Boulder Starvation
 

Has anyone seen a strategy (preferably in the elims) where an alliance purposefully attempted to keep boulders out of the middle of the field?

I've been thinking about game strategies and comparing things to past gameplay while prepping for our regional this weekend. Something I've noticed is that the secret passage reminds me a lot of the human player station safe zone from 2011. I'm sure others have realized this also.

I remember an example of this strategy from 2011 at silicon valley. 1323, 604, and 1868 almost beat the power house 254 alliance by starving them of inner tubes. http://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2011sj
You can see that the finals scoring is much lower in the final rounds than the other elims.
I know it's only week one, but there's already been a ton of gameplay. Just thought I'd ask the community.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

I watched several times where balls simply accumulated at the end of the secret passage. The first couple balls just stay there by chance, or maybe having a robot push them there, then the new balls being introduced to the field roll into the ball blockage and stay there. At one regional I saw a ball pile with 10 balls, that is over half of the balls in the game.
It is then annoying to grab those balls now since you have to be careful about grabbing two, to avoid penalties, while not driving on top of the balls.

Edit- added image

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Its a valid strategy as most hybrid-boulder bots will have longer cycle times than a dedicated starving bot.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

What is a "hybrid-boulder bot"?

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

What I call a decent crosser and HG/LG shooter so there cycle times are lower as they can cross most defenses.... I just coined that term..basically mid level captain types as breachers usually will rank higher in quals

I differentiate those that only can cross one or two defenses...from those that can pretty much breach and shoot

The types that beat us (with our shooter malfunction) in SD and eventually won it.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

If you're not doing this, what game are you playing? This is a much more effective form of defense than a lot of the physical defense you can do this year, and ball control is absolutely critical to winning in elims and trying to prevent captures at all costs. Human players need to bowl well and time the bowls appropriately or you're just giving your opponents points.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Are you allowed to shoot a ball over the outer works and do some thing along the lines of what 16 did in 2012 and just feed your own team boulders and starve the other alliance?

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

No, you can't shoot a boulder unless you're in your opponent's courtyard, though i like the reference to 2012.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

I think stockpiling boulders in the secret passage is a risky form of boulder control. If you bring boulders to your own secret passage, you would have to dedicate a full time defender to protecting the boulders in the passage, so a HG scorer can't swoop in and have quick access to boulders right next to your tower.

If you dump a lot of boulders into your opponent's secret passage, the opposing alliance has much more access to those boulders due to being able to cross from the neutral zone to the secret passage and back.

I think it's possible, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some strategies aimed at this, especially later in the season, but I think it is very risky.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

A 16 style strategy will be a little slower than in 2012 since you will have to complete a crossing each time, in 2012 team 16 would only have their intake over the bump before dropping the balls.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

I haven't tested any of these ideas yet, but if you accumulated balls at the end of your secret passage, and then assigned your third partner to stay near them to prevent your opponents from using your secret passage, it could theoretically slow down both your opponent's top scoring machines while only occupying your third robot.

(Your opponents can't cross from the neutral zone to your secret passage, that incurs penalties)

I'm very curious to see how these strategies shape up in the coming weeks, rather than in my theoretical math.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

I think you may violate multiple rules ...impeding game play and forcing a team to foul..its risky to rely on that strategy.

What makes more sense is "starve and score" win/win

Not starve and keep boulders away from your scoring area

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

It would not be considered impeding the flow of the match, as exemplified by G25. Isolating boulders in your own SECRET PASSAGE is not deemed impeding the flow of the match.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

This is a potentially great strategy for a strong #1 or #2 alliance at a strong event (think 1114 and 2056), but more often than you might expect you'll need three robots playing at least some offense to get both your breach and capture in the elims. Your third robot comes into play more than you think.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

I would argue that this violates G38's definition of HERDING or TRAPPING, as you're creating a group of boulders in the secret passage with the intention of putting a robot there to guard them.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

I was doing some math earlier, and there may be a point where if you have enough balls controlled, and you have enough of a lead, you may want to stop scoring balls, because it can be mathematically impossible for your opponents to out score you.

However, this appears to be a niche case, because if you have that much of a lead, you're likely to win regardless of what you do at that point.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Here is the exact text of G38 (with my own added emphasis):

G38 doesn't ban herding or trapping; it just states that you may not herd or trap multiple balls at the same time, and I don't think any actions in this strategy would be considered trapping. But whether or not this strategy violates the herding aspect of this strategy is not 100% clear. Herding could be interpreted either to apply only to balls that are being deliberately pushed at a single moment, or it could refer to all the balls which a robot has pushed into the secret passage. I'm pretty sure the first interpretation is the correct one, since it wouldn't make sense for a team that has deliberately pushed a ball at one point in a match to be disallowed from controlling any other balls until that ball has been either scored or been unintentionally moved.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

This has been an on going talk with my team. We have been discussing the pros and cons regarding this strategy since week one of build. I can see this coming into play when they buff the health of the tower during worlds. Even being able to bring most of the boulders to the opposite alliances courtyard would be pretty effective way of wasting the other alliance time. Even if the opposite alliance traverses through to their side, they still would need to traverse back, only being able to bring 1 boulder at a time. I would really like to see this strategy come into play.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

G25-E has no bearing on this situation. You are trapping boulders in your own secret passage, not the opponents.

