantly them by dropping them into impassable terrain, or two birds in one stone by dropping them into an critical structure like a Construction Yard.
*** Yuri Prime is able to do an infinite combo of capturing enemy structures and selling them for cash, and you get two of them when trained with a Cloning Vat.
*** Playing against a halfway decent Yuri player on a water-based map is a death sentence, since the basic tier Boomer submarine combines the best of the Soviet Attack Submarine and Dreadnaught, while being cheaper than the $2000 Dreadnaught and it doesn't even need a Tech Centre to build!
*** Demolition Truck + Iron Curtain combo. The Demolition Truck is a suicide unit carrying a mini-nuke that explodes if the unit is killed or if the unit is commanded to attack something. Iron Curtain is a minor superweapon that makes the targeted nine units invincible and immune to mind-control for a short time. At least the original ''Red Alert'' had the courtesy of causing iron curtain to wear off very quickly from demo trucks... Lampshaded in ''Yuri's Revenge'' in the Soviet campaign where one mission requires you to either use this tactic or spam a metric fuckton of V3 Launchers to crack the enemy base.
*** If you play against the [[ArtificialStupidity dumb AI]], it's possible to blockade a base using Desolators. Doing the deploy command causes them to irradiate an area equal to a nuke until they are given the deploy command again. Most infantry simply melt before they have a chance to attack the Desolators while basic tanks will slowly disintegrate. In fact, in one of the ''Yuri's Revenge'' campaign maps, you could effectively blockade Yuri's base with two at a choke point.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'':
*** The Mammoth Tank is a ''beast''. Easily the toughest unit in the game, with upgradeable weapons that let it kill infantry in a single hit, more firepower than any other armored unit in the game, ''and'' respectable anti-air capability to boot. Massed together, they're able to go toe-to-toe with equivalent numbers of Nod Avatars and win, and outlast Scrin Planetary Assault Carriers. Nothing short of a direct hit with a superweapon can really stop the billowing clouds of dust that herald a Mammoth rush. Later patches {{Nerf}}ed the Mammoth, but its early-game counterpart, the Predator, which had the same weapon upgrade, proved effective against all but air units.
*** One Russian journalist summed it best: "Five elite Mammoth Tanks destroy everything. Ten elite Mammoth Tanks destroy completely everything."
*** The expansion introduces Mechapedes, fast-moving units that can be equipped with a variety of weapon modules. With enough micromanagement, just a few can wipe out an enemy force without exposing their weak points to serious damage.
*** The Black Hand gains the Purifier Warmech, which was suppose to be a primitive version of the Avatar. In theory it's a costlier Avatar with a built-in flame thrower in lieu of the upgrading ability. While it resolves the Avatar's initial problem of not being able to deal with infantry, it also made the Purifier completely immune to its hard counter: commandos. On top of that, the Black Hand has the Purifying Flame upgrade, which allowed all their flame-based weapons to deal extra damage to vehicles (normally fire damage deal almost negligible damage). Because the flame thrower is programmed to fire without the unit needing to target, a group of 6 Purifiers can literally walk right through the opponent's base, torching anything short of flying aircrafts without so much as raising their arm-mounted lasers.
*** The Black Hand also has stupidly powerful infantry. Spam Confessors and Rocket Launchers in 1:4 ratio, rush Black Disciples (which grants an extra flamethrower-unit to each infantry squad) and the aforementioned Purifying Flames and send your army to the enemy base. The Confessors will stomp pretty much any other infantry (especially if you add in Charged Particle Beams, which also makes them viable against vehicles and buildings!) and the Disciples and Rockets (buffed by Confessors' aura) will make short work of everything else. The enemy needs to spend the entire start of the game spamming anti-infantry buildings and units to have any hope of surviving the initial rush, and even then the cheap cost and short training time of the units allows you to keep up constant pressure on the enemy so they don't have resources to counterattack before you already have even more powerful units like the Purifiers.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'':
*** The Yuriko unit from the Empire of the Rising Sun can destroy buildings in seconds, can attack both land and air units, and has a special attack that kills all infantry within a certain radius around her.
*** In the Empire of the Rising Sun campaign, the Shogun Executioner. Lampshaded by the Soviet Commander accused you of cheating and let the GameBreaker unit win the mission for you, instead of any real strategy.
*** ''Red Alert 3: Uprising'' is just packed to the gills with gamebreaking units, suspiciously almost all of them Allied units. There's the Harbinger gunship, with insanely heavy armor, and dual weapons capable of catastrophic damage against armor, or nearly insta-kill guns against infantry. There's the Pacifier mobile cannon which is AMPHIBIOUS, and when it sets up, produces an extreme range cannon as powerful as the Cruiser in ''[=RA1=]''. The Future Tank X-1 is pretty much super effective against everything, and weak only against the most powerful armored units. The Cryo Legionnaire freezes up ALL units within a rather large radius in front of it, and these frozen units can be broken into a bunch of pieces by the weakest units in the game. The only non-Allied unit that comes closer to gamebreaking is the Japanese Giga Fortress, but even that is hardly as powerful as the Allied units. Suffice it to say there's a reason why ''Uprising'' doesn't include any sort of multiplayer.
** In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'', each faction has one. Hilariously enough, ''Zero Hour'' actually gives you the option of picking a subfaction that '''upgrades''' these tactics:
*** The Chinese Overlord tank which is the obligatory Mammoth {{Expy}} whose counters are supposed to be aircraft and rocket-wielding infantry, both of which are negated by sticking a gattling gun on top of it which also lets it detect stealth, It gets turned UpToEleven with the tank general's Emperor Overlord, who comes with the self healing propaganda tower by standard issue and can build a gattling cannon as well. The main issue balancing them is very slow speed and average attack range and the expense of the [[GatlingGood minigun]].
*** The GLA terrorist on a bike, Terrorists can OHKO a tank, their weakness is supposed to be that they're not much faster than regular infantry. Putting them on a bike lets them jump cliffs, go faster and generally make your life a pain. It gets turned UpToEleven by the Bomb general, who can build them with the terrorist on top by standard, make them cheaper, and more powerful.
*** The US Aurora Bomber, which is literally invincible until it drops its bomb, the bomber can literally be used in groups to completely eliminate anti air before blowing the entire base to kingdom come. Gets turned UpToEleven with the Superweapon general's Alpha Aurora, which is 20% cheaper and comes with a more powerful fuel air bomb.

