So, I have noticed that many people ignore the psychological side of the game. Well when talking to Darth Lupine about this there are a few things that cropped to mind.

So in this session of Discussion Time, let's go over what you do when you use the Psychological game and what you do when it is used against you.

Lupine brought up how people he plays gets flustered at times when he rushes them faster than they expected.

For me, I use the psychological game by showing great apathy. Forcing people to consider if their idea is even a good idea.

Sometimes I will even taunt them a little by telling them what will happen. I.e. "Sure, rush my Frigate, those B-Wings are just waiting for you. Who knows, you may get lucky and I won't have a squadron command"

When the psychological game gets used against me, I try to play it cool but I am susceptible to it. . . Those ISD's are **** intimidating!

My mind games involve being convivial and polite so that everybody has fun, the scene grows, and I make new friends.

My real ace-in-the-hole is a handshake after a match to seal the bond of camaraderie, and to forever snare them in my web friendship.

My mind games involve being convivial and polite so that every has fun, the scene grows, and I make new friends.

My real ace-in-the-hole is a handshake after a match to seal the bond of camaraderie, and to forever snare them in my web friendship.

This deserves requoting.

A few of my opponents have commented that I've put them on the back foot, and even distracted them, by the fact that my Entire force is Coherently Painted - From Ships to Fighters...

... Then of course, is the sales pitch offer that I do commission painting of Squadrons at what I feel is a very affordable rate.

Which has them thinking of that as my painted B-Wing Squadrons go play with their 'stock' toys

I usually subscribe to the Psychological Game. Playing WFB Vampire Counts, my first deployment, always (ALWAYS!) was a 10x10 Block of Zombies... They were cheap as chips, but when you put down a solid block that was almost a foot square, people focused on that for the whole game, which generally let me slip in an advantageous deployment from that point on.

Its much harder in Armada, I've found - at least to that aspect. List production is generally tighter - we don't have the bredth of choices to enable it yet, but I'm sure that will come.

I am intending in doing it a bit sillity with like, say, 10 X-Wing Squadrons one day... I did take 134 points of Squadrons the other day, and it kind of blew my opponents mind...

the ISD is a huge psychological force

I mean, just look at the thing!

I'm really glad I'm used to wargaming, because if I had taken the bait of trying to down that monster I'd've been eaten alive by the GSDs

My mind games involve being convivial and polite so that every has fun, the scene grows, and I make new friends.

My real ace-in-the-hole is a handshake after a match to seal the bond of camaraderie, and to forever snare them in my web friendship.

Insidious!

and I'm not talking about the GSD title

My mind games involve being convivial and polite so that every has fun, the scene grows, and I make new friends.

My real ace-in-the-hole is a handshake after a match to seal the bond of camaraderie, and to forever snare them in my web friendship.

Agreed.

Making use of the psychological game is really contrary to the purpose of the game, which is not to have your spaceships blow up your opponent's spaceships, but in order for you and your opponent to have a good time together.

The psychological game is not one you should play on your opponent, but one that you should use with yourself. In order to play the game effectively, you sometimes have to recognize when an opponent is using it on you, and block his/her chatter out of your head.

For myself, in casual games I let my guard down. It's not worth the mental effort to think about that stuff. A casual game is aimed at playing with ships and upgrades you're not used to, and for even greater camaraderie, because hopefully your opponents is there to just have relaxed fun as well.

Tournaments focus me. I do have my guard up, and I filter out my opponents' chatter out of my brain and pay much closer attention to what I am doing.

but mind games are so fun to do in a casual setting

sometimes, you just want a mentally engaging game to displace any annoying work or productivity related thoughts encroaching upon your weekend

only against veterans, ofc. There's no point to confusing a newer player, unless you hate your gaming community and yourself

Of course, I am considering next time, filling a Hip-Flask with Strawberry Lemonade and reciting the Mentat Creed while I wait for my opponent to have his turn.

I did that at a 40K tournament once before with my Harkonnen themed Imperial Guard army...

