History GameBreaker / TotalWar

*** As the icing on this many-layered cake, all the High Elf legendary lords except Imrik have significant faction-wide bonuses in their skill trees or from their quest items, meaning the more of them you successfully confederate the stronger the whole faction gets. Tyrion can boost Public Order in every settlement, reduce the upkeep of all armies and recruitment cost of all units, and reduce global recruitment time while adding more slots. Alarielle gives more public order, increases the tax rate, and reduces Sisters of Avelorn recruitment time (both local and global) even more while also allowing more liberal use and recruitment of Handmaidens. Alith Anar adds a 12% damage bonus to all missile units, which is what most High Elven armies are based around. Teclis gives significant bonuses to Mages and Loremasters, making them more likely to succeed at their actions and making those actions cheaper while also making mages widely available. Eltharion reduces the cost and increases the speed of wall construction, allowing for rapid fortification, and adds even more global recruitment slots. Even Imrik allows for the easier recruitment of more nobles. The end result is that fully-confederated High Elves can recruit nearly any hero from nearly anywhere, can materialize full armies of high-level archers with greatly improved damage in very few turns, have more and more successful mages than everyone else, fortify captured territory almost instantly, and almost never have to worry about rebellions, ''on top of'' the simple fact they have six Legendary Lords.

* The Metal High Elven Archmages were discovered to gain an absolutely ridiculous amount of hp when mounted on a dragon. Presumably from a typo, they gain around '''''60,000 hp''''', several times the amount of even Ku'gath! (Who also became very hard to take down due to stacking healing, damage reduction, and mortis engine effects). Since this absurdity isn't from mods, people have caught these mages in multiplayer. (https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/wwvecd/game_breaking_bug_found_metal_lore_archmage_on/).

* Normally the Papacy is an extremely annoying version of GoddamnedBats, but you can turn it to your advantage through some religious manipulation. If you're a Catholic faction, start the game by immediately allying with the Papal states, then as you work on expanding your empire keep spamming churches and priests, and send those priests to battle heresy in non Catholic lands. Building churches, recruiting priests, and battling heresy all increase papal favor (especially when you build cathedrals), and consistently recruiting priests from the same place opens up guild options. Soon you'll have high papal favor and plenty of guild trained priests experienced in battling heresy. If you get a guild headquarters you can usually get each new priest to start with at least five piety, the minimum to become a Cardinal, and it will only go up as you let them preach and denounce heretics. Since you have high papal favor, your priests are the first choice for new Cardinals, and with that you can easily get an entirely stacked bench (excluding the other two preferati), getting your faction members elected Pope every time. And with that comes consistent good favor for you and risk of excommunication from all of your Catholic enemies. If you need the extra push towards excommunicating them blowing up their religious structures works great. The downside is it will take a lot of money and probably at least a couple of generations, so you have to play your cards carefully in the meantime, but once you've accomplished it...

