History GameBreaker / TurnBasedStrategy

* In ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2'' fighting at night pretty easy if you have a squad (with the Night Ops skill) and equipment (NVGs and break lights) for it, as enemies have a low field of view, accuracy, a have a tendency to [[ArtificialStupidity run straight at your mercs]] if you attack them from a good enough distance (most likely because they are trying to get in range to counter attack)

* In ''Franchise/StarTrek: BirthOfTheFederation'', all factions have more or less equivalent ships with slight differences in speed and firepower. However, the game balance is way off. For example, nearly all Romulan and several Klingon ships have cloaking devices, which gives them a free turn at the start of battles, which often decide the outcome. Their ships are also invisible on the strategic screen. However, the Romulans are hampered by their extremely slow speed. Then you have the ''Defiant''-class heavy escorts, which only the Federation has. No other faction has an equivalent class. The ''Defiant'' has superior firepower (higher than that of a ''Sovereign'') and superior speed. The proper use of these can result in pretty one-sided battles.

* In unpatched ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic V'', the Necromancers were obscenely powerful because of an unfortunate synergy between the fact that their Necromancy skill allowed them to raise a sizable percentage of all living enemy creatures as skeletons, in a game that allowed you to upgrade your skeletons to skeleton ''archers'' on turn 2. Some neutral-monster-bashing later, and you have a stack of archers numbering in the thousands, growing to the tens of thousands, in a game where a single stack of the weakest units numbering 1000 is (supposed to be) a rare event. Cue one-shotting ''anything''. Cue inevitable nerf, by restricting number of creatures raised per week and causing enemy casualties to be raised by creature level. Yes, necromancers were nerfed by allowing them to raise more powerful creatures.
** Which is NOTHING compared to those fucking ghosts from ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic II''. For every unit they kill, a ghost is created. Combined with the large number of wild low level creatures with low defense, building up a 1000+ army of ghosts is very easy. This makes maps where your enemies get ghosts all the more painful since if you lose a single fight against them, their armies can potentially get STRONGER even if you kill all of their other units. I'm looking at you Ghost Planet...
** Demonology and the "Summon Elemental" spells in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic IV'' border on this. Especially if the character with the spell or ability also gets their hands on a [[ArtifactOfDoom Demonary]] or [[AmplifierArtifact Ring of the Elementals]]. Grandmaster Necromancy continued the usual habit of being ridiculously broken by allowing necromancers to raise ''vampires'', which were incredibly dangerous and durable units, allowing the necromancer to create a snowball of fangs and murder as enemy armies were wiped out and added to the growing horde.
*** ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic IV'' broke from the mold by making your heroes able to participate in battle themselves. Combat heroes in particular could strike first, strike twice with every attack, take minimal damage from an attack and also be completely immune to magic. With proper spell support, you could give them incredible offensive and defensive abilities to turn them into absolute wrecking balls. Campaign heroes in particular could be carefully herded through academies and stat boosters to accumulate so much power that they could essentially solo maps inside of a month.
** In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic III'', skills could make or break a hero. Mastery of Earth turned Town Portal into a spell that allowed a character to zoom all over the map, effectively defending every single town you had with one unbeatable army, while mastery of Air let you use Dimension Door and Fly to sequence break your way across the map. Logistics was a vital skill to zip around the map, and a hero that specialized in it was basically an untouchable rocket. Meanwhile, necromancy specialists could amass terrifying hordes, while a hero who specialized in Offense, Defense, or Archery could turn an army into a well-tuned murder machine.
*** Combination Artifacts were introduced in the final expansion pack, and just about all of them were amazing. A fully upgraded combination of necromancy artifacts let you produce an army of ''liches'' instead of skeletons and simply shoot everything that came after you. Perhaps the easiest to acquire was the Armor of the Damned, forged from a bunch of low-level common magic items, which wound up casting a variety of painful debuffs on the entire army that could last most of the fight and even could bypass spell restrictions.
** The Necropolis faction, with their dedicated combined artifact and the Hero Thant basically made the game a cakewalk. Thant specializes in Animate Dead, which is the cheaper version of Resurrection, except units are not permanent unless they're undead. Since he specializes in it, he starts with the spell regardless of any other factors. This means that later in the game Thant's army basically suffers zero casualties, especially if it's huge enough to knock out opposing rangers first then pick off enemy units piecemeal. This, combined with the Necropolis's dedicated artifact, which causes Necromancy to not only be buffed by 50% but also raise undead as Liches instead of Skeletons, means that Thant's army grows exponentially with each victory (being able to convert almost 80% of the enemy into liches with zero casualties).

