So, I've gotten into a competitive minis wargame over the past year (Hordes), and it's involved diving into the community, soaking up lots of podcasts, and thinking intensively about every experience of play I have.

There's something they talk a lot about managing: tilt.

I think tilt originally comes from poker circles, but I encountered it here.

Hordes is super complex. A big part of the game is navigating informational overwhelm. To the point where high-level tournament players often forget key rules on their own models when under pressure.

People train for tournaments. They make sure to get in dozens of games against each meta-shifting, top-tier caster and faction.

But when you sit down to play and the deathclock starts, you have to act fast: spot attack vectors, crunch numbers, treat every second like a resource.

Right, so, a lot of what the game actually asks of its players is rapid information processing and strong emotional self-regulation. A lot of the podcasts I've listened to are about how to simultaneously act on instinct and not let your emotions get the best of you.

Sometimes the dice spike or you overlook an impactful rules interaction, and it bites you on the ass. Maybe you lose a key piece or you invest exactly the wrong amount of resources in a gambit.

Tilt is what happens when frustration puts you off balance and keeps you off balance.

Tied to tilt is the idea of "unforced errors."

Sometimes, the state of the game forces you to make sub-optimal choices. Like sacrificing a key model to not lose outright.

Other times, its the state of you as a player that leads to sub-optimal choices. That's an unforced error.

In some ways, tilt is just the older brother of "u mad, bro?"

But I've found it useful to think about for two reasons.

First, in an environment that rewards rapid, level-headed thinking, tilt is a resource drain on every single decision you need to make.

That means that even if you are running out of time and feeling the pressure to even the score, it is almost always strategic to take a moment to center emotionally.

And second, tilt keeps you focused on what's not working, instead of scanning for alternate win conditions.

If you fixate on how "I can't believe a single winter guard took out my 7 point solo! Now I've got nothing left to score the flag on that side of the table, and I'm going to fall behind on scenario!" you won't notice "wow, he left his caster wide open for an assassination run."

One idea that came up in a few podcasts and stuck in my brain: "I will win this!" and "There's no way I can win this!" are both mindsets that are going to get you tilted.

Instead, you want to build up that sense of "I can win this. It's possible. I just need to stay on my toes."