Monday, February 28, 2000

Psychological Warfare
- Zero @ 22:24 pm EST

Like it or not, humans are not the same as computers. We cannot think as fast, or move as fast. But we are not without our own strengths as well. Humans can adapt quickly and have a brain to think independently. Unfortunately the human mind can also be manipulated as well. It is my job to help you exploit that advantage.

How? Simple grasshopper, there is an aspect of the game many forget when they play. It is simply called psychological warfare. Tap into the human psyche and make it twist and turn the way you want it. After all, if you control the opponent, you have already won.

You are mainly trying to bring out two feelings in your opponent. They are paranoia and fear. Paranoia will distract the opponent, and fear will cause him to hesitate. In Real-Time Strategy games there are many ways to make use of this. For example, you can let the enemy 'accidentally' see an army rushing towards his base. When he sees this, he might either run his army back to his base or build up defenses. You are now wasting his time and/or money. You're winning already.

Or you can send a small force to attack one of his smaller bases on the fringes. He could both panic and send the majority of his army to save his base or send a small part of them. Simply kill some peons and run away. Repeat this many times. These will both make the enemy frustrated to tears and distract him, or force him to station a force there. As you can see, just try to guess what would annoy the hell out of you and do it before the enemy can do it to you.

However, psychological warfare does not have to remain in the game itself. By talking to your opponent enough, you can force a reply out of him. Or not. What you can do is continually bother him about how you will attack his flank. Of course, he'll at first dismiss it, but when you do attack his flank, it will scare the bejeezes out of him. Now you have the upper hand in psyche warfare. When you say you'll attack him from the side, should he believe you, or run to another position? Or should he attack you right now and catch you expanding. Basically, you have just caused the enemy to go from one narrow strategy to choosing three different ones. It lowers his chance greatly of finding out your main goal.

Now that you have a clear grasp of psyche warfare I'll leave you to experiment. However, after playing select RTS games, I've devised [or stolen] some of my own strategies.

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