I would argue that G28 outlaws this strategy. I would consider playing defense in your own courtyard against balls in your own secret passage as an example of "trapping boulders against a field element". It is analogous (in the eyes of your opponent) to playing defense on a group of boulders in a corner of the field as they have no other (legal) access point. IIRC, this was clarified in a Q&A as illegal, and a foul per extra boulder (herding in a corner, not herding in SP). Therefore, if I were reffing a match where a defender in the courtyard was actively trying to prevent the opponent from obtaining multiple balls from the defender's secret passage, I would likely call a foul per boulder. IF the defender was an appreciable distance away from the defense-guardrail choke point, I probably wouldn't consider it trapping. Only if they were close to blockading the choke point. There has to be an ability, however small, for the offender to get past the defender (robot and driver skill excluded) However, every event is called differently and your mileage may vary.

----

I might even argue that a team entering the secret passage from the neutral zone to obtain boulders would have a fair argument for a G11 under this scenario. I'm sure it would take a lot of effort to convince the head ref though...

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

We've discussed this topic several time since the reveal of the 2016 game. My conclusion (details below) is that because of the way the game is designed it will be a very rare occurrence.

Let's assume that (1) shooting times (pick-up, aim, shooting accuracy) are similar to 2012 World times (mostly true so far), (2) traversal time across defenses are about 3-4 secs one-way, (3) you have a “feeder” bot that will carry boulders from the neutral zoned across the defense, (3) defense will cause about a 5 sec delay for a shooter (80% of the time), and (4) human players will always keep “hoard” 6 boulders in the tower. These assumptions are my worst case scenario for boulder starvation.

Given those assumptions and assuming that both teams will be trying to score boulders, conditions for boulder starving won't exist more than for a few seconds during the 120 seconds of teleop. Even if the neutral zone is empty, both courtyards will continue to have boulders as long as the shooters continue to shoot.

If one alliance refuses to score into the tower, then there is a possibility that boulder starving will occur but in that case I doubt that is a viable winning strategy.

I have have several of these scenarios coded in SimPy, PM me if you would like to see it.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

PERCULA CLOWN STRATEGY

One effective way to play Boulder Starvation is to NOT score the boulders in the first 45 seconds of the game but "hide" them (boulders in the opponents Court yard. (you may still want to score auto, as the points are double)

I wonder how many teams can actually make a decision to NOT score the boulder in their bot, and decides to drop the boulder in the opponent's court
yard. (many team will think, it doesn't take too much time to aim and shoot) But if you look at all the games most teams take 1 to 2 seconds to drive closer to the tower or aim. while you can use this time to take MORE boulders from mid field.

Strategically, if all the boulders are located and concentrated in the opponent's court yard, it REDUCES your cycle time, and INCREASES your opponents cycle time right? So during first 45 seconds if all your alliance bots should focus on QUICKLY traversing the outer works and grab as many boulders from mid field and drop them after crossing a defense. it will be to your ADVANTAGE in the 2nd half of the game, no? you will have accumulated most of the boulders in the opponent's court yard.

Since total number of boulders is 18 total, if you figure 9x9 on each side is even, once you have 12x6 (meaning 12+ on the opponent side vs 6- on your side [inside the tower]) you CAN starve your opponent of all the boulders, and they won't be able to score any more boulders. (just don't in-bound the from your tower.)

Since all the boulders are now concentrating in your opponents courtyard, your opponent can ONLY send 1 bot to get the boulder (one at a time, THANK YOU FIRST FOR THIS RULE). and the game now completely FLIPS around, you can play defense on the opponent court yard, you can have 3 bot vs 1 in the opponents courtyard to prevent them getting boulders. WOW HOW DID THE GAME CHANGE?!!?

At this point of the game, 1 of your bots should focus on preventing the opponent's boulder from moving to mid field from the opponent's secret passage, that's should be his primary focus.(to keep the boulders on the opponents side of field; while the other 2 primarily score and/or prevents boulders from being taken by the opponents..

By the time the opponent realized there are no boulders for them to score they have NO CHOICE but to come back into their own courtyard to get boulders, the game is mostly over,(almost CHECK MATE) as you have DRASTICALLY increased their cycle time.

I have yet to see this game strategy play out in any game during 6 weeks of play. I hope this will help some under dogs alliances who can't shoot enough high goals to challenge those power house alliances. Or may this maybe the ULTIMATE game strategy to winning Einstein.

I hope this game play strategy will help some of you who are going to St Louis. Good Luck.