I like to think of the game, and my opponent's options, in terms of the choices that I present them. This game is ALL ABOUT choices, so what better front to attack?

Ideally speaking, I never want to give them an easy choice.

There are upgrades, strategies, and deployments that can make the choices your opponent makes ever-so-slightly more complicated, and it's important to note how they can add up.

For instance, it was discussed here a while ago that Q-7 Tractor beams aren't great, since someone can just stack navigation to counteract them. However... if I'm forcing your ship to stack navigation just to achieve a semblance of normal maneuverability, I've just limited your options and made your choices a bit more complicated.

Hammering a ship with TIE bombers prior to an attack, do I spend defense tokens to mitigate the potential criticals, knowing that a ship is going to attack right after? Another difficult choice.

The harder I can make these decisions on *you* the more likely you are to make a mistake, and all it takes is one mistake.

I think many of you are missing something here.

You can have a great game, lots of fun, and even a huge amount of companionable play and at the same time play the psychological game.

I have a autistic disorder that hindered me from learning social skills naturally lime most do in their young age, because of that I found a few things that feel like facts to me.

One of these things is that everything someone does is a form of manipulation. Now everyone initially argues that manipulation is a bad term and should not be used this way. I beg to differ because it is all in the context.

So, how does one manipulate things with everything they do? Simple, you do and say things. Your deployment in this game is a manipulation. Your handshake for a good game is a manipulation. Your play style is a manipulation. It is making the person you are interacting with respond to what you are doing/saying.

So you all can tell me that this is for a fun game and that the psychological side is not a thing that should be done and I will always counter with the fact that, that comment is a form of psychological manipulation.

Mikael, we play often and you do have a form of psychological play. You do things that change and effect my general outlook on the game.

For instance the second to last Red Castle tournament we had (not Sullust), in our second game you used the fact that all you had to do was draw and you would win the tournament.

I mess with Max by saying the word "interesting" though it could mean anything. He has put a spin on it that affects his concept of the game.

Everything one does is a psychological aspect of the game. You just have to see how you do it. Remember, your choices in game are also apart of this.

I think mind games are perfectly valid, Lyraeus. I didn't mean to seem to come down on you. My strategy is based mostly on the fact that I am completely without guile.

I remember the first time I finally beat my Dad at chess(He was awesome), I was 13. When his Psyc tactics had no longer effected me, it was his turn to be nervous. He realized I had done the same to him(with calm and silence). Funny thing was, I learned this from him...

thanks Da.....I miss you

I think mind games are perfectly valid, Lyraeus. I didn't mean to seem to come down on you. My strategy is based mostly on the fact that I am completely without guile.

I did not take you as coming down on me. I was looking at it from the angle that we were talking g about different things.

I can garentee that your play style does effect the opponents psyche

I have a autistic disorder that hindered me from learning social skills naturally lime most do in their young age, because of that I found a few things that feel like facts to me.

One of these things is that everything someone does is a form of manipulation. Now everyone initially argues that manipulation is a bad term and should not be used this way. I beg to differ because it is all in the context.

I agree that the way we interact with the world has an effect on changing it - manipulates it. Some of that is conscious and some of that is subconscious. I would add that much of it is also not rational (in a strict sense) in terms of being egoistic goal-seeking. A very large part of that is about group-making.

Without being an expert in your specific condition, I would hazard to say that the disconnect that you probably have is that you do not have that group-making instinct as part of your sub-conscious operating system. You have to be much more conscious about your social interactions, and by being conscious about it, you probably have a bias towards individual rationalism, and in projecting that motive on others.

For example:

For instance the second to last Red Castle tournament we had (not Sullust), in our second game you used the fact that all you had to do was draw and you would win the tournament.

I think you entirely misunderstood me. You were a point ahead at that time, and I was saying that I was the one who needed to work harder. I was also not thinking ahead, because if I had thought about the fact that you still had to face Michelle and I had to face Max, the likelihood was more in my favor. But I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I was just reflecting on the points at that particular state, in which you had 10 TPs and I had 9.

