History GameBreaker / Civilization

* ''Civilization V'' gives us Bushido, the Japanese special ability, which causes units to maintain full defense and attack stats even while wounded. If this wasn't overpowered enough, it's possible to combine this with the Populism social policy, which grants a 25% damage bonus to wounded units. In other words, damaging Japanese units in these conditions ''actually makes them stronger''. However, the effect is less useful in the ''Gods and Kings'' expansion thanks to the changes to the combat system, and is now actually considered slightly underpowered.
* Great War Bombers can be considered this. If one civ reaches Flight even slightly before other civs do, they'll have a decisive advantage for quite some time. At the time Flight is researched there is nothing on the ground or in the sea that can counter them effectively; it's only once other civs reach Flight that they can build Triplanes to intercept bombing runs from GWBs, but by that time their ground armies have already been blown to dust by the bombers. It doesn't help that ground and sea units with high effectiveness against GWBs, such as dedicated anti-aircraft guns and destroyers, come some techs ''later'' than Flight in the tech tree. The fact that they can be stacked while no other units can gives them a huge advantage.
** In particular, the Americans' B-17s after being upgraded to Stealth Bombers are an unstoppable force.
* The "reduction in gold cost of items" effects, all combined, are very strong in the right hands, as each absolute value adds up with the others instead of multiplying with them. 25% for going 3 social policies into the Commerce branch, 15% for building Big Ben, and 33% for units 2 social policies into the Autocracy branch means a whopping 73% discount for units (would be 58% if the effects multiplied). A civ with a lot of gold in their coffers will be able to pump out a new unit in every city every turn for quite some time, and, with enough cash flow, can keep generating units as needed. And those bombers and stealth bombers from the previous point? Since they stack, you can buy as many of those as you can afford at once, and use them all on the very next turn. However, Autocracy does require entering the Industrial era, so it can't be done early into the game.

* Camel Archers and Keshiks. Camel Archers have a ranged strength of 21, which is more than a ''Cannon'' has [[note]]The cannon has a huge bonus against cities that the camel doesn't, but it's also unable to defend well against melee attacks, and must be set up before firing which amounts to not being able to move and fire on the same turn[[/note]], ''and it can retreat after shooting''. With four movement points, this means you can kill your enemies with impunity until your enemy gets something that can actually catch them with enough health left to kill. By the Modern era, though, they're demoted to GoddamnBats. It's the same deal with Keshiks, only they have less strength, move faster and get half again as much experience as a specialty. The Huns' Horse Archers also operate on a similar principle and are available very early, but they're not quite as powerful for their time.
** Special mention goes to the [[HorseArcher Keshiks]] and Khan combination for the Mongolia, basically Khan, on top of having the effects of the great general is much faster and can heal adjacent units for 15 hit-points a turn. If you combine it with march where the unit heals every turn regardless of action and the Keshiks boost to Khan generation and fast experience, then Mongolia's army basically consists of [[LightningBruiser insanely powerful and regenerating Keshiks on top of always having a great general boost]]. No wonder Keshiks are always the number one when it comes to best unique unit vote.

* Austria's special ability in the ''Gods & Kings'' expansion becomes this once espionage comes into play. When a rival civilization can use spies to flip one of your allied city-states to its side, having the power to outright annex said city-state, putting it permanently into your camp (unless it gets invaded, of course), becomes very useful. A patch released afterwards nerfed it so that you can't annex city-states unless you've been allied with them for 5 consecutive turns. This makes the ability far less useful in multiplayer, since another player can just spend some money on one of the turns and disrupt the alliance.

* Siam's replacement for the University, the Wat, gives bonus culture along with the university's very strong boost to science production. Note that it is a ''replacement'' for the university. In ''Brave New World'', getting the Jesuit Education reformation belief for your religion allows a city to use their faith to build science buildings instantly ("faith buy"). If Siam could get this belief in their cities, they can faith buy a University and construct a Wat in the same city, leading to a science output that puts even Babylon and Korea, the game's resident Science civs, to shame. Firaxis was quick to fix this after ''Brave New World'' came out, but the fix allowed ''any civ'' [[FromBadToWorse to faith-buy a Wat]] with Jesuit Education (and all except Siam could still build a University on top of it). This problem with the fix was also fixed quickly.
* Poland, Babylon, Korea, and Maya gets a lot of flak every time someone used it in multi-player and its not hard to see why when their unique ability are some of the most overpowered in the game:
** Poland's unique ability, Solidarity, gives a free social policy every time someone advances to the next era. That essentially means seven free social policies assuming the player starts in the ancient era, that gives Poland insane versatility allowing them to go whatever victory they desire. Coupled with the Ducal stable which on top of the stable which gives bonus production from pastures and for mounted units as well as their winged Hussar, i.e. a souped up lancer, is it any wonder that whenever fans vote for best civilization, Poland always gets voted as number one.
** Babylon and Korea have one thing in common that makes them much better than almost all other civilization: Science. While the former gives boost to great scientist generation as well as a free great scientist, the latter not only gives tech boost for each time a science building has been built but also gives more science for each specialist and great person improvement. The reason why they are overpowered is that with science, you can unlock more options you want to do with your economy including more buildings, more advanced unit, and lastly score a quick science victory while the other civilization has just learned the agricultural technology. Oh, and how's this for a "coincidence": they're the only two science-based civs in the vanilla game, and they're both DLC. [[BribingYourWayToVictory Subtle]].
** Last but not least, the Mayans where their unique ability, The Long Count, gives a free great person of each kind every time 394 years have passed when the Mayans managed to unlock theology, the unique building, pyramids is just as bad, in addition to giving more faith than shrine, also gives boost to science. Therefore the Mayans are the ideal civilization to not only found a religion but also has the excuse of going wide.