[[folder:Rome: Total War]]
[[WMG:'''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar''']]
* Horse Archers. They're practically impossible to catch with cavalry (and a clever player can simply support them with some melee cavalry) and can easily maneuver themselves behind enemy infantry units where they don't have their shields for protection. The only thing they need to be wary of are foot archers. The Cliblinarii of the expansion are even worse in that they're ''tough'' horse archers. Cliblinarii immortals are quite capable of mauling their way through ''several units of opposing Roman soldiers''. Spears are no refuge from these armoured nightmares.
* CHARIOTS. Any army that can use them will flood their armies with them. Hope you enjoy watching in screaming frustration as they drive full-pelt into your units, running them over and causing them to run merely seconds after hitting!
* Roman legionaries set to autofire. No, seriously.
* Typing "oliphaunt" into the console command while selecting an army or a settlement with an army in it on the campaign map will produce a single elephant unit called Yubtseb Elephants into that army/settlement. This unit is so powerful that they could easily win any battle all on their lonesome (they had to be auto resolved, otherwise they took no casualties but took ages to kill anyone).
* The berserker unit also qualifies. They can take down half a dozen men in a single sweep, have almost unlimited stamina, and are among the fastest foot units in the game when berserking. If you can get them into charging range, even a single unit of them will force the other army to make every platoon in the area either run in the other direction or take absolutely insane amounts of casualties. Even the feared armored elephants are at a disadvantage in an even fight.
** Berserkers are arguably AwesomeButImpractical. It's an expensive, late tech unit in a faction that is cash and growth starved early on, which means you generally have to expand to get it. It requires a specific temple be built, which is an inferior version of another one of your temples. By the time you can deploy them, getting them close enough to even do damage is potentially going to be difficult. Several units can also attack Berserkers with complete impunity because they can continuously attack them without any chance of the Berserkers catching up. From a tactical standpoint, since Berserkers have very poor support by the time they show up (the other troops Germania has aren't bad per se, but when you are going against high tech troops equivalent to the Berserker, they are very low end even for the specialists), it can potentially be very easy to set them up to be slaughtered. They might outclass most other individual units, but it is very easy to set up situations where most of the unit is killed on the approach and when they do get in range, they get slaughtered by several units attacking simultaneously.
** Berserkers are however almost gamebreaking in sieges, either assaulting walls or gates. Their melee attack uses the same code as that used by the -elephant-, which means they send multiple units flying every which way with each swing of their weapons. This naturally plays merry havoc with formations, turning otherwise meat-grinder gate defenses into a scattered rabble to be smashed easily by more disciplined infantry. On walls they are also virtually invincible, given that the numerical advantage of other infantry units is completely nullified by terrain.
* General's Bodyguards are at the height of their power here. It is an entirely reasonable strategy when playing as the Gaulish or Germanic tribes to put all your nobility into one stack and march on Rome itself. Bodyguards not only have better base stats than any other unit in the entire game, barring elephants, but they also regenerate their stamina 4 times faster than any other unit, meaning they can run rings around anything but the lightest of cavalry. With flanking attacks and strategic lures, bodyguards can utterly annihilate armies that have more than a ten-to-one advantage in numbers. In addition to these ludicrous advantages, bodyguards also regenerate their losses after every battle with no additional cost, and because of their hilariously lopsided kill ratios will gain golden experience ranks very quickly, turning them from powerhouse units into nigh-invulnerable walking demigods that can send armies of elite units routing if they so much as ride towards them threateningly.
* Any and all Phalanx units are truly ridiculous if used properly, and can make you all but invulnerable in sieges. The very basic infantry of many factions, the Militia Hoplites, can be used effectively at any stage of the game, because short of overwhelming numbers or missile troops, there is no way to power through the wall of spears. And if you double or even triple stack up they can stand firm against Urban cohorts, Cataphracts and Generals Bodyguards. In fact, Phalanx's are also hard counters to just about every other game breaker from Rome. Chariots? Literally die on contact with the spears. Elephants? See last. Berserkers? Don't even get close. A properly used Phalanx is an immense balancing force, with their only weakness being speed, and in return making their user all but invincible in defence.
** Defending your cities via units that are able to form a phalanx is remarkably easy. The AI will, upon breaching the city walls try and rush for the main square in order to capture it and it will do so practically BLINDLY, hurtling any and all units towards it. The only thing you need to do is determine the one-two streets the enemy will charge along and position phalanx units at the mouth of the street in the city square. If done right and with good support of at least two missile units per phalanx/street to soften up the oncoming attackers, you will be able to beat armies several times your own size and beat them BADLY (incurring hundreds of losses). This strategy can be invaluable early in the game to defend vulnerable cities, freeing up your main forces to do other things and is also easy on the economy, requiring at most 6 (often cheap) units to act as a garrison.
** Furthermore, you can even use a version of this outside of cities. Have 4-8 units of phalanx troops, position them in a square/rhomboid/octagon (preferably on a hill and far away from the enemy to maximise tiredness) and watch as the enemy army fruitlessly crashes against the formations. Greek Hoplites are the ideal for this but other phalanx units can work well. The only effective counter against this tactic is artillery.
** Bridge battles are notoriously broken on a tactical level. The AI will generally attempt to bum rush across, stacking all troops on top of each other. They can be held off with minimal numbers of phalanx units or other strong infantry and peppered with flaming arrows or artillery to demoralize them. Because routing troops give their allies a morale debuff based on proximity, a single routing unit will quickly cause the entire enemy army to collapse. Sending your cavalry onto the bridge to mop them up at just the right time when this is about to happen will easily destroy full stacks of thousands of soldiers to the last man at very low losses. Now consider that even the Rhine has only a handful of crossings; it's possible to hold a giant frontier against a superior enemy just by controlling these crossings with a small force and even drain them of manpower and strength by constantly baiting them into these bridge battles.
[[/folder]]

