Boring but Practical/Video Games/Turn-Based Strategy


 * In strategy games, the basic combat unit is usually more efficient than the larger (and cooler looking) counterparts. Tournament players will often make heavy use of rather basic units in general. Any type of rush depends on this trope.
 * Again, in strategy games, Worker Units. These guys have little or no combat capability and present easy targets for your enemies, but without them, you have no economy, and without an economy, you have no army.
 * In Final Fantasy Tactics, you have the option to equip yourself with impressive summons and fantasic magic spells. But nothing is as damaging as making Ramza a monk and just punching your way to victory.
 * The ninja works well here too, because of its ability to dual wield. Or you could learn the dual wield ability and give it to the monk, at which point they start using their quite painful punch attack twice.
 * The second punch has the added bonus of bypassing the game breaking defensive ability of Shirahadori/Blade Grasp.
 * The Knight and the Archer are the first two warrior classes you unlock and have relatively mundane abilities of breaking equipment and charging attacks respectively, which pale to the flashy things that geomancers, and ninjas can do. However, equip an archer with Knight powers and concentration and you have a unit who can reliably strip the enemy of his equipment from a distance.
 * At least in A2, a Time Mage is at top efficiency when it spends most of its turns using Haste, its most basic spell.
 * The Worms series is famous for its more outlandish weapons, but the simplicity and utility value of weapons like the Shotgun (fires in a straight line, two shots, a maximum of 25 damage each with a correspondingly small blast radius) frequently outweighs this. Particularly given that big, flashy weapons have a higher chance of backfiring or at least damaging the shooter. The Bazooka and Grenade also demonstrate this, but nothing fits the description of Boring but Practical quite like the Shotgun.
 * Strangely enough, A Space Oddity turns this into Awesome and Practical by having the Shotgun as the weapon in the final minigame, where you take down UFOs with it, because the Worms have decided that their high-tech weaponry isn't working, and they decide to get out "the trusty shotgun".
 * The Shotgun is practical because it actually subverts many conventions of the game, which is the "you cant move after you shoot" and "You can only hit one target per turn". With a Shotgun, and aiming skills, you can either bunge two Worms in one turn, push two onto landmines, blow up two Oil canisters, knock two opposing worms into very bad positions, do any combination of those, or just one and go back into hiding. The tactical flexibility of the Shotgun is what makes it practical.
 * The Fire Punch and the Dragonball. They're melee attacks that inflict a consistent 25 and 30 damage, respectively—keyword being consistent (contrast other weapons, which inflict varying damage), so hitting an opponent that has less health than either weapon will take off is a guaranteed kill. Alternatively, you can use these attacks to knock your opponent into a mine, or better yet, off the screen or into the water.
 * In the Fire Emblem series, due to the high cost and limited usage of stronger weapons, the basic iron and steel weapons remain an important part of your arsenal throughout the entire game thanks to their low cost and better durability.
 * In the Nintendo Wars series, basic Infantry spam backed up by some artillery is extremely viable in most installments. And the light tank is much more cost-effective against other units than its bigger brethren, and is faster than them to boot. There's a reason one of the most widespread tactics is known as the Mech Rush.
 * Game Boy Wars 3, however, avoids this problem. It's more susceptible to car spam, but at least cars are far more fun due to being fast in return for infantry class defense. A list of reasons:
 * Materials. This hinders spams in general because the price gaps are considerably smaller.
 * One-Hit Kill potential against foot soldiers. The third cheapest unit out of about 50 units (granted, some are stronger or more specialized rehashes), can kill the basic Infantry on Roads. That says a lot, especially when the AA Tank can One-Hit Kill the Mech on a Forest.
 * Inexpensive cars up against the infantry's low movement. Enough said, explained above if necessary.
 * Cars also share the same armor class as infantry. This does make them susceptible to units that also deal heavy damage to them, but weapons like the Mech's bazooka are rendered useless against the aforementioned 3rd cheapest unit, which happens to be such.
 * Most units have a machine gun anyway. Convoys, which are used to transport infantry and can be used as meatwalls for sponging attacks from spammed units, also can smack infantry, even if they can expect some punishment in return.
 * Indirects, the main crutch of infantry spamming's overpoweredness in the series, are generally expensive. This is to stop them from abusing their ability to move and fire on the same turn that they have here, so that they have to be saved up for, and building one has them possibly put on the bad end of an Anti-Tank shot from any number of units, particularly bad for them when the Humvee and IFV can One-Hit Kill them on Roads and a Convoy-delivered Mech still doesn't need to use adjacent liberties to attack them.
 * Scratch that. Even Game Boy Wars 3 isn't exactly immune. Watch as a Mech flood staves off a ridiculous property advantage for a while before indirects come in and start obliterating them.
 * In the Original Generation Super Robot Wars games, one of the best weapons to upgrade is the M95 Machine Gun, a basic weapon that a dozen or so of the Real Robot units get. Why? A few reasons: One, it's the cheapest weapon to upgrade in the game, this means it can be fully upgraded at a much lower cost than some of the pricier, flashier attacks. Fully upgraded its base damage is 4950, which while isn't as powerful as many of the super strong attacks, is still a very respectable amount of damage. Plus, fully upgraded weapons have a higher Critical Hit rate, not only that but they have 15 shots in them each, and can be used after moving. Throw these on the Real Robot Mauve Shirt characters and have them clear the way with ease.
 * Similarly, the "Steel Knife" is the blandest, boringest, but most practical of the melee weapons to upgrade. It's the cheapest for what you get, works well in any terrain, AND has some impressive to-hit and crit modifiers.
