Soul Nomad & the World Eaters makes use of a Melee > Ranged > Magic > Melee triangle.

Which can be later powerful enough to make up for any deficiencies in the structure of any of your armies. Crossbowmen are very similar, trading fire rates for anti-armour bonuses, damage, and making friendly fire even more likely with them firing in a line as opposed to an arc to their targets. They also can damage their allies if they are too close to their firing target. Archers can attack from a far range, and are considered Game Breakers unless the 'Weaken Archers' option is on, but do very poorly in melee and are vunerable to pretty much all damage, making the terrain between them and their enemies absolutely vital in ensuring their safety. Knights are more damaging and hardier versions of Cavalry, with their higher defense and more damage, but are slower. but it damages them as well, making them much less effective against hardier and more armoured enemies or spearmen, and it doesn't work against other horsemen.

Cavalry are fast, will beat archers in melee, fight best on soft terrain, and can charge the enemy down if they move past them with enough momentum.

Heavy infantry are really slow and are good on soft terrain (plains, roads), but are very durable and have a good chance against anything they get into melee with. Spearmen are less overtly good in hard terrain, but do well also and gain damage bonuses against enemy cavalry and ignore some armor. Light infantry will beat nearly everything in the hard terrain (forests, shrubland, hills), especially forests, which will give them defensive bonuses while it hurts the effectiveness of everything else and makes them invisible until the enemy is near enough В— and if no one goes into the forest, the light infantry still can charge from it while the enemy is near and get a large enough damage bonus which will likely have them win unless very outnumbered. Terrain matters very much to the success of all units. Very played with in King Arthur The Roleplaying Wargame.Related to Situational Damage Attack in that some kind of attack may be more effective to enemies with a certain inferior attribute. But the rock-paper-scissors relationship is often much more explicit, and much purer, in games.Д¬rippling Overspecialisation can sometimes be used to enforce this relation. To a limited extent, this can be Truth in Television there are plenty of examples of, say, medieval heavy cavalry getting skewered by pikemen, who would in turn be meat on the table for a bunch of men with crossbows, who would themselves be easily trampled by said cavalry before they could load their next shot. In Strategy games specifically, Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors provides an easy discouragement to the Zerg Rush, as a player building a massive swarm of identical, low-cost, and moderately-powerful units (hoping to wipe out enemy forces with sheer numbers alone) may suddenly find themselves annihilated by a small number of units exploiting their army's common vulnerability. Likewise, tanks armed with anti-tank cannons or rocketry won't necessarily have their usual advantage against infantry as would tanks armed with machineguns and flamethrowers, and machinegun-toting tanks will also be at a disadvantage against other tanks with cannons or rockets. For example, tanks may have an advantage against infantry in general, but equipping said infantry units with anti-tank rocketry can level the playing field by creating a Mutual Disadvantage, where both units get an attack boost against each other (especially if the quicker infantry gets to shoot first). It is important to note that, sometimes, Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors can be applied separately to an individual unit's offensive and defensive potential, which makes the Meta Game more complicated because the relationships are twofold.

Rogues are sneaky and can get the jump on Mages and kill them before they can fight back.

Mages have powerful distant magic that can kill Warriors outside their range.

Warriors are well-armed and well-trained fighters who overpower and outlast Rogues.

Or in fighting games, beat-em-ups, and hack-n-slashers: Machine Gunners Artillery Bombers Battleships) defeat ranged units. Infantry Jeeps Fighters Submarines) defeat siege units.

Snipers Tanks Gunships Cruisers) defeat fast units.

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