* ''TotalAnnihilationKingdoms'' has the entire Zhon race as a gamebreaker, as they can create units anywhere without the need for buildings. The ability to conjure up an army at a moment's notice in almost any point of the map, not to mention that of relocating a base simply by walking most of it away, makes the Zhon much more versatile and efficient than the other races. As for specific units, the Zhon lightning tower is cheap, quick to build, powerful and long-range, making it ideal for both defending and attacking by fortification-walk.

* In ''{{Pikmin}} 2'', you get purple Pikmin. They can kill around 90% of the enemies in a few throws, making most bosses ridiculously easy (in fact, this game's Prima guide just says to throw purple Pikmin on said bosses). Their weakness? They're slow. Yellow Pikmin in the first game may also count due to their ability to carry bomb rocks.

*** Before the ''Firestorm'' expansion pack the game had the bugged Nod Artillery unit, which could always hit its target even if the shell itself didn't hit anything.

*** Yuri, the faction added in the [=RA2=] expansion, was a game breaker ''faction''. Its mind control tech was an instant game breaker in and of itself, making any notion of cost-effectiveness totally null, especially as he could recycle these units for cash. Their resource gathering mechanic allowed them to expand lightning-fast and claim new ore fields that the enemy could never touch, and their flying unit could shut down whole bases with ease in a game where flying units and the defenses against them were both seriously underpowered, and even steal from the enemy directly. Yet, even with all these advantages, Yuri was no worse in direct combat than his foes, with good tanks, rock solid defenses and excellent basic infantry.

* The first ''VideoGame/{{Age of Empires|I}}'' game had the Horse Archers. They can move fast, do a ton of damage, and have a range longer than anything except upgraded Priests (which they can easily kill) and certain siege weapons (which fire sluggish, easily dodged projectiles). The only downside is that they're expensive to make and can't take much damage...at least, not until you upgrade them to [[UpToEleven Heavy Horse Archers]].
** FridgeBrilliance and TruthInTelevision. For the time period, horse archers were devastating, capable of swooping in, spraying the enemy with arrows, and then beating a quick retreat before the enemy could marshal its forces. Hell, even today that'd be a viable strategy against anything less than a fleet of attack helicopters.
** The series also has elephant-mounted warriors. The Elephant Archer in the original has as many hitpoints as ''buildings''[[note]] (though it has as many hitpoints as buildings, in the first game buildings take a fifth of the damage that units do)[[/note]], and the Persians' War Elephant of the second game is probably the strongest unique unit (good for the Persians, since they're otherwise kind of a limited civilization in-game).
** The second expansion for ''Age of Empires II'', ''The Forgotten'', added the Slavs and their unique unit, the Boyar. The Boyar is essentially a super-heavy cavalry unit, having tremendous melee armor, attack and HP on par with ''Paladins'', and respectable pierce armor. A squad of maxed-out Elite Boyars is more or less unstoppable; they can even go toe-to-toe with heavy camels or halberdiers and come out on top.
** In the third game, Grenadiers. They are effective against both infantry and buildings, and do splash damage. They're produced at the Siege Workshop, but they're infantry, which means they're cheaper, faster, and don't have to deploy in order to attack. They're vulnerable to cavalry, but Grenadiers can stand up to massed infantry, where an equivalent unit of artillery will not. This is particularly nasty when fighting the Aztecs, who have no cavalry aside from any native units they've acquired.