{{Game Breaker}}s in turn-based strategy games. There are seperate pages for ''{{GameBreaker/Civilization}}'', ''{{GameBreaker/Disgaea}}'', ''GameBreaker/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'', ''GameBreaker/FireEmblem'', ''GameBreaker/NintendoWars'', ''GameBreaker/SuperRobotWars'', and ''{{GameBreaker/XCOM}}''. ''{{VideoGame/Final Fantasy Tactics}}'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', despite being of this genre, are [[GameBreaker/FinalFantasy on the same page as the mainline games]].

*** Combination Artifacts were introduced in the final expansion pack, and just about all of them were amazing. A fully upgraded combination of necromancy artifacts let you produce an army of ''liches'' instead of skeletons and simply shoot everything that came after you. Perhaps the easiest to acquire was a set of armor forged from a bunch of low-level common magic items, which wound up casting a variety of painful debuffs on the entire army that could last most of the fight and even could bypass spell restrictions.

** Ditto Stasis Field Generator. It can be used rapidly incapacitate most of the enemy fleet and then tear them to pieces one by one.

** [[spoiler:[[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Giselle]]]], the SecretCharacter. She's good for one thing, and that's overwhelming physical might. She's a LightningBruiser through and through: fast, hits incredibly hard, very durable, has Counter, ailment immunity and arrow immunity, gets ''even faster'' when on low health and can even get a second action per turn if she kills an enemy (which is very easy for her given her damage output). Her special attacks include powerful knockback attacks, a number of great {{Status Buff}}s, and a wide-area DeathFromAbove attack where she [[spoiler:shoots a WaveMotionGun ''[[KillSat from outer space]]'']] that [[ForMassiveDamage deals tremendous damage.]] Her ''only'' weakness is that all of her Skills consume a lot of SP, and her SP pool isn't very large, but fortunately, she can greatly cover for this problem with an Absorb Orb 3 ([[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Or with Ewan]]). One would think that she's PurposefullyOverpowered, and she kind of ''is'', since [[spoiler:she used to be Xeno's [[TheDragon direct subordinate]] and a tough boss on her own right,]] but obtaining the GoldenEnding means getting her, so...

** [[spoiler:[[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Giselle]]], the SecretCharacter. She's good for one thing, and that's overwhelming physical might. She's a LightningBruiser through and through: fast, hits incredibly hard, very durable, has Counter, ailment immunity and arrow immunity, gets ''even faster'' when on low health and can even get a second action per turn if she kills an enemy (which is very easy for her given her damage output). Her special attacks include powerful knockback attacks, a number of great {{Status Buff}}s, and a wide-area KillSat attack that [[ForMassiveDamage deals tremendous damage.]] Her ''only'' weakness is that all of her Skills consume a lot of SP, and her SP pool isn't very large, but fortunately, she can greatly cover for this problem with an Absorb Orb 3 ([[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Or with Ewan]]). One would think that she's PurposefullyOverpowered, and she kind of ''is'', since [[spoiler:she used to be Xeno's [[TheDragon direct subordinate]] and a tough boss on her own right,]] but obtaining the GoldenEnding means getting her, so...

** [[GenkiGirl Popo]]'s ''[[BlowYouAway Rusty Key]]'' will, at the outset, inflict the crippling Negate Action ailment on every enemy on the field. Negate Action prevents the enemy from doing anything other than moving, which means your team is completely safe from enemy reprisal for its duration and can do anything it wants. It doesn't end there though. ''Rusty Key'' then inflicts a DEF Down debuff every turn on every enemy for its remaining duration, which means that not only can your enemies not DO anything, they also take increased damage. And unlike many other games, ContractualBossImmunity is ''not'' in effect until quite a bit later in the game, meaning that Bosses ''are just as vulnerable to this as the common grunt'' until enemies with [[ContractualBossImmunity Disable Immuity or Disable Ailment]] start appearing. This Conduct is essentially an "I Win" button for over half of the game. [[DiscOneNuke Did we mention this is the very first Conduct we get?]]

** [[spoiler:[[WellIntentionedExtremist Hilda]]]]'s ''[[TimeStandsStill Ice World]]'' actually [[UpToEleven trumps the above two.]] Take ''Rusty Key'', replace Negate Action with Stop, and the DEF Down debuff on the enemy with an ATK Up StatusBuff on your whole team, and you get ''Ice World''. The reason this is a step up is because Stop completely shuts down the enemy. Negate Action doesn't actually disable your enemy completely, but Stop removes them completely from the action queue, meaning they don't even ''get'' turns. Also, Stopped enemies receive extra damage naturally, and you don't even have to worry about the direction you're attacking from, which is compounded by the fact that your whole team has boosted attack. The result is that your team has even ''more'' impunity than and kills even faster than with ''Rusty Key'' in use. This is essentially ''Rusty Key 2.0'', or the "I Win Even Harder" button. [[JustifiedTrop Justified]], since [[LampshadeHanging even the game notes that]] [[spoiler:Hilda]] [[TheAce rightfully deserves to be called the strongest Witch.]]

