History YMMV / EmpireEarth

** On maps that has no water, Sea King is this. Because there are no submarines to be built, the Sea King and Sea King II becomes an unit that can be used as anti-air fodder or exploration, effectively wasting an unit for mundane purposes.

** Almost every units until epoch 7 becomes this when you reach epoch 8 or higher, as most of their attacks doesn't deal enough damage to be a threat. Worse still, they have no meaning of defending themself against air units, and their armor bonuses are useless.

** The notion of large amounts of Russian forces entering Ukraine was ultimately fulfilled in late February of 2022.

** The AI, even by RTS/4X standards its cheating was infamously bad, which is not a thing one gets to say very often. It was so hated that when Rick Goodman gave an interview saying the AI was the thing he was most proud of, his resignation followed soon after.

** On maps that has no water, Sea King is this. Because there are no submarines to be built, the Sea King and Sea King II becomes an unit that can be used as anti-air fodder or exploration, effectively wasting an unit for mundane purposes.
* UncannyValley: Zooming in on individual units is disturbing. Those that don't appear to have been beaten with an ugly stick bear permanent grimaces, and then there's the fact that their faces are all flat. [[SlasherSmile And then there's Gollett...]]
* WhatAnIdiot: The Novaya Russia Campaign brings us Grigor Stoyanovich, who having built up his empire, wants to leave a son or a daughter to said empire. However, he just so happens to be sterile, and none of the medical technologies can cure his sterility.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to just adopt a kid. In the 1990s alone, there were at least 455,000 orphans in Russian Orphanages, and even if the amount of orphans being adopted is larger than the amount of orphans arriving in orphanages at this point, surely there's at least one he'd find to be a worthy heir.\\
'''Instead''': He leaves the entire country to a robot named Grigor II, which was built as a bodyguard.\\
'''Result''': The AIIsACrapshoot, and Grigor II begins destroying all nations not under his control, and turns Novaya Russia into a fascist regime. Molotov, someone who had previously had UndyingLoyalty towards his homeland, defects and goes back in time.

* HarsherInHindsight: In the first mission of the Russian campaign, the Ukrainian city of Donetsk joins forces with Russian rebels against government forces. This sounds quite less amusing in light of the ongoing Donbass Civil War in real life where Donetsk violently rebelled against and seceded from the Ukrainian government in 2014 after receiving under-the-table support from across the border.
** Ukraine later backing out of its support of Novaya Russia and seeking Western help also ended up as an unintentional parallel to real-world events: the aforementioned civil war was kicked off by public unrest in Ukraine at the government's decision to align with Russia rather than the EU, followed by the new government reaching out to NATO for support in an attempt to leave Russia's sphere of influence.

** The second scenario in the Russian Campaign in the first game. Very few people were able to beat that without using a trick to create a duplicate of the scenario and activating the ability to cheat in it. In short: you have to destroy two of the three capitols, including the rebel's capitol. However, you're swarmed by enemies, including boats that will trigger as soon you decide to go in an area with docks. And once you destroy one of the three main capitols and have access to cyber factories, you have to deal with cyborgs.

** [[RuleOfThree The second scenario of the Greek Campaign]] in the first game, for one simple reason: you don't get any heroes. Almost every scenario of every campaign features a character who is your faction's leader and needs to survive through to the end. Usually, they're specifically Hero units, who are not only much tougher than regular units but also have a HealingFactor to improve their chances of survival, assuming you get them out of danger after losing a battle. Not so in "Warriors from the Sea": you have "Hero" units instead in the form of Pelops and his three sons, who are all just regular units that have been renamed. That means they're much more fragile than other important characters and you basically can't risk using them in any battle for fear that they'll be killed and immediately lose the game for you.

* CrazyAwesome\CreepyAwesome: Grigor II. A super-intelligent, terrifyingly efficent and absolutely ruthless AI and combat robot who leads Russia as the greatest conqueror in history of the world, takes over most part of the Earth in a CurbStompBattle manner, orders genocide of millions without a second thought and has a nice robotic voice. If Molotov had not betrayed him, he would have ruled the world.

