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A common way of arranging matters in Real Time Strategy games is to divide units into three types, each of which is most effective attacking one other type.

For instance:

• Ranged attacks are most effective against flying units
• Flying units are most effective against close-combat units
• Close-combat units are most effective against units with ranged attacks (which usually only have ranged attacks)

The necessity for each unit to have only one of the relevant types of attack often leads to Crippling Overspecialisation. This is often purposely done to stop players from Tank Rushing; a common tactic where the player builds a reasonably-priced and moderately-powerful unit in absolutely massive quanitities in an attempt to defeat the enemy by numbers alone. By making tanks extremely vulnerable to ranged attacks the opponent can negate the huge attack force with a few inexpensive defensive units. Unless, of course, aformentioned tanks are the kind with treads, not the kind that take lots of damage. Then, your options are limited. (Unless, of course, there's a Tactical Rock Paper Scissors counter to those kinds of tanks in this particular game.)

Compare Elemental Rock Paper Scissors.

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Examples

• In Fire Emblem, they call it the Weapon Triangle: Axe beats spear, spear beats sword, sword beats axe. Magic has its own triangle that varies by game; archers are outside of both. However Archers do trump flying units. A few units can actually use more than one weapon, so it's a matter of the right tool for the job. There are also 'reaver' weapons that reverse the triangle.
  • Radiant Dawn makes things more convoluted by mixing the standard Magic Triangle and the Triangle from the previous game, Path of Radiance. Fire beats Wind, Wind beats Thunder, Thunder beats Fire. However all three are treated as Anima, so all 3 beat Light, but are equally beaten by Darkness. Meaning we have a triangle in a triangle. Included in this each Laguz tribe is weak to an Anima magic (Mammals weak to fire, Birds weak to wind, Dragons weak to Thunder). Its a wonder why the Laguz don't have their own triangle (but that would mean giving Dragons another weakness).
    • Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are also the first games to have knives, which exist outside of the triangle. And Radiant Dawn removes Dracoknights weakness to bows and wind magic and gives them a weakness to thunder magic. Pegasus Knights are still weak to bows and wind.
  • The Anima triangle first appeared in the fourth game, Genealogy of the Holy War, which was never released outside Japan, though its relationship to light and dark magic was different. It was also the first game to have the weapon triangle.
  • Nevermind the fact that most casters have so much resistance to magic that it's usually more practical to just hit them with an axe.
• In the Suikoden series, archery beats magic, magic beats charging, charging beats archery. This also carries over to the one-on-one duels, where a normal attack smacks a defending character, a desperation attack cancels a normal attack, and defense counters a desperation attack.
  • Starting with Suikoden II, the randomosity of tactical battles was turned Up To Eleven, resulting in even archer units being capable of defeating infantry in melee combat. Figuring out what works and what doesn't is less unit type and more luck.
• End War has Transports > Gunships > Tanks > Transports, with Engineers beating vehicles while in cover or buildings, and infantry beating Engineers. However, Rifleman will last a respectible amount of time against vehicles while in they are in cover, and do even better when they are in a buildings. The Command Vehicle has a lot of Hit Points, but only has much of a chance against Gunships while other things can destroy the Command Vehicle's defensive escorts that actually do damage, leaving the Command Vehicle's only combat function as a Meat Shield. Artillery will be able to attack anything on the ground without any risk to itself - unless they get near. Gunships are particularly good at doing so, while moving fast and bypassing territory.
• While War Craft III uses this basic premise, the actual mechanics suffered a series of complete overhauls from patch to patch, going as far as introducing the "unarmored" armor type and later making some units of this armor type actually have armor for balance purposes.
