Cool. And so, the description.
Most people won't care to read into the full details of the psychological arsenal. So I will divide my descriptions into different depths of observation. Feel free to use the first level observations, or dedicate your patience to know the full depth of the amoral rabbit hole.
---
Level 0 - Make the opponents panic. If they panic, they perish.
[Spoiler]
From my experience, no matter how many opponents I fight, if they panic, there is nothing they can do to deal significant damage to me, as the one man army against a two men army. Once the opponent panics, and they are overwhelmed with choices, confusion, I can merely take a glance at the battlefield, and take the positions which the opponent forgot in their delirium.
The more amoral the opponent, the easier it is to make them panic. Thus, sometimes, it merely takes a reminder of what the opponent did to win, or a reminder of the future the opponent seeks, to break their spirit entirely, and make the battle a slow-paced but an easy victory against an opponent who forgot to control *every* position.
As you can see (unless you're one of those generals that doesn't pay attention to fiction and reality), all of these tactics benefit quick decisions. Thus, having a mobile force is key. Since my strategies rely on the opponents losing control, my key is to contro the situation myself with the least risk of being overwhelmed. Thus, I myself must ensure that I make autonomous and simple yet effective bases. Panic is one reason why I favor a team where every unit is its own clever commander over a bunch of dumb drones that the enemy can learn to counter.
Level up.
---
Reward for reading this far:
[Spoiler]
---
Most people seemed to underestimate the power of psychological warfare, focusing merely on the effectiveness of the destructive weaponry rather than on the intent behind it. I tried to warn them before, but I don't care anymore: All that matters now is that these war generals will fall themselves to their ignorance.
---
Now how am I going to make the opponents panic? What does it mean to "remind the opponent of what they did?" Of the future they can never have?
Level 1. - The harvest of panic
[Spoiler]
In my age, I remember the first battles in Zero-K. And I was surprised to know, but my battles weren't the first battles. Not even close to first. With the experienced generals all having retired... I was dropped in a chaotic wasteland, with all but a few sentinels guarding the battlefields, keeping secrets from me.
I saw how they would often attack opponents without any plans for mercy.
I saw how they would often destroy opponents without care for the future.
I saw how they did not care if they attacked their mirror image or if they attacked a grand opponent.
I knew that even if they were to spare the opponent, there were times when they wouldn't be spared themselves by their own mirror versions. Their... dark shadows.
I mourned and I cried and I lamented and I weaponized those shadows. Now, it doesn't matter anymore to me if they fight or not: They all fall under the psychological nightmares. And the eldritch nightmare is most visible in 1v2 scenarios.
A lot of strategies I saw in the opponents seem to only work once; but over time, their choices degrade their own sanity and the choices of the robots degrade the sanity of the robots. Although robots don't have 'sanity' per-se, I would argue that the more robots attack their own mirror images, the harder it is for the robots to distinguish friend from foe, before they lose the so-called order and control that made robots so powerful during the first wars.
With my tears run dry, I use that rusting trust to win in a 1 v 2. I let the strongest warriors corrode and turn on their allies. I let their insane ideals harm their own teammate. I let their conversations turn into disagreements until none remain: Only two panicking, blabbering mad men that lost control once more.
Then, with a heat ray and an army of flattening forces, I show them their folly.
Their only hope is that I will show them mercy. And I use that. Until even steel becomes whole again. And that knowledge lets me gain a massive advantage in any 1v2 battle, even if I didn't manage to steal my opponent's tactics yet.
Only a fool would strike their mirror image. Using this knowledge, I use the opponent's tactics against his own self, using my previous slain demons- robots as mere tools to restore order. Using this knowledge, I use my opponent's tactics against his own self, using my previous failures and scars- defeats and my hidden forces to endlessly exploit any sign of mental degradation born not from military weakness, but from the degradation of the mind- tactics.
---
Level 2 - Repurposing corroded weapons
---
That reminds me. An informational war is coming.
---
[Spoiler]
I use steel to aid my psychological weaponry. Even the rovers I use are full of soul- intent: The scorchers are an endless reminder... Once I'm there, it means that you've already lost your mexes. The dominatrixes are an endless reminder that I do not wish to kill: Merely to restore your sanity and regain control, that I have no interest in destruction. Badgers are an endless reminder: I do not wish to kill the opponent, I merely wish his maddened forces to stay out of my struggling land. Impalers are a reminder: So long as you have ill intent, your land will be robbed of all prosperity. Ravagers are a reminder: I don't care how many of my forces die, we all know that the battle is over. Rippers are a reminder: Your forces are a forces of chaos, and they will never stay close together.