* Ottomans are the only country that isn't affected by expansionist diplomacy debuff one way or another. Not only the Turks don't care if you are conquering all the world, but, more importantly, the world doesn't care if Turks are conquering it. This means you can easily maintain positive relationships with everyone except the countries you're busy conquering, which makes alliances and trade agreements last, rather than turning into a pariah. Good luck keeping positive diplomacy in Grand Campaign as any other country.

* An exploit regarding technology allows to rob AI blind if you know what you're doing. Starting as either France or Netherlands, you can easily send your gentleman to steal from Prussia, Sweden and England (or reverse order if you're France), focusing on technologies they don't have. In the same time, you build your own universities ''in the colonies''. Once this happens, you can simply burn your university in Europe: you no longer risk tedious revolts in your capital province, while in the same time, AI can't steal your advanced technologies from you, as it will never send gentelman to a different theatre than the one with capital.

* Step 1: Allow British troops to board a ship or a fleet, the smaller the navy stack, the better. Step 2: Fight a manual battle against that troops-carrying fleet. Step 3: Capture, sink or burn all British ships. Step 4: Congratulations, you rid Britain from its army in the process of killing its fleet. Playing as France, you even see without any tricks or gimmicks British shoreline, so it's not even hard to spot the moment when AI decides to board an army into a ship and then kill the entire stack without any land battle. It is particularly lethal in ''Napoleon'', where with minimal effort it is possible to utterly crush British ability to fight any war on the continent.

* Late game Western Roman Armies are able to withstand the hordes of barbarians with little or not problem - if the Empire can survive long enough to reach that point...[[note]]A Western Roman player basically has to abandon Britannia, Gaul, and Illyria (only holding Italy, North Africa, and Spain), dismiss their expensive and corrupt generals, then turtle in the Alps with everything they have and rebuild Italy one province at a time. Once the mini ice-age hits, the West will have stable food production while their enemies begin starving- and your troops are still heavily armored, wield crossbows and have iron discipline.[[/note]]

* Are you having problems defending your frontier cities from irritating stacks of mid-to-powerful units? Fear not! Church scholars have uncovered an tactic hailing from the days of antiquity that with some modification can be applied to modern times. This tactic is the most potent in castles but can also work in cities too. Simply get 4 units of Dismounted Feudal Knights or a unit of similar strength plus 2-3 middling cavalry units. Position the infantry on the gates of the castle's inner courtyard or the mouth of a street if in the city and watch as the superior numbers of the invaders get crushed. Then use your cavalry to catch fleeing troops and ransom them.

* Typing "oliphaunt" into the console command while selecting an army or a settlement with an army in it on the campaign map will produce a single elephant unit called Yubtseb Elephants into that army/settlement, this unit is so powerful that they could easily win any battle all on their lonesome (they had to be auto resolved, otherwise they took no casualties but took ages to kill anyone).

* Typing "oliphaunt" into the console command while selecting an army or settlement on the campaign map will produce a single elephant unit called Yubtseb Elephants into that army/settlement, this unit is so powerful that they could easily win any battle all on their lonesome (they had to be auto resolved, otherwise they took no casualties but took ages to kill anyone).

* Typing "oliphaunt" into the console command while selecting a city or army on the campaign map will produce a single elephant unit called Yubtseb Elephants, which is so powerful that they could easily win any battle all on their lonesome (they had to be auto resolved, otherwise they took no casualties but took ages to kill anyone).

* Selecting a city and typing "oliphaunt" into the romeshell produced an elephant unit that could win most any battle with enough of them (they had to be auto resolved, otherwise they took no casualties but took ages to kill anyone).