* In the release version of ''MasterOfMagic'', a single unit of Paladins could slaughter just about any enemy in the game.

* In H-Game ''SengokuRance'', you'll see a few people who will mention Omachi, Kenshin + Natori + Uruza + Aburako Dosan, and Yuzuhara Yuzumi + Mouri Teru pop up in discussions on who's the game breaking unit.

* ''RecordOfAgarestWar'' has quite a few of these:

* Milanor from YggdraUnion gets very strong by the half of the game. Enough that his attack can top any kind of enemy even though he has a disadvantage in [[TacticalRockPaperScissors a weapon triangle rule.]] And he's one of the main characters you need to use in every battle.

** The sequel introduces us to Lash, one of the Black Hole Commanding Officers. Her ability increases a units offense by 10% for every star of defense a terrain provides it. In other words, parking units on high-defense terrain not only makes them hard to destroy, but they now also pack a nasty punch. Rockets on her HQ annihilate anything that comes near, mechs on mountains can take on medium tanks, and battleships on reefs ''rape everything in sight''. Her CO power actually ''doubles the defense level of all her units as well, which happens to also double their attack bonus, and her CO power fills up rather quickly. She also has no weakness. Even after being Nerfed for Dual Strike, she is still one of the best characters available.

* In ''ShiningForce'', arguably, [[SecretCharacter Domingo]]. Let's see... he flies, he levels up quickly, he gets some very powerful magic, he gets more MP than most spellcasters, and, [[SquishyWizard most unusually for a spellcaster]], he gets very high HP and physical defense, to the point that even enemies in the last few battles will probably only do 1 damage if they use a non-magical attack. On top of all that, as a spellcaster, he's a prime target for the AI, so you can use him to keep enemies' attention while your other characters wail away. His only major downside is that he doesn't get to equip any weapons, but since he's not likely to physically attack anyway, that hardly matters.
** In the GBA remake, Domingo is even more broken; because of the change to [[UselessUsefulSpell Desoul]], the token [[OneHitKill instant-kill spell]] being a flat low chance for every non-boss enemy to a spell that has a 100% success chance for all but bosses and certain monsters, Desoul is now a ''very'' powerful and efficient spell for killing monsters - even factoring its steep 8MP cost. And with Domingo's massive MP growth, he can happily spam Desoul without ever worrying about depleting his MP pool.
** In ''[[ShiningForce Shining Force 2]]'', one of your characters, named Karna, learns a buff spell called 'Boost 2'. The spell itself is not the broken part of it, all it does is increase the affected member's defense and agility, which is nice, but not game breaking. What is game breaking, however, is the large area it can cover, allowing Karna to affect the entire party, which no other buff spell does. Because it affects the entire party, Karna earns the maximum possible experience every time it's used, no matter what level you are. This allows you to [[LevelGrinding power level]] Karna to ridiculous degrees relatively fast.
*** Now promote Karna to the 'Master Monk' class using one of two "Vigor Orbs" found in the game and buy her a pair of knuckles, she is now a very effective front-line fighter as well as a healer, in addition to leveling disgustingly fast. Now consider that you can recruit her and do all of this about halfway through the game.

** The game breaker part is that it often takes over a year to reclaim a field and a soldier can decimate several in a turn. And while the county's citizens are starving, morale plummets and eventually it rebels. The owner has no choice bit to either give it up or spend resources quelling the rebellion. The only defense though is turning the fields into fallowed fields, armies can't destroy those.

** The fire and death artifact armors have a chance to cast Flame Dart and Decay respectively on enemies that strike the wearer. By entering [[StoneWall parry mode]] and blocking enemies to death these warriors can solo entire armies that would crush them if they tried to fight normally. Particularly notable with the fire warrior; their extremely high damage (compensated by a here-irrelevant very slow attack speed) gives them a massive defense boost when parrying, and when combined with their high life and potential for spell resistance and regeneration makes them nearly indestructible. Again in a custom game you can start with the armor.`

{{Game Breaker}}s in turn-based strategy games. There are seperate pages for ''{{GameBreaker/Civilization}}'', ''{{GameBreaker/Disgaea}}'', ''GameBreaker/FireEmblem'', ''GameBreaker/NintendoWars'', ''GameBreaker/SuperRobotWars'', and ''{{GameBreaker/XCOM}}''. ''{{VideoGame/Final Fantasy Tactics}}'' and its sequels, despite being of this genre, are [[GameBreaker/FinalFantasy on the same page as the mainline games]].