Fencers are a weapon that requires the greatest psychological knowledge. They tempt the opponent to engage and destroy the fencers directly, only to run into the range of the 3 vulnerable scorchers that tear anything at close range. Back away, and the fencers tear apart the incoming forces. Fencers, by far, show the painful cost of panicking and not thinking the battle through. And... for some reason, their persistent and cheap damage remains effective, so long as the opponent is in disarray.
To know that fencers work well together with "scorcher" requires a deep knowledge of the soul that no amount of weakness in spirit can justify.
That being said. Tanks are still better when trying to crush an opponent with numbers. Tanks are resistant to AOE, tanks scale well with high cost. Tank mass is difficult to lose and easy to maintain. And most of the psychological victories at large scale can be finished with tanks where unit density is high; and rovers are effective where skirmishes leave room only for low unit density.
But tanks are a lot like humans: If they lose sense of who is right and who is wrong, they will all corrode, attack each other, and be as useless as scrap metal.
This knowledge is already far more than what an average lobster is aware of. They will praise one unit, or another unit, but never the spiritual wisdom required to prevent making a deadly mistake. Thus, they sometimes make a mistake of praising a corroding soldier over a knight that will outlive the soldier, and I'm not in a position to judge their worship of raw strength. (My goal is to let the mind prevail; so I have no interest in military victory count, only in military wisdom, which can't be counted. Especially since I was studying military failures above military victories, which is a learning process that goes against the best warlord's mindset of perfection. I... can't have the highest military victory count and the highest mind prowess, anymore.)
---
Level 3 - Converting the broken opponent
[Spoiler]
The final weapon is boring, and it can only be made once. I use the knowledge of the opponent's technology to show the opponent that despite their short-term victories, their long-term future will reflect their delirium in the worst way possible. (So... critique.) This is often enough to make it irrelevant if I win or if I lose the battle, as... like they say, "winning a battle doesn't mean they win the war." If the opponent realizes that you have a greater future than the future THEY pave with their far-deadlier and warmongering weapons, they will give you an instant victory at best; and an easy or a tragic last stand at worst, where regardless if they win or if they lose, the outcome for their forces remains obliteration : doesn't matter if it's you or a stronger warlord who brings them that end.
The very fact that this accumulated knowledge... doesn't make me fear the end... is sometimes enough to make weaker opponents panic and retreat, seeing as my fearlessness of death isn't from delirium but from knowledge of the true inevitable fate.
To counteract this psychological weapon, most try to see how this is a play, or an act, or a lie. And they find none, because what I know is a reflection of the reality I saw many times. And they realize that, indeed, it doesn't matter if I live or die, so there is no fear in me, no fear that would make me make bad decisions, the ones they made themselves many times. Their last choice is to either accept that they won because they burned their future, and to burn away forever, or to weaken their own forces and leave me with the same choice as the choice they faced.
---
Level 4. - Mastery
https://lobotomycorp.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silent_Orchestra
This is a manifestation of a delusion that many have yet to acknowledge.
[Spoiler]
I merely tend to the units to represent the fate of their opponent. To rehearse the memories of the lost battles and the pointlessness of war.
This is how I try to win 1v2's. Even if a stronger opponent defeats me, all I ask of them is that they don't die in a meaningless quest for strength and don't delude themselves that they can win a 1 against 8 billion of brothers. I hope that they do not delude themselves that they can find that one strategy that will let them forever win a 1 battle against 8 billion of their own kind. And this is my only weapon.
By now, I don't even care if my words make sense anymore, or if they do. I let fate itself reveal the truth.
Still, if there is any wisdom in the psychological weapons I revealed, I pray that it gives the much-needed insight about how to defeat the opponents. If you look at any psychological weapon that won in the past, it's all the same: Judgement, karma, penitence, fate. It's just more repeats of the same.
---
Final request
Express the psychological weapons yourself, if you wish. Remember that another war is coming, an informational war. In it, the worst weapons of informational infighting will be revealed, and they will be used as weapons on the battlefield rather than tokens for victory or loss; informational weapons with their own durability, hit points, time cost, resource cost, so on and so forth.