  • It wasn't as obvious in War Craft II, but that's not saying much. Ballistae and catapults were awesome against stationary units (e.g. guard and cannon towers) but useless if enemy melee units got within their dead zone. Melee units could easily dodge the projectiles of ballistae and catapults (and then close the distance and cut them into kindling), but didn't fare very well against cannon towers. Cannon towers were effective against melee units, but not against siege artillery. And that's not counting air and naval units...
• Advance Wars has a few of these: for example, Anti-Air ➞ B-Copter ➞ Tank ➞ Anti-Air. Or Cruiser ➞ Submarine ➞ Battleship ➞ Cruiser. The introduction of the Anti-Tank artillery in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin has created another one: Anti-Tank ➞ Tank ➞ Infantry ➞ Anti-Tank.
  • Unfortunately, Mech. spam still beats everything.
    • Though Infantry spam, backed up with a few indirects, tends to beat Mech. spam.
  • Some of this shows up in the commanders themselves. For example, Lash, who does more damage based on terrain bonuses) is countered by Sonja, who reduces enemy terrain bonuses. Andy, who can repair all friendly units on the map for 5 HP, counters basically any enemy with a damage-all-the-units-on-the-map power. Of course, all of this is really a moot point since certain pairings like Hachi/Colin and Kanbei beat basically everyone else down so hard that they're pretty much the right choice in any situation no matter what.
  • It's Spiritual Successor, Battalion Wars, pulls the same thing, just...larger. Infantry is vulnerable to tanks, Assault, and Flame vets, but strong against Bazooka vets. Bazooka vets are strong against Tanks. Light Tanks are vulnerable to Heavy Tanks, which are vulnerable to Gunships, which are vulnerable to Fighters, etc. The series is remarkably good at introducing each leg of the triangle (It's more like an irregular polygon, really) in such a way as to not confuse the player.
• Warrior Kings has the following: Heavy Infantry (polearm) beats Heavy Cavalry, Light Infantry (ranged foot) beats Heavy Infantry and Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry (melee horse) beats Light Infantry, Light Cavalry (ranged horse) beats Heavy Infantry and Heavy Cavalry.
  • This may be an example of Truth in Television, as this is exactly the description of premodern weapon systems in Archer Jones' The Art of War in the Western World.
• World In Conflict also has several of these, such as Copters ➞ Tanks ➞ Anti-Air ➞ Copters, although there are several types of units available in each case to mix things up. For instance, Medium Copters are more suited to fight against other Copters than Tanks, and Medium Anti-Air can also fire at ground units, but they are both weaker at the above task than their heavy counterparts.
  • Medium Anti-Air is much better at firing at ground units than its heavy counterpart, as the latter is a surface-to-air missile vehicle with no weapon to use against ground units at all.
• The Final Fantasy XII Real Time Strategy Gaiden Game Revenant Wings uses the melee-ranged-flying triangle, plus Elemental Rock Paper Scissors... but Rank 1 espers suck so much that the Rank 2 they're best against can still kill them.
• Many Napoleonic and American Civil War wargames have an Infantry ➞ Cavalry ➞ Artillery setup. It works roughly like this: Infantry will beat Cavalry; during this era, Cavalry were armed for short range combat, and infantry had bayonets for their muskets/rifles that were effective anti-cavalry weapons. Infantry moved slowly and in large formations, making them vulnerable to Artillery fire, particularly canister rounds. Cavalry was faster and could overtake Artillery positions before they got too many shots off. Of course, this ignores factors like terrain and weather, but it's generally sound tactics in most strategy games.
  • Formations also plays a part - infantry at the time had 2 major battle formations - lines and squares. Lines for shooting other infantry, and squares to defend against cavalry.
    • THREE formations, you forgot columns. Say it with me children. "Lines and Columns and Squares". "Oh my!"
• The online MMORPG Runescape has a 'combat triangle' of ranger (archer or other missile attacks) ➞ mages ➞ melee fighters who defeat rangers, etc.
  • This gets complicated when one considers the Protect prayers and that, more often than not, players versed well enough in at least two forms of combat have defensive strategies for just about any kind of attack. For example, a melee fighter could switch to dragon hide (but only with a ranged level of 40) or robes high in magic defense if he's being attacked by a mage.