* The game also has the Black Ships, [[NormalFishInATinyPond which would be weak trading ships in]] ''[[NormalFishInATinyPond Empire]]'' [[NormalFishInATinyPond and]] ''[[NormalFishInATinyPond Napoleon]]'' [[NormalFishInATinyPond but can obliterate whole fleets of native Japanese ships in]] ''[[NormalFishInATinyPond Shogun 2]]''. They cannot be built but will occasionally show up sailing along the shores of Japan. They can be captured, but you will most likely lose a lot of ships doing that. Additionally, capturing one results in a huge hit to your economy, as it has a huge support cost. On the other hand, most naval battles after that become a cakewalk. The ship just has to be properly positioned before the battle to maximize its use as a floating gun platform. There are weaker variants that ''can'' be built, provided the player has agreed to deal with Europeans. Eventually, a higher-tier Japanese gun platform can be built, but it is significantly weaker than its Western counterparts and less maneuverable. On the other hand, Western ships depend heavily on wind.
** Capturing two Black Ships and building a moderate fleet stack around them can effectively be used to blockade your enemies. Since the Home Islands are basically an elongated rectangle (sans the Inland Sea), you can position the fleets on either end and simply sweep up as you conquer provinces on land. The ships have large enough FOV that stationing them a bit off the land can be enough to monitor the route the AI will take (as the AI practically never sails far around the sea to surprise you. This tactic will blockade any sneaky invasion forces that may land in your rear and annoy you.

* On that note, the Portuguese faction mod for Shogun 2 is basically this as a whole if you can bear the brutal starting position and the fact that most of Japan violently hates you. Most Portuguese units- with the exception of dirt-cheap starters like Merchant Crews and specialist units like Musketeers- are armored, resilient, full of morale, and quite powerful against the Ashigaru that you will face for most of the game. Your Arquebusiers for one are effectively just slightly weaker, mass-producible Portuguese Tercos; and that's not even covering the unarmored Musketeers, whose long-barreled matchlocks have ''175'' range, letting them outsnipe any other unit in the game. A full Portuguese army with arquebusiers, musketeers, bombards and calivers, and plenty of pikemen might be hard to reinforce, but it will break enemies like water against a mountain.

* The Metal High Elven Archmages were discovered to gain an absolutely ridiculous amount of hp when mounted on a dragon. Presumably from a typo, they gain around '''''60,000 hp''''', several times the amount of even Ku'gath! (Who also became very hard to take down due to stacking healing, damage reduction, and mortis engine effects) Since this absurdity isn't from mods, people have caught these mages in multiplayer. (https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/wwvecd/game_breaking_bug_found_metal_lore_archmage_on/).

* NoRangeLikePointBlankRange is in full effect. Musketeer ashigaru, when firing at troops right in front of them, will simply ''slaughter'' whatever is in front, while survivors will be under the debuff effect of firearms to morale. If sheer number of men killed in a single go won't cause rout, then the debuff will. Firearms also pierce armour like tissue paper.

** This is made even more broken if the Otomo relocate their Nanban harbour to Buzen, a province they control from the start. Buzen has Crafts as resources. It gives +20 to accuracy (+25 with hunter lodge encampment, while also making all units 10% cheaper to recruit) to all ranged units, including ''gunpowder'' ones. Meaning Tercos fire at a whooping ''90 accuracy''. And [[MoreDakka they fire by rank]]. The only thing that’s tied with them is a hero unit and it consists of only two soldiers, while Tercos have 120 men to make their volley. Expect ashigaru-heavy armies to be dropping dead by the face of two or even a single unit of Tercos with accuracy upgrades, firing in a volley, with cavalry getting wiped out before it can even get close enough to engage them in melee.
* On that note, the Portuguese faction mod for Shogun 2 is basically this as a whole if you can bear the brutal starting position and the fact that most of Japan violently hates you. Most Portuguese units- with the exception of dirt-cheap starters like Merchant Crews and specialist units like Musketeers- are armored, resilient, full of morale, and quite powerful against the ashigaru that you will face for most of the game. Your Arquebusiers for one are effectively just slightly weaker, mass-producible Portuguese Tercos; and that's not even covering the unarmored Musketeers, whose long-barreled matchlocks have ''175'' range, letting them outsnipe any other unit in the game. A full Portuguese army with arquebusiers, musketeers, bombards and calivers, and plenty of pikemen might be hard to reinforce, but it will break enemies like water against a mountain.