My purpose in saying that was not to goad you into playing in a more risky fashion - which you did - but to put you at ease. I want you to win a tournament. At the same time, I'm not going to play less competitively in order to give it to you.

So, I'm guessing you mistook my motivational structure. As the TO of that tournament, and as a community-builder, I want everyone to have a good time. Those outcomes are more important to me than winning the medal. That extra medal doesn't mean as much to me as it would for someone else. Also, it just doesn't feel all that satisfying to me to drag home all the medals from the tournaments that I run.

At the same time, I don't want you to beat me. We have too much banter on the line. I'm going to play hard to prevent you from routing me. I fully expected you to run your gun-line along your side of the table and brutalize my VSDs as they came to you. In the meantime, I'd let Demolisher grab up as many tokens as she could. I didn't expect you to play it risky and turn into the teeth of my VSDs!

In sum, the psychological game is very intricate and has to do with a lot of broader motivations. Focusing on people's narrow desire to win a game and manipulating them into a state of discomfort may be effective for your own objective of winning the match, but I think it frustrates wider goals and (conscious or subconscious) motives for community.

the ISD is a huge psychological force

I mean, just look at the thing!

I'm really glad I'm used to wargaming, because if I had taken the bait of trying to down that monster I'd've been eaten alive by the GSDs

Not to derail the thread, but is that a cloaked Yavaris, Fickle?

Wrong tournament Mikael. The one where Shmitty left after Chris had to leave. You were running the huge Rhymerball and 2 VSD and I was using 3 Whales.

The point of this topic is to see how people interact and use the psychological side of the game to their style of play. As we have seen it ranges from the friendly to those who go deeply into it.

Wrong tournament Mikael. The one where Shmitty left after Chris had to leave. You were running the huge Rhymerball and 2 VSD and I was using 3 Whales.

The point of this topic is to see how people interact and use the psychological side of the game to their style of play. As we have seen it ranges from the friendly to those who go deeply into it.

Okay, fair enough. My points still capture what I mean to say: that the 'psychological game' has complexities and unknowns in it that can easily make it a counterproductive sphere to dabble in too aggressively.

I would also say that you do dabble in it really aggressively, especially when it's not your strongest suit in the wider scope of things. While it does achieve what you want to achieve in terms of the short-term goal of winning the game - it makes people unsure of themselves, making them second-guess what they're trying to do, etc. - engaging in it as bluntly as you do is also off-putting and makes people distrust your broader motives.

Wrong tournament Mikael. The one where Shmitty left after Chris had to leave. You were running the huge Rhymerball and 2 VSD and I was using 3 Whales.

The point of this topic is to see how people interact and use the psychological side of the game to their style of play. As we have seen it ranges from the friendly to those who go deeply into it.

Okay, fair enough. My points still capture what I mean to say: that the 'psychological game' has complexities and unknowns in it that can easily make it a counterproductive sphere to dabble in too aggressively.

I would also say that you do dabble in it really aggressively, especially when it's not your strongest suit in the wider scope of things. While it does achieve what you want to achieve in terms of the short-term goal of winning the game - it makes people unsure of themselves, making them second-guess what they're trying to do, etc. - engaging in it as bluntly as you do is also off-putting and makes people distrust your broader motives.

Seems odd to me. I am friendly and I help people but in a tournament I will use what skills I have. We have played teaching games before. We go over everything or try to.

In casual games I will make remarks and they don't all mean things. If people are questioning my motives than I am doing it right. If they are always questioning them, than they need less paranoia. . . I want the community to grow.

Seems odd to me. I am friendly and I help people but in a tournament I will use what skills I have. We have played teaching games before. We go over everything or try to.

In casual games I will make remarks and they don't all mean things. If people are questioning my motives than I am doing it right. If they are always questioning them, than they need less paranoia. . . I want the community to grow.