• The RTS War of the Ring has a simple system whereby Piercing > Crushing > Slashing > Piercing, then Hero > everything
• Age Of Mythology had the same Infantry > Cavalry > Archers > Infantry dynamic as its Age Of Empires predecessor, but also added Mythological units which were effective against all of the regular units and Heroes which were effective against Myth units and vulnerable to regular units, thus adding a superdynamic of Heroes > Myth > Regular > Heroes.
  • Additionally, naval warfare follows a dynamic of Arrow Ships > Hammer/Ramming Ships > Siege Ships > Arrow Ships.
  • And the less-common, but still important, Towers > Infantry > Seige Weapons > Towers.
  • The game does shake things up in several ways, though. For instance, each civilization has certain "counter" units that are effective against their own unit type but (usually) weak to everything else. This is played completely straight with the Greeks (who are, overall, the most generally straightforward civ), and more nuanced in other civs.
    • Example of that nuance: the Norse, an infantry-focused civ, is very vulnerable to archers- except for one of their units, which is specifically resistant to archers. Lacking archers of their own, they make do with a more varied infantry (including throwing axemen, who are good against flyers and infantry), a rather unusual cavalry segment (raiders ruin buildings and are fast, Jarls beat myth units and are effective as normal cavalry), and some of the best seige units in the game. Oh, and, with the right God, their heroes can occasionally summon Myth units out of nowhere.
• In Homeworld a big, lumbering Heavy Cruiser simply can't hit light, maneuverable fighters unless it gets lucky; however, it has no problem hitting much bigger and slower frigates, which melt under its heavy firepower. Strike Craft eat Capships eat Frigates eat Strike Craft. It may not be an artificial stratification, but the tactical balance still exists.
  • The classification isn't exactly size, though. For example, an Ion Cannon Frigate is also armed only with a powerful but unmaneuverable gun.
  • On the flip side, certain units are designed to reverse the triangle; Missile Destroyers are capital ships that fare poorly against frigates, but absolutely annihilate strike craft.
• Vandal Hearts has two such cycles; one explicitly stated in the game's help, and one which becomes apparent through play. The one the help tells you about is Fliers > Soldiers > Archers > Fliers. The one which is revealed through gameplay is Armored > Melee > Magic > Armored.
• PVP in World of Warcraft is a lot like this. It's very difficult for a Warrior to beat a Mage of the same level, but he'll cut through a Rogue like butter. That same Rogue can easily take down a Mage in two or three hits, provided he gets the element of surprise (which he usually does).
• There is a clear explanation of Tactical Rock Paper Scissors in play in a Valkyria Chronicles trailer with Infantry ➞ Anti-Tank ➞ Tanks ➞ Snipers ➞ Infantry.
  • Hmmm... Must have more in common with Red Alert than I thought. There, it's Rifle Infantry > Rocket Soldier/Grenadier > Tank > Hero/Sniper/Light Vehicle > Infantry. There's even a Valkyria Equiviliant. Valkyria > All. Mammoth Tank > All.
• Some time around Soul Calibur 3, Namco started emphasizing Vertical Attack ➞ Horizontal Attack ➞ 8-Way Run ➞ Vertical Attack. It also seems to have an Attack ➞ Throw ➞ Guard Impact ➞ Attack system.
  • Similarly, Dead Or Alive has an Attack ➞ Throw ➞ Reversal ➞ system.
• One of the worst would have to be the game Empire Earth. This troper recalls an entire poster covered in intricate diagrams charting the complicated RPS-style relationships (each of which had about 8 different units) for all 15 epochs. It was quite literally unreadable.
  • Despite the huge number of units, Empire Earth's system was at least somewhat intuitive - it was fairly obvious what the Helicopter Anti-Tank unit was designed to fight, for example. Empire Earth II, on the other hand, streamlined the counter system... by assigning each class of units completely arbitrary bonuses. You essentially just had to take the game's word for it that riflemen were effective against light tanks and that heavy artillery could somehow kill a soldier holding a mortar better than a soldier holding a machine gun.