 * If you're trying to go for a rush strategy in Lords Of The Realm 2, an army of around 50 peasants (50 being the minimum army size) makes for an effective battle of attrition starter, as armies can destroy fields that take several turns to reclaim. If you want something more armed, Macemen are great as they are the second cheapest unit to make and are the second fastest. They can also hold their own pretty well.
 * Game mechanics cause this to be very prevalent in Tactics Ogre. From beginning to end, one of the most effective units in the game is the humble archer, a low level female unit with very high dexterity (ranged attack), the ability to traverse watery terrain, and amazingly high avoidance. Ranged attacks are at a great advantage because any time a melee class attacks an enemy, the enemy will be allowed a counterattack while ranged units never get counterattacked, resulting in far less damage taken by ranged units. Not only that but the game extends bow range according to terrain height so that archers can easily achieve the longest range if they get into a high spot (far longer range than mages, at least until you get the gamebreaking spells at the end of the game), shoot over obstacles, and their avoidance means they will even dodge a great many attacks against them! Even when an army of angels, dragons, hydras, golems, and terror knights are at your disposal end game, many players opt for a full third of their attack party being archers.
 * In Sword of the Stars, the simple Assault Shuttle buildable from the very start will remain your primary option of anti-planet attack for a long while. Bio-missiles can be vaccinated against, the really large anti-planet weapons like the Siege Driver are Awesome but Impractical because they are too far up the tech tree to be available quickly and the majority of ship-to-ship weapons aren't too good for bombardment, leaving the Assault Shuttle as the most reliable option - at least until Argos Naval Yard introduced the Advanced Assault Shuttle.
 * The Armor Piercing Mass Driver is a strong example. A medium-mount weapon that only requires you to research two technologies, and can be a major part of the armament of an endgame dreadnought. It needs a few upgrades to keep up with the flashy energy weapons, but the same exact turret can be the backbone of your arsenal throughout most of the game. It doesn't have any of the specialties of various energy weapons, or the sheer damage and impact of non-piercing drivers, but it's reliable against most targets and easy to get.
 * Medium mounts in general might qualify. Except for missiles, they're generally blander than others. Most medium mounts simply deliver moderate damage at moderate range. Small mounts have a monopoly on point defense and tend to have long-range precision weapons. Heavy mounts range from being like the medium version, but all-around better, to a number of more exotic possibilities. Exotic special mounts are often the entire point of a dedicated ship. Nonetheless, many ships carry enough medium mounts that they comprise a substantial fraction of the ship's damage output.
 * Out of the 6 species, this is a theme for the Tarkas. Their hyperdrive is the simplest FTL method to use (Other species methods can be faster, but require certain conditions to do so), they don't get any unusual bonuses or mechanics other than cheaper cruisers, and their ship designs emphasize the "basic" sections rather than sections associated with special weapons, in addition to general toughness.
 * In Vanguard Bandits, there's the Turbulence attack. It's easy to get stat-wise and time-wise, its attack costs are very reasonable and it has a large range. Used wisely, it can completely incapacitate anyone, even the Final Boss. But it does embarrassingly low amounts of damage even with high attack and is one of the dullest looking moves in the game.
 * Sensei's CO Powers in Advance Wars 2 and Dual Strike, which airdrops infantry (or Mech in the case of the SCOP) units with 9 HP on all cities under your control. They're the most basic units in the game, but depending on how many cities you have, it can easily turn into a widescale Zerg Rush.
 * In Stars!, the Colony Ship hull. One of the smallest and very fragile. With a fuel pod (both zero Tech Level) instead of colonization module, it has the greatest fuel/mass ratio (until matched by Privateer) and engines/mass ratio among the cargo-carrying hulls. Which gives it the best cost efficiency at improving fleet range (unless a fleet can generate fuel) - and the longest bursts of excessive speed. Both advantages are desirable in a train for interceptor fleets (carry fuel for warships, after a battle collect salvage, split as few as needed and send to your colony, send back refueled replacement from a base ) and the latter is what a ship needs to catch fast incoming mineral packets that in early game are very lethal, but tiny . Early on, there's also not much cargo anyway and short detection range leaves little time to intercept packets or ships. And of course, long-range freighters speed up the colonization. Of disadvantages, Colony hull costs more Germanium, (which tend to be scarce in early game), but may repay it by retrieving salvage from border conflicts and preventing setbacks from packet impacts. It cannot mount anything upgradeable other than engines (until a better fuel pod much later), but doesn't need extras either. The result: usually it's a good idea to mass produce ships on the weakest and most functionally limited of common hulls, from the start and at least until development of fuel-producing ships and/or economical fast engines.
 * In the mid-/late game it's typically replaced with Privateer (including colonizer variant) — also nothing grand except same good fuel per mass, plus up to 3 pods; has cargo volume more suitable for mid-game loads, and this time overspends Ironium (usually scarce after warship production spins up).
 * Spearmen in Master of Magic. Of course, having the least upkeep would make them go-to "militia" (to count against unrest and hold less-defended places that if attacked will be defended more with battle summons and other spells) and makeshift scout anyway, but not only that. They have the same low defence as Swordsmen, except no shield against ranged attack, but are somewhat harder to one-shot with most attacks (especially low-powered Mind Blast AI loves too much) - not only do they have 8 total health, but the attacker have to go through more defence rolls. And when they finally level up for 2 Health, this advantage doubles too. Having 8 figures instead of 6 in other infantry (for most races) means each receives buff from racial bonuses, advanced materials, spells, etc. Extra attacks (Thrown for Barbarian, Ranged Magical for Dark Elf, Fire Breath for Draconian) are also per figure. It adds up.