An important part of game balance is the way counters work. A counter is simply a unit (or character, move, etc) that beats another unit. For example, is ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’, Scissors is a counter to paper.

Defining how counters work is integral for how a game works. For example, Fire Emblem uses a ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ style for counters: Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Spears, and they beat Swords. On the other hand, Advance Wars just has certain units that perform well against each other: Anti-Air kills planes and copters for example, but there’s no set cycle for what beats what.

One important part of counters is the difference between hard and soft counters. A hard counter usually counters another unit in every way. In a head-on assault, the counter will almost always win (unless the player screws up big time).

A soft counter, on the other hand, just has an advantage over the other unit.

A clear example of a hard counter is common in RTS: Anti-Vehicle. Almost any RTS featuring vehicles has anti-vehicle units that deal massive damage, and the vehicle will often be destroyed before it can drive away or kill the AV units.

A good example of a soft counter can be found in Dawn of War II. The Space Marines can build Assault Space Marine squads (ASMs), that can be equipped with Melta Bombs. These do pretty good damage against vehicles, but are definitely not enough to kill it. They have great HP, though, and can keep a vehicle busy while other units shoot at it. They’re a soft counter: They can do pretty good damage against vehicles, but they’re definitely no one-man armies.

Another soft counter the Space Marines have against vehicles is the Devastator Plasma Cannon squad. These squads have to set up their guns and have a very limited firing range, but shoot big blobs of plasma that deal great damage. However, an enemy vehicles can just drive/walk out of its range and easily escape death. But if you combine them with ASMs to keep the vehicle in place, you’ll be able to tear through vehicles.

Now that it’s a bit clearer how counters work, I’ll talk about how they affect game balance next time.