* ''Shogun 2'' also has the monk’s ability to create riots, especially with some save-scumming involved. There is a province you really, really want but it belongs to a friendly (or even allied) clan you don't want to declare war upon? Station your main army just outside the borders, then send in a monk and have them riot the populace. The resulting army will consists of a lot of Yari and bow ashigaru and should take over the castle in the province on the next turn. The turn after that you send in your army into the now neutral territory, take over the castle (which should be easy, since the gates should be broken and the enemy lead by a weak general) and claim the land as your own for only a minimal hit to your diplomacy score and with no loss of honor. This tactic can be used to take over entire clans one territory at a time without ever declaring war on them. The downside is that the province is looted by the rebels, but that's about it.

* Ballista on their own are absurdly powerful. They're the first tier of field artillery available, requiring only a level 1 workshop to build. They're exceptionally accurate, are capable of firing both standard boulders that can destroy settlements and explosive shot that may as well make them equal to the ''Fall of the Samurai’s'' rifled cannons. The enemy's best units will hardly matter when a ballista shot all of them half to death before the enemy can even reach you.

* When an enemy clan is against the ropes and down to one province, they'll sometimes beg for a peace treaty. The game doesn't mention that the AI in this state will agree to become a vassal through the diplomacy screen. This is mostly useless in the vanilla campaign short for forming vassals post-Realm Divide, but it's utterly broken in ''Fall of the Samurai''. Clans vassalized this way will switch to your allegiance (which they won't do if vassalized through conquest, and they will ''never'' become Republican), and your army doesn't get tied up, while you retain a trading partner.

* Proper use of chariot units is similarly broken against the AI and will allow them to pretty much singlehandedly hammer an army's infantry all on its own - merely have your own infantry anvil engage with the enemy, and then even a single chariot unit moving at full speed from one flank of the enemy's infantry units to the other will mow them them down like grass while barely being touched. Chariot units are pretty terrible against actual cavalry and will die quickly to a group of javelinmen, but this isn't much of a drawback when just a single chariot unit will have little trouble in quickly eradicating the enemy's infantry - leave the rest of your army to handle its drawbacks.
* Ballista on their own are absurdly powerful. They're the first tier of field artillery available, requiring only a level 1 workshop to build. They're exceptionally accurate, and are capable of firing both standard boulders that can destroy settlements, and explosive shot that may as well make them the equal to Fall ''Fall of the Samurai''’s rifled cannons. The enemy's best units will hardly matter when a ballista's shot them all half to death before the enemy reaches you.
* Parthian cataphract-style cavalry is "tank" in TacticalRockPaperScissors. They just ''won't die'' and while listed as the slowest cavalry, they can chase down [[FragileSpeedster steppe archers]]. Aside from regular version, there is also [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous royal one]], which can take even more punishment while ''literally'' plowing through enemy ranks, even if they are some kind of [[AntiCavalry pike infantry]]. There is also camel-based version, scaring horse-mounted units. And there are also noble horse archers: armoured better than ''heavy cavalry'' of other factions and able to lead an effective charge on infantry - mind you, we are talking about [[FragileSpeedster horse archers]]. All of this goes beyond any sense and scale when combined with captured special building of nomadic tribes, making the horses even faster.