-Percula Clown

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

In the Hartford District event, we employed a strategy where we timed out shooting cycles with a strong shooter on the opposing alliance who fed from the secret passage. We would stay in the courtyard and every time their human player put a ball out, we would steal it and score it. This allowed us to starve the other alliance from scoring while still scoring ourselves.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Our team employed a version of this strategy in a qualification match at PNW District Championships. Our intent was to remove all the boulders from the neutral zone into our opponents courtyard. We wanted to have a partner sit at the end of the opponents secret passage to prevent reintroduction of boulders, but that did not work out. We also had our human player try to not roll the boulders into the neutral zone.
We chose this strategy because we were considerably outgunned by our opponent and they had a robot that shot high goals from the outerworks. We also wanted to see how effective it could be. Our robot can cycle pretty fast.
We had some success with this strategy. I think this will be a rare strategy since it requires considerable commitment by each alliance partner. Probably only in eliminations. Trying to convince alliance partners of this strategy is a tall order. Many times we couldn't convince partners of the need for defense and hence there was a 48% capture rate in quals at this event.
I also agree with the suggestion that you should not score the boulders for the first portion of teleop.
Watch the video. I would appreciate any suggestions on how to make this strategy more effective. I expect we will see this strategy at champs elimination rounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxVXLGA4dPI

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Wierd name and anonymous account aside, this is what I call the "Boulder Bomb", as a tribute to the A-Bomb in 2006. Slight difference though - no scoring happens until the last 45 seconds. I didn't get to see any of this weeks' games, so I don't know if it was even a 'thing' though. Here are some pros/cons/errata:

• The defender, if present, becomes totally useless except for about 10 seconds. The defender better have a good intake ;)
• All 3 robots on the alliance are effectively playing defense for a full minute and change
• If the alliance preps to score 3 balls at once concurrently, the opponents better not have more than 3 balls behind the glass towards the end of the match
• Has the potential to start a vicious cycle in the endgame of secret passage->high goal shots that more than few robots can pull off with speed (given the robot touching carpet in the courtyard rule)
• Negates the need for a scaling bot since the robots are focused on scoring boulder in the end game, but robots like 33 (super fast scale) and 610 (scale + score) will still benefit from scaling
• Higher % chance of effectiveness if the tower strength is increased since, if executed well, it reduces the chances of opponents' full capture
  
• Plays well with a variety of robots on the alliance (i.e. low goal robots with great intakes will definitely have a place in this strategy) which could be crucial for high seeded captains or for qualifications where the stats on the alliances are both high and very similar
• Is a HUGE risk if the opposing alliance can out-maneuver in the first 30 seconds
• Autonomous tower scoring conflicts with this strategy

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

We did this up at Westown during match Q56 because we were against two powerhouse teams (1640 and 1143). It ended up working in the end. We won 102-99. What we did is after auto we grabbed a ball from the center and went to go shoot before any defense came, and mean while, our two alliance partners took balls and put them in our own secret passage. After this we had someone sit there and guard them so nobody could grab them, except from us with access from the neutral zone. This was a very interesting match. But if you don't do this correctly, you could potentially let the other alliance have about 6 free boulders.

MOE 365 Driver for Stronghold.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

The closest thing I've seen to this was at IN DCMP. In a few matches, teams on the same alliance would cross the defense in auto, spit it out, go into the neutral zone, go back into the courtyard, spit it out, go into the neutral zone, go back into the courtyard, then proceed to shoot the 9 boulders (- however many were made in auto) in their courtyard at once. I saw it a lot more with 6 boulders (spits out boulders into courtyard after auto and then goes to neutral zone to get boulder once). Does this make sense the way I worded it? It was basically a boulder fight at the beginning of a match.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Here's the opposite of Starvation - I was quite impressed by this force-feeding in the last few seconds of this MSC quarterfinal. 1718 enters the secret passage to try and get one more score in the last 20 seconds, and the opposing human player "helps them out" by rapidly unloading balls behind them - preventing 1718 from getting back and completing the capture.

https://youtu.be/WYKOsGtXaVk?t=2m6s

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Match numbers or video links would be greatly helpful.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

shouldn't that be a G24?

The human player's intent was clearly to get the robot stuck by sending boulders in. Since he was successful, that could be a red card

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

This rule falls under section "3.4.6 ROBOT to ROBOT Interaction", which in that case I would say that it was a perfectly legal strategy.

If anything, a G34 should have been called, as I saw at least 8 boulders come out of the castle.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

I don't have a match number but at the IN district champs it appeared that some teams were waiting for a robot to enter the secret passage way to get a ball. They then rolled 2 balls in to try to get the robot in the secret passage way to get a foul for holding more than 1 ball.

Re: Boulder Starvation
 

Why would that be a G24? Which of these apply: "... attachment, damage, tipping, entanglements, or deliberately putting a BOULDER on an opponent’s ROBOT"?