A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

This past weekend S.W.A.T. 1806 Competed in the Oklahoma regional where on one occasion during quals and then continuously during elims we had an alliance partner play defense. We also experienced defense played against us on several occasions often to the opposing alliance’s detriment as the penalties were often costly. I’ve put together some video evidence that should give teams some insight into playing defense successfully.
During qualifications we were ranked #2 and in our second to last match had the opportunity to face off against the #1 ranked 4587 Jersey Voltage who was also undefeated at that point. We knew that we had a pretty tough matchup ahead of us, and there was a good chance that 4587 would both breach and capture as they had already achieved this feat a couple of times in previous matches. They were paired up with 3592 who also had a couple of previous breach and captures running low goal, and we knew this combination would be difficult to outscore. Luckily for us our alliance partner 2461 was setup as a defensive specialist.

Video of 4587 without defense being played on them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26ZHR1d4c8Y

Video of 4587 being defended by 2461
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saIZtxHu_W0

After this match 4587 went on to add a mechanism that allowed them to low goal, and went on to win the regional never really seeing defense this tough played against them again. 2461 despite the great defensive showing wasn’t selected as teams must have been looking at different strategies for playing the game.

For elimination rounds S.W.A.T. 1806 selected team 5098 as our final alliance partner and they assumed the defensive roll for our alliance.
The following videos shows 5098 defending against the 5th seeded alliance who had breached and captured in both their QF matches to move into the semifinal matches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMiPcmWgq0Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhNJeK35lHs

Unfortunately in the finals 4522 had connection issues that were never resolved so the following videos show 5098 defending against the #2 seeded robot 3507 who had an OPR of 51 for this event, and their alliance partner 1448. I’ve included a video (first one) of 3507 without defense being played against them for comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFrS4XMi1uo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mzojBMaMq8

Last, but not least here is a video of defense being played against us while we were parked in the outerworks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koa7Ur0hogQ

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Fortunately, defense was not played against us in our playoff matches. If it was, the plan was to switch to shooting low goals, as we can't shoot from the Outer Works yet.

The plan for Champs is to calibrate the Shooter to shoot from the Outer Works to give us some protection. We still can't shoot over a high bot right in front of us. But, being in the Outer Works helps there because they can only get so close. If we back up in the Outer Works, we should be able to get enough height for a robot a safe distance away. If they try to get too close, then we move forward and contact them while the rear bumper is still in the Outer Works.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

From what we have seen a good defender will significantly slow down both low goal scorers and any high goal scorers that can't shoot from the outerworks. it seems that having a member of your alliance play defense during qualifications isn't happening much, but strategically should maybe be happening more. We think it is a must for eliminations, and will specifically be selecting our last robot to perform that task.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

1405 this past weekend at the Finger Lakes Regional has played the best lights out defense I have ever seen. A member of the 5th alliance they shut down the number 1 alliance knocking them out in the semis with the upset then proceeded to come from behind and shut down the number 3 alliance in the finals beating them in 2 matches. Once videos are uploaded you should watch any of the elimination matches with 1405 and also watch the elimination matches where the teams they knocked out were playing another alliance without the lights out defense from 1405

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

The Finger Lakes Regional Thread also mentioned 1405's excellent defense, but I can't seem to find any video's. Did anyone who was there film matches for scouting that they could share?

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

MI Lansing was a beautiful event for defense in eliminations. After my team (1684) broke in quarterfinals (we were the #1 seed too! And now we probably won't go to states! I hate my life!) and my rookie team (5460) got their drive train broken by the same robot that beat us in semifinals, I gave them a pep talk to fight fire with fire and to just spend the entire match shoving back the defense robot. After losing the first match in semis, anti defense worked wonderfully as they went on to win two quite decisive victories. (Sorry to 5222! It looked like we did quite a bit of damage ::rtm:: ). 3327 in the finals match against us proceeded to play no defense whatsoever :D but some mechanical issues caused one robot to fail to get on the batter and we lost 2 of the 3 matches by a slim margin that we would have won if we had the capture bonus.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

81 district points? Relax. See you at MSC.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

It surprises me that teams didn't see this coming week 1 and come up with a mix up to stop it.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Almost no one is playing defense during Qualifications, but when teams play good defense during qualification it really disrupts the other teams as many aren't expecting it, and most teams aren't shooting from the protection of the outerworks. It is also really crowded in the courtyard with a defender and 3 robots trying to score.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Yeah but there is still counter play to having a robot camp the courtyard it isn't hard to overcome.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

5222 in Lansing was a tough defender. If they had gotten to finals we had a plan, but the plan involved using the low gear (also known as "able to push a car gear") and just shove them back where they came from. We can't really be pushed too easily unless we are on the batter shooting.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Did you watch the videos? 4587 (an excellent high goal scorer) went from scoring 4-5 high goals per match to only scoring 2 with defense played on them. Defense forced them to play the role of outerworks shooter which they weren't used to, and they only made one of the two outerworks shots they took.