* In vanilla ''Shogun 2'', it's possible to build a Monastery (or Jodo Shinshu Temple), a Naginata Dojo, and an Armorer (Encampment upgrade) in a province with a Master Armorer (Smithing); in fact, the Ikko-Ikki start with Kaga Province, which has master smiths and comes with a temple. The one weakness of standard Naginata Warrior Monks is that they're vulnerable to arrow fire due to their lack of armor, but this combination makes them more heavily armored than vanilla Katana Samurai, negating their usual weakness. Particularly for the Uesugi and Ikko-Ikki clans, this allows them to become the "nuke" in the TacticalRockPaperScissors.
* ''Basic Yari Ashigaru'' are this due to sheer cost-efficiency in the singleplayer campaign - they'll even up to a comparably-costed amount of Katana Samurai combined with flat stat bonuses boosts (such as a Weaponsmith), Yari Wall is a very powerful ability with proper use that will boost Yari Ashigaru's survivability and effectiveness in melee greatly against even infantry, cavalry will be murdered at a fraction of the price, you'll save a ton of time and money sticking with them due to not requiring a special building just for making them and let you spend your koku on economic buildings/upgrades instead, and of course your numbers will be far greater to better outmaneuver your opposition. On top of that, combination of infrastructure and traditions by late-game will make freshly-recruited ashigaru to be on 7 out of 10 levels of experience, so you don't need to be particularly careful with their survival either, as replacements will be probably better than what you are currently fielding. Correspondingly, the Oda clan is quite high up there in campaign effectiveness, with their ashigaru also having innately better morale.
* The game also has the Black Ships, [[NormalFishInATinyPond which would be weak trading ships in]] ''[[NormalFishInATinyPond Empire]]'' [[NormalFishInATinyPond and]] ''[[NormalFishInATinyPond Napoleon]]'' [[NormalFishInATinyPond but can obliterate whole fleets of native Japanese ships in]] ''[[NormalFishInATinyPond Shogun 2]]''. They cannot be built but will occasionally show up sailing along the shores of Japan. They can be captured, but you will most likely lose a lot of ships doing that. Additionally, capturing one results in a huge hit to your economy, as it has high support costs. On the other hand, most naval battles after that become a cakewalk. The ship just has to be properly positioned before the battle to maximize its use as a floating gun platform. There are weaker variants that ''can'' be built, provided the player has agreed to deal with Europeans. Eventually, a higher-tier Japanese gun platform can be built, but it is significantly weaker than its Western counterparts and less maneuverable. On the other hand, Western ships depend heavily on wind.

* ''Shogun 2'' also has the Shimazu clan. While the Shimazu have cheaper and higher quality Katana Samurai (which rip through infantry like nobody's business), what really makes them powerful is their starting position. Their starting province has a Blacksmith in it, which can be upgraded to either improve attack or armor. Upgrading attack makes the normally CannonFodder Ashigaru into formidable combatants, and upgrading armor makes Warrior Monks terrifying in battle. In addition, because the Shimazu start so far west, they are among the first of the clans to have access to Christianity. Converting to Christianity means that you will have to put a lot of money into converting provinces you conquer and that everyone will hate your guts for converting. Usually, this would usually give you a hard time as every other clan on the mainland gangs up on you; however, since the Shimazu start on Kyushu, the westernmost island of Japan, they don't have to worry about this as much, provided that they eliminate all other clans on the island. In return for converting, the Shimazu get early access to gunpowder troops, powerful siege artillery and warships, insane boosts to researching, and a host of options to subvert your enemies' territory utilizing missionaries. In addition to the Blacksmith in the Shimazu starting province, Kyushu also has good farmland, a School, two Merchant Colonies, Warhorses, and a source of Crafts. The ultimate advantage of the Shimazu, however, is their proximity to the trade nodes. They start off next to two-thirds of the trade routes ''in the entire game'', meaning they can make a lot of money via trade. There is one other clan that starts on Kyushu, the Otomo, but the Otomo start off Christian and have a much harder time surviving EarlyGameHell.
* If you can survive EarlyGameHell as the Otomo clan, you will quickly see just how powerful your imported Western weapons are. With the ability to cheaply recruit and upkeep matchlock Ashigaru ''from the start of the game'', you can tear great chunks out of enemy formations and shake their morale before they even reach you, not to mention make defending castles very easy. It gets even better when you acquire Portuguese Tercos via a Nanban Trading Port; these Portuguese soldiers have comparable melee skill and armor to ''samurai'' and far superior accuracy to any other matchlock units in the game. A unit or two of them will generally rout any other matchlock unit- and the vast majority of all bow units- in a one-on-one fight and its steady, rapid-fire volleys will leave charging enemies wavering and almost dead by the time they reach your lines. On the waves, Omoto is also a dominant force: they can create whole navies of European-style ships with cannons.
** This is made even more broken if Otomo relocate their Nanban harbour to Buzen, a province they control from the start. Buzen has Crafts as resources. It gives +20 to accuracy (+25 with hunter lodge encampment, making all units also 10% cheaper to recruit) to all ranged units, including ''gunpowder'' ones. Meaning Tercos fire at whooping ''90 accuracy''. And [[MoreDakka they fire by rank]]. The only thing tied with them is a hero unit and it consists of only two soldiers, while Tercos have 120 men to make their volley. Expect ashigaru-heavy armies dropping dead by the face of two or even single unit of Tercos with accuracy upgrades, while cavalry getting wiped out before it can even get close enough to engage in melee.