• A basic concept in Falcom's Vantage Master games. Earth spirits are strong against water spirits, water is strong against fire, fire is strong against heaven (air), and heaven is strong against earth. On the other hand, a particularily powerful spirit can hold its own against a lower-ranking spirit of a 'superior' element.
• Some players of the flight combat MMORPG Air Rivals argue that the character classes were meant to follow this pattern. However, the advantage is very situational and can be overcome with sufficient player ability. Supposedly: Interceptor ➞ Bomber ➞ Artillery ➞ Interceptor.
• Pv P Works somewhat like this in Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE Online, at least in straight DB v. DB Combat. Melee -> Magic -> Ranged. However, whichever demon you have out plays a big part of this. (Including with Mega Tens classic Elemental Rock Paper Scissors theme)
  • From a strategic point of view, tightly clustered units beats rushing, Big Boom beats tight clusters, and rushing tends to allow people to escape the Big Boom.
• Jade Empire had this in combat: a fast/normal attack beats a strong attack by interrupting it before it hits; a strong attack beats blocking by smacking through the block; a block stops fast attacks dead for as long as you hold the block.
• Sega Saturn game Dragon Force (not to be confused with the band DragonForce) had an entire chart showing which unit type beat the other. The fact that samurai were about the only thing strong against dragon troops meant players would find the dragon generals and convert them in a hurry, while farming the few castles that generate dragon crest items to equip the rest of the generals with dragon troops. Samurai generals were kept on hand to decimate enemy dragon forces.
• The Touhou spinoff Patch Con ~ Defend the Library! had melee, danmaku, and fight units. Melee units were fast and trumped danmaku, which had range and trumped flight, which was slow but powerful and trumped melee.
• Truth In Television - Man, where do we start?
  • Real Life partially averts this. A gun is still pretty effective even at close range (though it might be harder to get a shot off in time if the other person's right about to stab you). But yeah, a sword or knife isn't gonna do jack against an attack helicopter or a Harrier jet.
    • Real Life occasionally has GameBreakers arise for a people (and at times, intentionally), but they generally don't completely stay that way and everyone else catches up.
• Depending on the player's skill in build optimisation, Battle Stations mostly follows this. A missile ship will generally beat a ram ship, which will generally beat a tank ship, which will generally beat a cannon ship, which will generally beat a missile ship.
• Civilization also uses this trope through the various eras in the game.
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord uses the Melee -> Ranged -> Magic -> Melee triangle. There are also Generic-type units and traps, which, as one might expect, have no notable advantages or disadvantages against any type.
• Command And Conquer, up to Red Alert 3, at least, has the balenced so that Infantry counters Rocket Soldier counters Tank and Plane, which counter Anti-Air and Anti-Ground, respectively, and Anti-Ground counters Infantry. Ok, so that's a bit convoluted, but you get the idea.
• Cartoon Network had a Gundam Wing-themed flash game that used a system like this. sword -> gun -> laser -> sword, as I recall. Fun game too.
• Battle isle. Tanks beat air defence, air defence beats copter squads, copter squads beats tanks (because the tanks have no aerial attack).
• Bungie's Myth games: dwarves (and other weak short range explosives) beat warriors (melee), warriors beat archers, archers beat dwarves. The gameplay encouraged close formations of dwarves in front, archers behind to shoot over their heads, and warriors behind them both to rush in when things get hairy.
  • Just don't forget to tell your trigger-happy dwarves to stop lobbing grenades into the melee.
• Being a Microsoft real-time strategy title, Rise Of Nations plays this trope absolutely straight. Light infantry beats archers, archers beat pikemen and mounted archers, pikemen beat light and heavy cavalry, light cavalry beats... are you writing this down?
• Team Fortress 2, a First Person Shooter, does this with character classes in two cycles. Demomen counter Engineers, Engineers counter Scouts and Scouts counter Demomen. Spies counter Snipers, Snipers counter Heavies, Heavies counter Pyros and Pyros counter Spies. The Medic and the Soldier are left out of the cycles.

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