Defense against a robot that doesn't regularly shoot from the outerworks significantly disrupts their offensive flow and forces them to play the game in a way that they aren't comfortable with.

4587 was constantly scoring 3-4 RP per match with no defense played against them and scored 0 RP when 2461 defended them.

I guess I'm not understanding how good defense is easy to overcome if you don't shoot from the outerworks, most of the videos in the OP show otherwise.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Playing the batter shot was, what we thought would be the quickest, route to success. Thus, we never practiced in competition as a outer works shooter. If you ever see this happen make sure to play strong defense because it surly disrupted us.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Something I noticed from the videos - you guys didn't really try to get shots from the sides of the castle. It seemed like the defensive robot just kind of sat near the middle batter and it disrupted your drivers.

Is your robot able to make side batter shots? I think that the defense wouldn't have been so bad if you guys tried the sides.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

I agree with the OP. Defense is very important this year. Here is 2907 putting on a clinic, and preventing the 1st seed alliance from getting the capture:
https://youtu.be/5edWvowIbIg

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

We can make it from the sides but without having practice with a defense bot our drivers didn't know what to do to over come the defense.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Let's run a mixup!

Lets say that in Q72 a mixup was run where instead of immediately taking shots with boulders the blue alliance focused on breaching, BUT every time they crossed a defense to weaken it they also took a boulder and just plopped it in the courtyard. Until they are done with the breaches 2461s current strategy which is heavy batter defense is useless because points are still being scored and they aren't slowing anything down they are literally sitting doing nothing.
This accomplishes 2 things, it gets the breaching out of the way for those RP or in elims gives that nice point cushion and it also pressurizes the courtyard for a nice little explosion as soon as breaches are done.
As soon as those breaches are done though its 2461s time to shine by blocking shots right? Well kind of... You will notice in the flow of the match 2461 has time to posture properly for defense because the opposing alliance has to go retrieve boulders from the neutral or wherever it ended up in the courtyard. If you run the mixup where the boulders are flooded in the courtyard you give 2461 a lot less time to posture and be in the right place at the right time to block the right goals. 2461 only really had to block one robot at a time.
Do you notice how much time 4587 spends having to retrieve a ball and then park and then shoot? Can you see how much time they save where instead of having to constantly cross the outerworks they could just take a shot move a few feet pickup another ball and take another shot? Welcome to volume of fire where accuracy matters less because you have more to start out with. This is when you cash in the pressure and your 3 free robots start rushing shots into goals. You have 5 goals to choose from and one robot to defend them all, and that robot can't be everywhere at once and 1 defensive robot vs 3 offensive robots can get pretty ugly.
Thats only half the fun of creating that pressure though. If at any point in the match the red alliance finds that the only boulders left on the field that they need to take shots are in their courtyard they run into an interesting predicament. Only one robot is allowed in their own courtyard at a time and currently that robot is busy trying to stop a team who is spraying and praying with boulders.

What can the red alliance do?
If they try to regain control by taking boulders out they have to do it one at a time and they have to risk sending in one of the scoring robots into the courtyard where they can be pinned and suppressed by the 2-3 opposing robots.
If they try and respond by breaching then they are just trading time since the blue alliance has already done the breaches they need.

What would you do in this situation if you were on the red alliance?

TLDR: If you choose to play someone at the game they designed for expect to lose.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Yeah I think you're overestimating the skill of the robots that play this game. Sure in a perfect world where robots can consistently pickup and spit out balls while also crossing defenses quickly your strategy would work. I just don't think that many alliances this year will actually have the capability to score 5-6 boulders in the low goal in like 60 seconds while also leaving enough time to challenge the tower. Your strategy assumes 3 relatively perfect offensive robots in terms of consistency, time and shooting accuracy, and simply put that alliance will almost never come together at any point in time this year especially at the regional level.

I also want to add that there was no point in time where red actually lost control of the match. They scored 8 high goals including 2 in autonomous, which was enough to weaken the tower and secure the capture. If your strategy relies on sacrificing the points of high goals to score low goals in order to weaken the tower then so be it, but don't expect to beat a team that consistently scores high goals.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

There's some stock footage with the link in the FLR thread. I am having our sweet video team put up their footage of our stellar defense soon. In the mean time, they put together a recap video. It shows some of the big hits and all. http://youtu.be/XdksEhzAD0E