Most people won't care to read into the full details of the psychological arsenal. So I will divide my descriptions into different depths of observation. Feel free to use the first level observations, or dedicate your patience to know the full depth of the amoral rabbit hole.
---
Level 0 - Make the opponents panic. If they panic, they perish.
[Spoiler]
From my experience, no matter how many opponents I fight, if they panic, there is nothing they can do to deal significant damage to me, as the one man army against a two men army. Once the opponent panics, and they are overwhelmed with choices, confusion, I can merely take a glance at the battlefield, and take the positions which the opponent forgot in their delirium.
The more amoral the opponent, the easier it is to make them panic. Thus, sometimes, it merely takes a reminder of what the opponent did to win, or a reminder of the future the opponent seeks, to break their spirit entirely, and make the battle a slow-paced but an easy victory against an opponent who forgot to control *every* position.
As you can see (unless you're one of those generals that doesn't pay attention to fiction and reality), all of these tactics benefit quick decisions. Thus, having a mobile force is key. Since my strategies rely on the opponents losing control, my key is to contro the situation myself with the least risk of being overwhelmed. Thus, I myself must ensure that I make autonomous and simple yet effective bases. Panic is one reason why I favor a team where every unit is its own clever commander over a bunch of dumb drones that the enemy can learn to counter.
Level up.
---
Reward for reading this far:
[Spoiler]
Most people seemed to underestimate the power of psychological warfare, focusing merely on the effectiveness of the destructive weaponry rather than on the intent behind it. I tried to warn them before, but I don't care anymore: All that matters now is that these war generals will fall themselves to their ignorance.
---
Now how am I going to make the opponents panic? What does it mean to "remind the opponent of what they did?" Of the future they can never have?
Level 1. - The harvest of panic
[Spoiler]
In my age, I remember the first battles in Zero-K. And I was surprised to know, but my battles weren't the first battles. Not even close to first. With the experienced generals all having retired... I was dropped in a chaotic wasteland, with all but a few sentinels guarding the battlefields, keeping secrets from me.
I saw how they would often attack opponents without any plans for mercy.
I saw how they would often destroy opponents without care for the future.
I saw how they did not care if they attacked their mirror image or if they attacked a grand opponent.
I knew that even if they were to spare the opponent, there were times when they wouldn't be spared themselves by their own mirror versions. Their... dark shadows.
I mourned and I cried and I lamented and I weaponized those shadows. Now, it doesn't matter anymore to me if they fight or not: They all fall under the psychological nightmares. And the eldritch nightmare is most visible in 1v2 scenarios.
A lot of strategies I saw in the opponents seem to only work once; but over time, their choices degrade their own sanity and the choices of the robots degrade the sanity of the robots. Although robots don't have 'sanity' per-se, I would argue that the more robots attack their own mirror images, the harder it is for the robots to distinguish friend from foe, before they lose the so-called order and control that made robots so powerful during the first wars.
With my tears run dry, I use that rusting trust to win in a 1 v 2. I let the strongest warriors corrode and turn on their allies. I let their insane ideals harm their own teammate. I let their conversations turn into disagreements until none remain: Only two panicking, blabbering mad men that lost control once more.
Then, with a heat ray and an army of flattening forces, I show them their folly.
Their only hope is that I will show them mercy. And I use that. Until even steel becomes whole again. And that knowledge lets me gain a massive advantage in any 1v2 battle, even if I didn't manage to steal my opponent's tactics yet.
Only a fool would strike their mirror image. Using this knowledge, I use the opponent's tactics against his own self, using my previous slain demons- robots as mere tools to restore order. Using this knowledge, I use my opponent's tactics against his own self, using my previous failures and scars- defeats and my hidden forces to endlessly exploit any sign of mental degradation born not from military weakness, but from the degradation of the mind- tactics.
Level 2 - Repurposing corroded weapons
---
That reminds me. An informational war is coming.
---
[Spoiler]
I use steel to aid my psychological weaponry. Even the rovers I use are full of soul- intent: The scorchers are an endless reminder... Once I'm there, it means that you've already lost your mexes. The dominatrixes are an endless reminder that I do not wish to kill: Merely to restore your sanity and regain control, that I have no interest in destruction. Badgers are an endless reminder: I do not wish to kill the opponent, I merely wish his maddened forces to stay out of my struggling land. Impalers are a reminder: So long as you have ill intent, your land will be robbed of all prosperity. Ravagers are a reminder: I don't care how many of my forces die, we all know that the battle is over. Rippers are a reminder: Your forces are a forces of chaos, and they will never stay close together.