*** The original ''Master of Orion'' had a neat little exploit that involved putting a Stasis Field (immobilize an enemy fleet for one turn) on the same ship as a Black Hole Generator (annihilate 20-100% of an enemy fleet), a Sub Space Teleporter (go anywhere on the battle map before your opponent has a chance to move), and some bombs. When attacking your enemy at a colony, you would teleport in next to the planet and put a fleet in stasis. Next turn, turn off the Stasis Field (the SPECIAL button at the bottom of the screen) and hit the fleet you're targeting with the Black Hole Generator and any other weapons you've got on you. Normally your turn would end at this point - but you have bombs, and you're next to a planet. Do you want to bomb it? Not right now. ''Turn on your Stasis Field'' and freeze your enemy. Now you can bomb the planet, or not as the case may be; actually ''using'' the bombs is not part of the strategy. Rinse and repeat. Doesn't work in every situation, but this ship type is still useful for slightly less game-breaky variations on this general approach, and if you do get the chance it's pretty sweet taking out [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard 32,000]] battleships with one cruiser this way...

* ''Rule the Waves'': Great Britain. It has an incredible budget (allowing it to build more ships than anyone else, and make them bigger to boot, on ''top'' of having a bigger R&D investment) and an extensive network of overseas colonies, allowing it to deploy forces and fight anywhere in the world. The United States surpasses it in the late-game through sheer economic expansion, though.

* The Life faction's archers in ''VideoGame/LordsOfMagic'' have a longer firing range than any other unit in the game, including wizards. So when [[strike:Sauron]] [[CaptainErsatz Balkoth]] decides to raid your kingdom, all you have to do if you're playing the Life faction is to station tons of archers and arrow-spam him before he can get any spells off, then retreat when he's dead. As the goal of the game is to kill him, you win.

** The fire and death artifact armors have a chance to cast Flame Dart and Decay respectively on enemies that strike the wearer. By entering parry mode and blocking enemies to death these warriors can solo entire armies that would crush them if they tried to fight normally. Particularly notable with the fire warrior; their extremely high damage (compensated by a here-irrelevant very slow attack speed) gives them a massive defense boost when parrying, and when combined with their high life and potential for spell resistance and regeneration makes them nearly indestructible. Again in a custom game you can start with the armor.`

* In ''SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' the supply crawler unit, which the computer never uses, gives the player a major advantage by itself. What makes it a game breaker is when you upgrade cheap crawlers and contribute them to builder wonders, because the cost of upgrading units is about 8 times cheaper than trying to pay for buildings. This makes it possible to build wonders, even the late game ones, in a single turn. Even at the highest difficulty, you civ score should skyrocket right after getting the tech for crawlers.

* Due to the game's rather primitive and sometimes crippling AI it is possible to win ''every single'' game in HogsOfWar by poisoning the enemy using a gas grenade and then using the Scout/Commando/Hero technique ''Hide'' to simply wait out the clock. Using this technique you can even defeat the otherwise ridiculously strong Legend class without sustaining hardly any damage whatsoever. Coming in at a close second on the ''crappy game mechanics you can exploit'' bandwagon comes the Spy class ''Pickpocket'' ability. Steal the bazooka or sniper rifle off an enemy Hog and they become almost completely harmless.
* {{SD Gundam G Generation}} tends to have a few. Units such as the Nu Gundam, Ex-S Gundam, and Wing Zero sometimes qualify depending on game, but always good units.

* ''TacticsOgre'' has too many to count. Archers are available early on and will be useful for the rest of the game; unlike any melee unit they can attack at ridiculous range (greatly enhanced by having high ground) and aren't subject to counterattacks, can walk through water, and do just as much damage as a melee class. Mid-game you have summon magics which can basically one shot a target. By the end of the game you just pick how you want to be broken - do you prefer to kill everything on the screen within a few turns with dragon magic, or do you prefer to exploit the Retissue spell to make a character with 10x the stats of anyone else who can wipe out the entire enemy party before they even get a chance to do a SINGLE MOVE?

* The Life faction's archers in ''LordsOfMagic'' have a longer firing range than any other unit in the game, including wizards. So when [[strike:Sauron]] [[CaptainErsatz Balkoth]] decides to raid your kingdom, all you have to do if you're playing the Life faction is to station tons of archers and arrow-spam him before he can get any spells off, then retreat when he's dead. As the goal of the game is to kill him, you win.

* ''Lords of the Realm 2'' allows you to raze a foe's crop fields to annihilate their agricultural economy. There's also a minor exploit that allows you to produce armies consisting of only one soldier (normally a minimum of 50). Taken separately, one is a relatively balanced tactic and one is pointless. Combined, you can quickly swarm over your enemy's fields and cause a serious amount of damage with only a few soldiers.