* The Mori are usually disregarded due to being a naval-oriented faction in a series where naval battles are something of a ScrappyMechanic, but their strength actually lies in their strong starting position. Their home province has a Holy Site from which they can pump out level 3 monks and units with extra morale almost right away, and their western flank is comfortably secured by an alliance with the Ouchi clan, who can be trusted to be too distracted with their enemies in Kyushu until you have gathered enough strength for the inevitable betrayal. The first item on their agenda is the conquest of Izumo, which contains a gold mine, and provinces with blacksmiths, crafts and naval traditions are not too far to the east. Most importantly, they are arguably in the best position of any of the western clans to gain a monopoly over trading posts, as unlike the Otomo, their Amako rivals don't have much in the way of a navy to threaten them, and unlike the Shimazu or Chosokabe, they start with an upgraded port which can immediately start pumping out ships, and with their increased naval stats they can easily block other clans from parking their ships over trade goods and defend them. With DLC, they gain access to the Wako Raider, a sword infantry unit that, in comparison to the Katana Samurai, is half the price and training time, and can hide and deploy outside the deployment zone like ninja while only being disadvantaged by slightly less armor and requiring a Military Port to train.
* Each faction is restricted to a single Nanban port, but nothing prevents you from capturing more of them from others. More, with bit of micro-management, it is possible to capture a province with Nanban port, then wait for the previous owner to build new port... and capture that province too.

* Kisho ninja when assaulting a fortress. Nobody can see them until it's too late, while they can scale walls without any penalties. Small size of troops? Doesn't matter, because they are armed with high explosives, so whoever they will meet on their way to next gate to capture will be ripped into pieces, while they will disappear into mist once more. Their presence in the army makes the whole "sabotage gate" option of ninja agents moot, along with the requirement of said agent to be skilled in the first place to avoid caputure.
* ''Siege Tower Bune spam'' is a multiplayer cheese strategy that is frowned upon for being blatantly overpowered. This is because the matchlock gunners on the siege towers will annihilate any enemy archers really quickly before they can send a volley of arrows at them. Not to mention that using matchlocks perfectly resolves the problem of naval battles dragging out for much longer than they need to due to archers constantly missing their targets and even trying to shoot at enemy crewmen that are safely located in a part of the ship where arrows can't reach them. Matchlock bullets address this problem by being armor-piercing projectiles that can both inflict hull damage and reach those crewmen that can't be hit by arrows. If you also consider the fact that the upkeep cost for a Siege Tower Bune is very low and the [=AI=] simply cannot deal with this strategy, then you can establish absolute Naval Supremacy in the campaign without putting a heavy strain on your economy.
* ''Shogun 2'' also has the monks' ability to create riots, especially with some save-scumming involved. There is a province you really, really want but it belongs to a friendly (or even allied) clan you don't want to declare war upon? Station your main army just outside the borders, then send in a monk and have them riot the populace. The resulting army will consists of a lot of yari and bow ashigaru and should take over the castle in the province on the next turn. The turn after that you send in your army into the now neutral territory, take over the castle (which should be easy, since the gates should be broken and the enemy lead by a weak general) and claim the land as your own for only a minimal hit for your diplomacy score and no loss of honor. This tactic can be used to take over entire clans one territory at a time without ever declaring war on them. The downside is that the province is looted by the rebels, but that's about it.
** It can be used to wipe out or at least significantly weaken the other clans before triggering Realm Divide. Rebels simply sit in captured provinces, which means it's to your best benefit to either pre-emptively create a borderland of rebel provinces while heading toward Kyoto or go as far and wipe clan(s) entirely by inciting riots. This way the only faction around Kyoto will be the Shogunate itself, making it a breeze to quickly capture handful of surrounding provinces and the city itself, while everyone else is few rebel provinces away, first having to get through them.