Fencers are a weapon that requires the greatest psychological knowledge. They tempt the opponent to engage and destroy the fencers directly, only to run into the range of the 3 vulnerable scorchers that tear anything at close range. Back away, and the fencers tear apart the incoming forces. Fencers, by far, show the painful cost of panicking and not thinking the battle through. And... for some reason, their persistent and cheap damage remains effective, so long as the opponent is in disarray.
To know that fencers work well together with "scorcher" requires a deep knowledge of the soul that no amount of weakness in spirit can justify.
That being said. Tanks are still better when trying to crush an opponent with numbers. Tanks are resistant to AOE, tanks scale well with high cost. Tank mass is difficult to lose and easy to maintain. And most of the psychological victories at large scale can be finished with tanks where unit density is high; and rovers are effective where skirmishes leave room only for low unit density.
But tanks are a lot like humans: If they lose sense of who is right and who is wrong, they will all corrode, attack each other, and be as useless as scrap metal.
This knowledge is already far more than what an average lobster is aware of. They will praise one unit, or another unit, but never the spiritual wisdom required to prevent making a deadly mistake. Thus, they sometimes make a mistake of praising a corroding soldier over a knight that will outlive the soldier, and I'm not in a position to judge their worship of raw strength. (My goal is to let the mind prevail; so I have no interest in military victory count, only in military wisdom, which can't be counted. Especially since I was studying military failures above military victories, which is a learning process that goes against the best warlord's mindset of perfection. I... can't have the highest military victory count and the highest mind prowess, anymore.)
Level 3 - Converting the broken opponent
[Spoiler]
The final weapon is boring, and it can only be made once. I use the knowledge of the opponent's technology to show the opponent that despite their short-term victories, their long-term future will reflect their delirium in the worst way possible. (So... critique.) This is often enough to make it irrelevant if I win or if I lose the battle, as... like they say, "winning a battle doesn't mean they win the war." If the opponent realizes that you have a greater future than the future THEY pave with their far-deadlier and warmongering weapons, they will give you an instant victory at best; and an easy or a tragic last stand at worst, where regardless if they win or if they lose, the outcome for their forces remains obliteration : doesn't matter if it's you or a stronger warlord who brings them that end.
The very fact that this accumulated knowledge... doesn't make me fear the end... is sometimes enough to make weaker opponents panic and retreat, seeing as my fearlessness of death isn't from delirium but from knowledge of the true inevitable fate.
To counteract this psychological weapon, most try to see how this is a play, or an act, or a lie. And they find none, because what I know is a reflection of the reality I saw many times. And they realize that, indeed, it doesn't matter if I live or die, so there is no fear in me, no fear that would make me make bad decisions, the ones they made themselves many times. Their last choice is to either accept that they won because they burned their future, and to burn away forever, or to weaken their own forces and leave me with the same choice as the choice they faced.
Level 4. - Mastery
https://lobotomycorp.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silent_Orchestra
This is a manifestation of a delusion that many have yet to acknowledge.
[Spoiler]
I merely tend to the units to represent the fate of their opponent. To rehearse the memories of the lost battles and the pointlessness of war.
This is how I try to win 1v2's. Even if a stronger opponent defeats me, all I ask of them is that they don't die in a meaningless quest for strength and don't delude themselves that they can win a 1 against 8 billion of brothers. I hope that they do not delude themselves that they can find that one strategy that will let them forever win a 1 battle against 8 billion of their own kind. And this is my only weapon.
By now, I don't even care if my words make sense anymore, or if they do. I let fate itself reveal the truth.
Still, if there is any wisdom in the psychological weapons I revealed, I pray that it gives the much-needed insight about how to defeat the opponents. If you look at any psychological weapon that won in the past, it's all the same: Judgement, karma, penitence, fate. It's just more repeats of the same.
Final request
Express the psychological weapons yourself, if you wish. Remember that another war is coming, an informational war. In it, the worst weapons of informational infighting will be revealed, and they will be used as weapons on the battlefield rather than tokens for victory or loss; informational weapons with their own durability, hit points, time cost, resource cost, so on and so forth.
Zero-K is a free real time strategy (RTS), that aims to be the
best open source multi-platform strategy game available :-)