* When it comes to coastal domination victories, no other factions demonstrate it better than England with their brilliant unique ability and possesses some of the best unique units in the game. Their ability is to give naval and embarked units 2 movement as well as an extra spy which is already overpowered but combined with their longbowmen and ship-of-the-line units (The former has 3 range which means it can outrange cities, while the latter is a stronger and cheaper version of the frigate which is already an overpowered unit), you can have an insanely fast and powerful unique units that will guarantee you to become the ruler of the sea.

* The simplified mechanics provide a number of opportunities to completely dominate the AI even on the most difficult setting. And the Leonardo's Workshop wonder is so overpowered, since it upgrades all your existing units. Given the right circumstances, you can destroy any AI. First, always produce as many cheap, weak units as possible. As you're doing this, follow the path on your technology tree to discover the internal combustion engine. Time the building of Leonardo's Workshop so that it occurs right after you discover the engine and gain the ability to build a tank. All those cheap warriors you've been building since the beginning? They're now tanks. The game is over in 2 or 3 rounds max.

** To be fair, you could probably get the same result by building a few nuclear bombs with that uranium. You can research the tech earlier, too.

** Babylon and Korea have one thing in common that makes them much better than almost all other civilization: Science. While the former gives boost to great scientist generation as well as a free great scientist, the latter not only gives tech boost for each time a science building has been built but also gives more science for each specialist and great person improvement. The reason why they are overpowered is that with science, you can unlock more options you want to do with your economy including more buildings, more advanced unit, and lastly score a quick science victory while the other civilization has just learned the agricultural technology.

* ''Civilization IV'' still has the Pyramid wonder, with pretty much the same effect as in ''I'' - it enables all government civics (''Civ IV'''s equivalent of government types). Combined with stone in one's starting area to halve their cost, this changes them from "hellishly expensive" to "doable", and constructing them gives access to the representation civic, which both allows you to increase the population of your largest cities by around 30-50% for the time period you are in and doubles the research produced by scientists.

* The Persians are considered by many to be the most powerful civilization in the game because they possess the Industrious and Scientific traits, which grants them bonuses to both production and research. Additionally, their unique unit, the Immortals, are the single most powerful ancient age offensive unit (it isn't until knights come along that a unit possesses more offensive power). The sheer power of the Immortals makes it easy for the Persians to conquer other civilizations during the ancient age and even well into the middle ages.

* Armies. Not the standard troops you march around the map, but the special unit you can create with a combat-spawned Great Leader. Load them up with three of the same unit for an (invisible) +1 attack/defense/movement bonus, and the combined health of all three units (four with a certain Small Wonder). They also heal incredibly quickly, even in enemy territory (normally impossible without a late-game Small Wonder) and the AI will never attack them unless it has a ''much'' more advanced units (as in, two eras ahead) or literally no other targets on the landmass.

** In particular, the Americans' B-52's after being upgraded to Stealth Bombers are an unstoppable force.

** Last but not least, the Mayans where their unique ability, the long count gives a free great person of each kind every time 394 years have passed when the Mayans managed to unlock theology, the unique building, pyramids is just as bad, in addition to giving more faith than shrine, also gives boost to science. Therefore the Mayans are the ideal civilization to not only found a religion but also has the excuse of going wide.
* And now, we have the "Beaker Overflow" exploit. At it's worst, one could compund enough "beakers" (or amount of science currently outputted) to 100k+ by the later parts of the Renaissance era; that's enough to buy just about every techs in the game. Even slightly tamer methods yields thousands of free beakers, a not insignificant amount in the same era.

** Poland's unique abiliy, solidarity gives a free social policy every time someone advances to the next era. That essentially means free 7 social policies assuming the player starts in the ancient era, that gives Poland insane versatility allowing them to go whatever victory they desire. Coupled with the Ducal stable which on top of the stable which gives bonus production from pastures and for mounted units as well as their winged Hussar, i.e. a souped up lancer, is it any wonder that whenever fans vote for best civilization, Poland always gets voted as number one.

* The Ottoman Empire has the same traits as Persia and for its unique unit gets a cavalry replacement with 8 attack strength- the same number ''Tanks'' defend at. The tech to unlock them comes in the late Middle Ages, when the strongest non-UU unit defends at strength 4. They're expensive, but you won't need to build anything else until the late Industrial era.