** Many units from digital to nano age are strong enough, but the Paladin Cannon, the Colossus Artillery, the Titan Bomber, the Triton Sub and Furies definitely takes the cake, when there's building to destroy or a large group of enemies:

*** And then there's the Triton Sub, a nuclear submarine that can only be researched on the final age. While the unit can't defend itself from frigates or other submarines (as well as Sea King), its range is marvelous. Also, the Triton Sub is a nuclear submarine, which can attack land units and buildings from far away (considering its range of 24), helping transports reach their point of docking. Also, their rockets deal area of damage.
*** Furies are not to underestimate either. At first they seem a normal melee unit... Until you realize that it can self-destruct, clearing a group of enemies and damaging buildings (destroying it as well if many furies are there). The downside of self-destruct is that the furies will never return to field, but requiring only 180 of food and iron makes the unit worthy for sacrifice attacks.

** If assigning an unit reduced recharge time on 200% by a trigger, and repeat said trigger, it will attack very fast (going from units firing a large amount of bullets or rockets, to towers firing faster, to units attacking faster). However, most of the troops won't be able to fire or attack properly, as they have more than a frame of animation to deal an attack.

** The second scenario in the Russian Campaign in the first game. Very few people were able to beat that without using a trick to create a duplicate of the scenario and activating the ability to cheat in it.

'''Instead''': He leaves the entire country to a robot named Grigor II.\\

** Copying the campaigns from the original game into the expansion [[GameBreaker breaks the game]] in strange and unexpected ways, such as building a radar center in AncientGreece, GlassCannon bamboo towers in WWI, Russia sending Zeros in the 21st century, the AI sending Radio Men (weak attack, but has the ability to summon Marines three times) without ever using their ability or even Roman Senators, or simply by giving you access to civ powers unavailable in the original (mind-control towers, nuclear missiles, cliff-climbing infantry...). However, some missions become {{Unwinnable}} as you can no longer build a required unit.

** Copying the campaigns from the original game into the expansion [[GameBreaker breaks the game]] in strange and unexpected ways, such as building a radar center in AncientGreece, GlassCannon bamboo towers in WW I, Russia sending Zeros in the 21st century, the AI sending Radio Men (weak attack, but has the ability to summon Marines three times) without ever using their ability or even Roman Senators, or simply by giving you access to civ powers unavailable in the original (mind-control towers, nuclear missiles, cliff-climbing infantry...). However, some missions become {{Unwinnable}} as you can no longer build a required unit.

** Copying the campaigns from the original game into the expansion [[GameBreaker breaks the game]] in strange and unexpected ways, such as building a radar center in AncientGreece, GlassCannon bamboo towers in WW I, Russia sending Zeros in the 21st century, the AI sending Radio Men (weak attack, but has the ability to summon Marines three times) without ever using their ability or even Roman Senators, or simply by giving you access to civ powers unavailable in the original (mind-control towers, nuclear missiles, cliff-climbing infantry...).

** Copying the campaigns from the original game into the expansion [[GameBreaker breaks the game]] in strange and unexpected ways, such as building a radar center in AncientGreece, GlassCannon bamboo towers in WW I, or the AI sending Radio Men (weak attack, but has the ability to summon Marines three times) without ever using their ability, or simply by giving you access to civ powers unavailable in the original (mind-control towers, nuclear missiles, cliff-climbing infantry...).

* WhatAnIdiot: The Novaya Russia Campaign brings us Grigor Stoyanovich, who having built up his empire, wants to leave a son or a daughter to said empire. However, he just so happens to be sterile, and none of the medical technologies can cure his sterility.
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to just adopt a kid. In the 1990s alone, there were at least 455,000 orphans in Russian Orphanages, and even if the amount of orphans being adopted is larger than the amount of orphans arriving in orphanages at this point, surely there's at least one he'd find to be a worthy heir.
'''Instead''': He leaves the entire country to a robot named Grigor II.
'''Result''': The AIIsACrapshoot, and Grigor II begins destroying all nations not under his control, and turns Novaya Russia into a fascist regime.

* UncannyValley: Zooming in on individual units is disturbing. Those that don't appear to have been beaten with an ugly stick bear permanent grimaces, and then there's the fact that their faces are all flat. [[SlasherSmile And then there's Gollett...]]