*** The first game had GDI grenaders. Capable of superior [=AoE=] damage against infantry than minigunners and decent damage against structures and vehicles, the Grenader could also be built both early and cheap, allowing a GDI player to just spam them to victory. Though the minigunners were cheaper, the grenader could hit all of them with a single grenade, allowing him to wipe out many times his own number. Fortunately, they were toned down in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'', where the Soviet version did slightly reduced damage and, to prevent spamming them, exploded upon death, which could set off groups of grenaders like firecrackers.

*** Before the ''Firestorm'' expansion pack the game had the bugged Nod Artillery unit, which could always hit it's target even if the shell itself didn't hit anything.

*** The Black Hand also has stupidly powerful infantry. Spam Confessors and Rocket Launchers in 1:4 ratio, rush Black Disciples (which grants an extra flamethrower-unit to each infantry squad) and the aforementioned Purifying Flames and send your army to the enemy base. The Confessors will stomp pretty much any other infantry (especially if you add in Charged Particle Beams, which also makes them viable against vehicles and buildings!) and the Disciples and Rockets (buffed by Confessors' aura) will make a short work of everything else. The enemy needs to spend the entire start of the game spamming anti-infantry buildings and units to have any hope of surviving the initial rush, and even then the cheap cost and short training time of the units allows you to keep up constant pressure on the enemy so they don't have resources to counterattack before you already have even more powerful units like the Purifiers.

*** The Chinese overlord tank which is the obligatory Mammoth {{Expy}} who's counters are supposed to be aircraft and rocket-wielding infantry, both of which are negated by sticking a gattling gun on top of it which also lets it detect stealth, It gets turned UpToEleven with the tank general's Emperor Overlord, who comes with the self healing propaganda tower by standard issue and can build a gattling cannon as well. The main issue balancing them is very slow speed and average attack range and the expense of the [[GatlingGood minigun]].

*** The US Aurora Bomber, which is literally invincible until it drops its bomb, the bomber can literally be used in groups to completely eliminate anti air before blowing the entire base to kingdom come. Gets turned UpToEleven with the Superweapon general's Alpha auoroa, which is 20% cheaper and comes with a more powerful fuel air bomb.

*** In the Empire of the Rising Sun, the Shogun Executioner. Lampshaded by the Soviet Commander accused you of cheating and let the GameBreaker unit win the mission for you, instead of any real strategy.

* ''StarWarsRebellion'' is full of these. The first is the Alliance Escort Carrier. Seems unassuming, until you realize X-wings are arguably the best starfighter in the game, until the TIE Defender comes along. You can easily take down a Star Destroyer. The second is the Death Star, but only as a defense platform. Put one around Coruscant with plenty of starfighter protection and a shield, with plenty of troops to protect the shield, and hilarity ensues.

* VideoGame/{{Stellaris}} the developers added an option for the player to get their own game breaker. A Psionic race can enter The Shroud, a psychic realm where you can get various bonuses. You may also be given the chance to enter a pact with a psionic deamon that will give you insane game winning bonuses. [[CosmicHorror For fifty years.]]

** The "Mage-Bomb" tactic is one strategy that can be game-breaking in the single-player campaign; If you're human, it involves making a [[GlassCannon Mage]] invisible and then sending that invisible Mage who can cast Blizzard into the enemy's gold supply lines and then raining a deadly ice storm upon the line of workers harvesting gold. It is devastating, if not decisive against the enemy's army production. Playing as Orc, the same strategy is done with Death Knights, and an Invulnerability & Haste spell cast upon the caster.\\