All I will say on the matter is this: you're on the autism spectrum that gives you some tremendous talents, but also gives you some blind-spots. Social interaction is not your strong suit, and engaging in psychological manipulation does not play to your strength in terms of the wider goals. Going back and saying that people just need to be less paranoid makes it seem like such a simple thing, when there's a subtle range of complexity and subconsciousness there.

Now if you feel yourself justified, then go ahead. I'm just saying that you're probably making a social mistake.

I'm not sure that I'm playing mind tricks....I just play a certain way regardless of my opponent.

I'm extremely self confident, very self assured, and I always have a plan, and a backup to the plan. I'm extremely aggressive and play at flank speed, usually. Not unheard of for my gsd's to be shooting black dice on turn one, should the opponent come too close.

No matter what is going on, winning or losing, I never lose that calm, assured air of command. Maybe it's all those years in the Army. It does seem to throw people off quite a bit. I've had people try to psych me out, to which my reply is a calm, confident 'we will see'. Works wonders.

So there's my two Imperial Credits, for what's it worth. Going trooping tonight!

Admiral Wolf, out.

the ISD is a huge psychological force

I mean, just look at the thing!

I'm really glad I'm used to wargaming, because if I had taken the bait of trying to down that monster I'd've been eaten alive by the GSDs

Not to derail the thread, but is that a cloaked Yavaris, Fickle?

that is the product of the flimsy connecting bit on the cr-90s and nebs snapping off in the peg

but yes, cloaked Yavaris and a cloaked CR-90a with TLRC

the ISD is a huge psychological force

I mean, just look at the thing!

I'm really glad I'm used to wargaming, because if I had taken the bait of trying to down that monster I'd've been eaten alive by the GSDs

Not to derail the thread, but is that a cloaked Yavaris, Fickle?

that is the product of the flimsy connecting bit on the cr-90s and nebs snapping off in the peg

but yes, cloaked Yavaris and a cloaked CR-90a with TLRC

Happened to 2 of my CR90's. I had to glue them to a peg. . .

the ISD is a huge psychological force

I mean, just look at the thing!

I'm really glad I'm used to wargaming, because if I had taken the bait of trying to down that monster I'd've been eaten alive by the GSDs

Not to derail the thread, but is that a cloaked Yavaris, Fickle?

that is the product of the flimsy connecting bit on the cr-90s and nebs snapping off in the peg

but yes, cloaked Yavaris and a cloaked CR-90a with TLRC

Sweet! I figured that was probably the case, but given that the subject of the thread is on psychological games, having a cloaked harbinger of death seemed apropos.

ironically, cloaking Yavaris had the opposite impact that you'd expect

the 3 surviving ships were the ones with actual models on them

I tossed the cloaked TLRC Cr-90a for fodder (had another one, with an actual model) and then the ISD went just full **** throttle for Yavaris

I think it was due to trauma from our previous engagement at a tournament, where Yavaris took on the gencon special and literally won the game by herself (counting B-wings as an extension or her being )

So, I'd like to chip in. I'm not great at pysch warfare, but I can appreciate it. Esp in a competitive game.

However, there are a few things that cross the line. Recently, there have been some new core set era newbies coming to play Xwing with us.

They literally chatter non-stop, for 75 whole minutes. To themselves. Saying, "I should have done this move and I would have totally destroyed your ship." (No, you have a 25% statistical chance of rolling those hits and I have a 85% of rolling at least one evade). "Or narrating everything, "Okay, now you're shooting me, and I'm shooting you. And nex tturn you'll be on the rock. (didnt happen again, I out maneuvered him.)

I still beat him anyways. While he literally talked to himself. Because in all of his talk, he never actually left any space for anyone else to jump in.

After the game I really just wanted to leave cuz he was being literally annoying.

--

Also, if you try psych warfare in a casual game against a person you don't know, that's extremely rude imo, and you are likely making a strong enemy.

This is a game. Your worst enemies aren't the ones who will beat you. They're the ones who will refuse to play with you and tell their friends also about the negative experience they had playing you.