Yes, believe it or not, there are more ways to torture an opponent besides the more common, violent ones.

Make your oponent furious

Every player enters a battle with a certain state of mind, mostly this state changes into an “I’m gonna kill you for that” or “World is pink and I’m victorious”. What you want to do is make your oponent furious or without any nerves left, so that even if he does manage to win the game he will still remember you in the future encounters. This works best if you are playing more games than just one. Everyone have a certain line, until they cross it they are calm and collected, so all you have to do is think of a way to make your opponent lose his "balance". Make him start making mistakes because he wants to get even with you and repay the torture you’ve caused him.

Make him start making mistakes because he wants to get even with you and repay the torture you’ve caused him.

How to do it? There are many ways, starting from saving a specific unit and returning it safely back to base after each battle, hitting a "blind spot" in his defense, repeating a certain irritating action, etc. Perhaps the most common way to cut down your opponent’s nerves is harassing him. You can do this by using your ground units or your air units, the key is in hitting his mind as well as the target in the game. So what exactly can you do?

Scouting is the first thing you can do. Whether it be a single worker used to run around his base or a military unit put on patrol to guard the free expansions.

Drop!

Players do not like their build orders being seen and they do not like having to send several workers to finally make that god damn expansion. On top of this list is probably one thing - sending a drop (whether it be a fast one or some mass drop later on) and getting caught on your way to the destination. The whole idea behind drops is that they allow you to attack something your opponent doesn't expect you to - well, once he sees that drop it ain't much of a secret any more, now is it?

Nobody likes to see his base being attacked by an annoying group of units that stands no chance against his army in an open fight.

Perhaps a deadlier thing you can do is counter-attacking. Quite often you can do a lot of damage with a small group of units just because your opponent’s army is outside of his base. There are three good things when it comes to these sneaky attacks. First one is that you can very often make your opponent retreat to his base and give you precious time to organise a defense against his delayed attack. Second one is that you can cripple his economy by destroying vital buildings before he manages to return to the base.

Counter attack!

Third one is that you hit his nerves as well, nobody likes to see his base being attacked by an annoying group of units that stands no chance against his army in an open fight and yet they are strong enough to do too much damage unless they are stopped as soon as possible.

Counter-attacks can sometimes lead to strange situations, for example: many maps have starting locations for the main base on a higher ground, thus giving you a certain advantage when defending. Scenario that can happen here is that you sneak into enemy's base while his units are outside and then he has to face a tough choice - to either try and save his base, knowing you have the higher ground as the "defender", or he can run to your base and start an elimination race.

This can be called playing with fire, if you want your opponent to do something then make sure you will be able to handle it.

Setting traps opens up a different story as it is one of those things that can make you grab an easy win and give your opponent a certain "phobia" for the future encounters. You can do two basic types of traps. First option is creating a weak spot in your defense to lure your opponent into attacking it. When players see an opportunity like that they usually seize it. How to do it? You can set up a small defense for your base and hide majority of your army somewhere nearby, once your enemy thinks he'll have an easy go you surprise him with your army. This can be called playing with fire, if you want your opponent to do something then make sure you will be able to handle it - last thing you want is to lure your opponent into doing a rush and then losing to it.

Surprise your opponent!

Keep in mind that such traps will usually work against aggressive players, if you're dealing with a camping nanny - forget about it and do something productive.

Your second option comes into play when you're the one who's doing the attack. What you want to do is put pressure on one spot while preparing the actual attack on the other. However, this trick doesn't apply only to attacking with your army, it can be used to hit your opponent's economy, too - how to do it?

When your workers are harassed you usually send them to the closest expansion to do their work in peace, by knowing this you can take out your opponent's economy

When your workers are harassed you usually send them to the closest expansion to do their work in peace, by knowing this you can take out your opponent's economy in a deadly swipe. The key to success lies in two things, managing to manipulate enemy's workers into running away to another expansion and having your units await there to kill the both present and newly arrived workers in a few deadly shots. There is nothing so pleasant like knowing you have successfuly neutralized an attempt to damage a part of your economy - on the other hand, losing entire economy in the next moment doesn't feel so good at all.

Built up traps!

How many types of traps can be made depends entirely on your creativity and your opponent's capability of detecting them - keep in mind that good traps are those that you can't see until it's too late.

When it comes to playing with your opponent's nerves drops can be one of the most annoying things. Quite often you can do more damage by sending several miniature drops at key locations than sending all those units at once.

The trick is in knowing what his base allows you to do and what you want to do. By “allows you to” I mean how well is his base fortified, if it is defenseless you can send a bigger drop and wipe out his base.

The key is in knowing what his base allows you to do and what you want to do.

Drops can be quite useful if you're having problems with your opponent's defense. You can lure his army to the back of his base while sending your main force on the front gate, thus making him regret sending all of his units away from there (it's a common mistake players tend to do - when they see a drop they often send much more units to deal with it than it's actually needed).

Who said drops are about dropping units? They can be devastating even when there isn’t anything to be dropped… How to make it work? The key is in sending a bunch of empty dropships to your enemy’s base and making sure he “accidentally” sees them, he will immediately send his forces to defend the base... from nothing, while your real army strikes down the actual target. "Falling" for tricks like that is never a pleasant experience.

Our first reaction is always the strongest, as the feeling repeats itself it slowly loses the initial strength.

I’m sure you all know the story of a young shepherd who yelled “wolf, wolf!” just for fun to make the other villagers run to help him - and then when a real wolf came nobody helped him…This is something that is quite good to know, our first reaction is always the strongest, as the feeling repeats itself it slowly loses the initial strength. How will your opponent react the first time he sees red dots on mini map getting close to his base?

Dots on the mini map?

Now imagine your opponent seeing those same dots for 20th time during the game…

The key is in putting your air units (ones you don't really need at the moment) on patrol that is beyond your enemy’s reach and yet on a route that comes close to his base every once in a while. If your opponent is good it will cause him minor distractions, but the key element is that this gives you an amazing advantage. Besides bitting your opponent’s nerves down this also allows you to do an actual drop because you know your opponent won’t pay much attention to red dots on mini map as much as he would in a normal scenario.

Last on this list is something people tend to overlook during the games - making a hit. You will often see players focusing their attacks on a single building or a unit and then losing much more from what they've gained.

Once your opponent figures out what are your targets he will protect them and feel quite satisfied if you fail in destroying them

Once your opponent figures out what are your targets he will protect them and feel quite satisfied if you fail in destroying them, but last thing he wants to see is you changing your target into something else, even if it is utterly silly. What you want to do is try to proceed with your plan, if it doesn't work then simply find a weak spot in his defense and hit him there, every hit counts and each time you find such a "blind spot" his nerves will be cut down, bit by bit.

Conclusion: In the end keep in mind that humans are unique, not everyone gets irritated by something and not everyone is immune to same tricks. Try to find what irritates your opponent the most, find his weak spot and then hit it as often as possible. Victory doesn’t always come by successfully handling in-game mechanics, sometimes you have to handle your opponent’s mind as well.