* In the ''Fall of the Samurai'' expansion for ''Shogun 2'', ironclads utterly dominate against regular ships in multiplayer. This has less to do with the toughness and extra range of the ironclads, and more to the fact that explosive shells almost always set fire to normal ships in a single volley, and ships on fire eventually explode, damaging all ships near them.
* Torpedo boats, made from otherwise useless Chiyodagata gunboats, further stripped from guns and crew. Instead, they are packing 10 torpedoes. Any given ship, even the mightiest ironclad, can be sunk by a single torpedo. They are fired ''in pairs''. And the slower the unit, the easier it is to hit it. A cluster advancing in your direction? Still no problem, because ''someone'' is going to be hit anyway. Since this is an upgrade of Chiyodagata, torpedo boats are still dirty cheap to build and maintain, even in large numbers. The only thing that prevents torpedo boats from utterly dominating seas is how far in the tech tree they are.

* The entire Satsuma clan can qualify. All three of the foreign powers are on their side, their income is more steady than most others, they modernize faster than most other clans, and they have more favor with the Imperial household. (By the way, the Satsuma are the descendents of the aforementioned Shimazu. InTheBlood, perhaps?)
** To elaborate: the Satsuma clan is in a very convenient position, which is a bigger deal than in ''Shogun 2''. They have two coastal provinces in a corner of sorts, and they also start with a blacksmith (which is a HUGE boon to their military) as well as easy access to sources of iron, copper and coal. With said iron, they can quite easily upgrade their blacksmith to an iron works and then to a gunsmith relatively quickly, giving them a source of highly accurate infantry and artillery. With a gunsmith, basic line infantry have their accuracy boosted from around 30 to 50, which is nothing to scoff at. Things get really silly once they have access to foreign marines, faction-specific infantry and guard units. Spending the time to research 'Domain and the Realm' and then constructing a firing range in the same province as your gunsmith gives infantry and artillery trained there a monstrous ''+35 accuracy bonus''. Combine these amazing military bonuses with the wealth generated by holding all of Kyushu, and Satsuma can easily become the most powerful faction in the game.
* If one is lucky or knows how to re-roll the retainers agents gain, it is possible to get a Foreign Veteran with three variations of foreign gun trader, netting in total a +15 accuracy and reload speed bonus to modern units, on top of the regular +10 to accuracy from "Soldier" skill tree. Add to this units trained in a gunsmith province (+20 accuracy) with firing range (another +15) and your line infantry, the most basic of units to field, will have a whooping 90 accuracy right after being fielded, with reload speed close to that of your [[EliteMooks Imperial/Shogunate/Republican Infantry]]. Said Foreign Veteran can easily add few experience levels just by being in the same army, rising accuracy above 100. Or you can (as Shogunate follower or Republican) invite French experts, for yet another +5 accuracy to your modern units. [[ButWaitTheresMore Still need more]]? Rank 5 Generals have mutually exclusive skill that either adds yet another +5 to accuracy[[note]]so at this point, French-alligned faction has a Line Infantry with 100 accuracy without those soldiers even gaining a single rank of experience[[/note]] ''or'' +10 to reload speed for units under his command[[note]]While also offering faster artillery support from ships and greatly speeding up ship reload in naval battles[[/note]], so pick how exactly you want to break the game. Remember that Yari Ashigaru example listed above? Line Infantry are their equivalent in [=FotS=]. And obviously nothing prevents you from doing the exact same thing with the next tier of infantry once you unlock it, making them superior to just about anything else in the game, as they aren't limited in numbers, unlike the elite Guard units, while retaining the main advantage of Line Infantry, that is - cheapness to field and maintain. Sharpshooters? Who even needs those slowpokes?

* Pikemen, though only in single-player siege defensive battles due to ArtificialStupidity. Everywhere else, and especially against actual players, there's no trouble to weather pikemen down with ranged units and/or flank their sides or rear which utterly crushes pikemen...but while defending a town, the AI is far too willing to suicide against arrayed pikes protected from the town's buildings' at their sides rather than attempting to attack from every possible angle first. Also, a player came make this even worse by placing an armoured unit (such as Hoplites) or a barricade in front of the pikemen which will protect the pikemen from the front thus ensuring the AI isn't going to get to the pikemen (but they'll try to anyway).

* Ballista on their own are absurdly powerful. They're the first tier of field artillery available, requiring only a level 1 workshop to build. They're exceptionally accurate, and are capable of firing both standard boulders that can destroy settlements, and explosive shot that may as well make them the equal to Fall of the Samurai's rifled cannons. The enemy's best units will hardly matter when a ballista's shot them all half to death before the enemy reaches you.