** Poland's unique abiliy, solidarity gives a free social policy every time someone advances to the next era. That essentially means free 7 social policies assuming the player starts in the ancient era, that gives Poland insane versatility allowing them to go whatever victory they desire. Coupled with the Ducal stable which on top of the stable which gives bonus production from pastures and for mounted units as well as their winged Hussar, i.e. a souped up lancer, is it any wonder that whenever fans vote for best civilization, Poland always gets voted as number one

* Siam's replacement for the University, the Wat, gives bonus culture along with the university's very strong boost to science production. In ''Brave New World'', getting the Jesuit Education reformation belief for your religion allows a city to use their faith to build science buildings instantly ("faith buy"). If Siam could get this belief in their cities, they can faith buy a University and construct a Wat in the same city, leading to a science output that puts even Babylon and Korea, the game's resident Science civs, to shame. Firaxis was quick to fix this after ''Brave New World'' came out, but the fix allowed ''any civ'' [[FromBadToWorse to faith-buy a Wat]] with Jesuit Education (and all except Siam could still build a University on top of it). This problem with the fix was also fixed quickly.

* Siam's replacement for the University, the Wat, gives bonus culture along with the university's very strong boost to science production. In ''Brave New World'', getting the Jesuit Education reformation belief for your religion allows a city with that religion to buy science buildings with Faith. If Siam could get this belief in their cities, they can faith buy a University and construct a Wat in the same city, leading to a science output that puts even Babylon and Korea, the game's resident Science civs, to shame. Firaxis was quick to fix this after ''Brave New World'' came out, but the fix allowed ''any civ'' [[FromBadToWorse to faith-buy a Wat]] with Jesuit Education (and all except Siam could still build a University on top of it). This problem with the fix was also fixed quickly.

* Camel Archers and Keshiks. Camel Archers have a ranged strength of 21, which is more than a ''Cannon'' has [[note]]The cannon has a huge bonus against cities that the camel doesn't, but it's also unable to defend well against melee attacks, and must be set up before firing which amounts to not being able to move and fire on the same turn[[/note]], ''and it can retreat after shooting''. With four movement points, this means you can kill your enemies with impunity until your enemy gets something that can actually catch them with enough health left to kill. By the Modern era, though, they're demoted to GoddamnBats. It's the same deal with Keshiks, only they have less strength, move faster and get half again as much experience as a specialty.

* Camel Archers and Keshiks. Camel Archers have a ranged strength of 21, which is more than a ''Cannon'' has, ''and it can retreat after shooting''. With four movement points, this means you can kill your enemies with impunity until your enemy gets something that can actually catch them with enough health left to kill. By the Modern era, though, they're demoted to GoddamnBats. It's the same deal with Keshiks, only they have less strength, move faster and get half again as much experience as a specialty.

* The Statue of Zeus world wonder gives you a free Ancient Cavalry unit every 5 turns. Said unit has 3 attack (when the best Ancient Age defender is the strength 2 Spearman), defends at 2, 2 movement points, and best of all an extra hitpoint (in a game where the most a standard unit can have is five). Since retreat odds for mounted units are tied to hitpoint totals, they're notoriously resilient as well, both on the attack and defense.

* The Statue of Zeus world wonder gives you a free Ancient Cavalry unit every 5 turns. Said unit has 3 attack (when the best Ancient Age defenders is the strength 2 Spearman), defends at 2, 2 movement points, and best of all an extra hitpoint (in a game where the most a standard unit can have is five). Since retreat odds for mounted units are tied to hitpoint totals, they're notoriously resilient as well, both on the attack and defense.

* It takes a bit of fine-tuning to pull off correctly, but there exists a strategy called "Power Democracy" which allows a player with said government to run away with the game. Democracy has two significant bonuses: It boosts trade production on all tiles that already produce multiple trade arrows, and it allows cities with a majority of happy citizens and no unhappy ones to grow by one population point per turn for as long as the people get their BreadAndCircuses. By maximizing luxuries over science and taxes and building the right infrastructure (lots of farms and roads / railroads), you'll eventually hit a positive feedback loop once your cities grow large and productive enough to support full-time specialists who produce income and science independently of the cities' own trade output. Once up and running, you won't need to worry about ''conquering'' continents; you'll be swimming in enough cash for your spies to ''buy'' them outright.

* Bombers. The fact that they can be stacked while no other units can gives them a huge advantage. The Americans B-52's after being upgraded to Stealth Bombers are an unstoppable force.
* Also in ''Civ V'' The "reduction in gold cost of items" effects, all combined, are very strong in the right hands, as each absolute value adds up with the others instead of multiplying with them. 25% for going 3 social policies into the Commerce branch, 15% for building Big Ben, and 33% for units 2 social policies into the Autocracy branch means a whopping 73% discount for units (would be 58% if the effects multiplied). A civ with a lot of gold in their coffers will be able to pump out a new unit in every city every turn for quite some time, and, with enough cash flow, can keep generating units as needed. And those bombers and stealth bombers from the previous point? Since they stack, you can buy as many of those as you can afford at once, and use them all on the very next turn. However, Autocracy does require entering the Industrial era, so it can't be done early into the game.

GameBreaker items from the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} series.