A large part of the time we were actually hitting and stopping two robots at once. Sometimes even all three, rarely one robot. It was great to see my driver do so well and play so smart. Over all the eliminations (6 wins, 0 loses) we only received two penalties.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Actually no I was assuming two strong offensive robots and one robot running secret passage to low bar to make sure the excess boulders in the castle don't go to the opposing alliance. That alliance where two fantastic robots are together with a third robot that is flexible is whats generally known as the number one alliance (standard serpentine pick #1 rank team picks #2 rank team and their third pick is usually a good drive base with good drivers). Again the strategy trades accuracy for volume of fire and if you run a low goal high goal combo every missed shot a high goal takes can be cleaned up by the low bot if the high goal shooter is being defended on (at which point the low goal robot has a free courtyard to run those 5-6 low goals). As for red losing control of the match I posed "what if it happened" not that it did and the point still stands if the mix up I proposed was executed and at any point the side with the defensive robot lost resource control what would you do? I also at no point said you only score low goals in fact if we want to add kiting into the strategy we can have tons of fun where we run a low goal robot to the secret passage low goal which makes it that juicy robot that if it accidentally enters the secret passage can get tagged for points, and a high goal robot shooting closer towards the spy box with the human player to assist with aiming (which is a major threat) at which point you are hitting two sides of a tower and a defensive robot can't cover both the low goal of one side of the tower and the remaining goals on the opposite side of the tower.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Steadily cross blue outer works, obtain a boulder, cross back, shoot from outer works, rinse, repeat.

As cool as your proposed strategy sounds, I don't think it can be successful on the field.

Any strategy that requires each boulder be manipulated more than once will be significantly less efficient.

The issue of having all the boulders in the red courtyard can be mitigated by having the robot on defense shuttle some into the red secret passage while they are waiting around.

Even if there were enough boulders for a capture in the red courtyard after the outer works were breached, the blue alliance would have more trouble scoring them than you think. With four robots all running around in the tight quarters of the coutyard, blue alliance would be seriously hindered by the traffic, let alone the defense bot.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

All of these complicated strategies go into trying to beat an alliance that has consistent outerworks high goal shooters which have dominated the regionals they've went to so far (118, 1986, 16, 2056, 1114). You even said it at the end of your post, trying to beat teams at their own game rarely works. On top of all that, at the end of the day teams with consistent high goal shots will always end up outscoring alliances that choose to make low goals a primary component of their offense.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

I will agree that it could be a serious traffic jam. However if we apply the rule "Any strategy that requires each boulder be manipulated more than once will be significantly less efficient." then you need to apply it to the entire playing field too. If a defensive bot counters the mixup by shuttling it needs to either manually push the ball to the secret passage or intake the ball and then place the ball back on the field in the secret passage in a way that is clear to the refs that it isn't launching, this would also put them out of position for defending (it can't move a boulder to the secret passage and block a shot at the same time), and also isn't actually moving the game piece to where its needed nor is it in really a safe spot (nothing stops the opposing team from trying to take it back). When you mix shuttling with breaching the boulder goes where its needed (in the courtyard) while adding minimal time to scoring cycles. If you have seen a secret passage jammed with boulders its a lot harder for the human player to get a boulder down to the neutral when its got a bunch of shots in the way.
Either way the way you countered the mixup is by taking the robot you had intentionally run as a defensive bot, and converted it into a different role which still eliminates the "defensive shut down".

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

The strategies I brought up were aimed at countering wall bots and this idea that a wall bot can defensively shut down a team. I wouldn't run the anti wall bot mix-up on an outerworks shooter that'd be silly. My point is that just because a team has a wall bot doesn't mean you should be worried about being defensively shut down.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

If my robot couldn't shoot from the outerworks then I would be very worried about even an average defensive robot. Dropping off boulder's in the courtyard is not going to make it easier to score them, and the defensive robot easily pushes those out of the way and into the secret passage without even missing a beat.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Does anyone know what the penalty at 1:50 is for?

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Tune your robots to fire over 4 1/2 ft blockers from the Outerworks folks. And drop your appendage if you have to, to create more space between the defender and your robot.
If you have a low robot linear shooter, that will definitely present some problems as we saw this past week at some events. Everyone should have seen that coming though.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

We asked because this was called twice, and the penalty was overturned because the side official was confused about a rule. In short there was no foul there.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Ah. Thank you.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

I cannot stress enough how important it is to practice with defense. Defense this year is real, and it is tough. The match video above was the first time our drivers had ever seen defense. As you can tell it really, really works. At that point in time we had not tuned our outer works shot and had not practiced low goals. Both of those are extremely important to make sure you can do if you want to be successful in eliminations. 4587 for sure will be focusing on overcoming defense and scoring in autonomous in the coming weeks. Thanks 1806 for opening our eyes about defense and thanks for being incredible alliance partners, we had a blast. See you guys at champs!

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Some people are stubborn, and just think they can somehow just outdrive their way to victory.

Even if you can shoot over the 4.5 foot tall opaque blocker (still legal) many teams will still have to deal with the tall robot blocking their low camera/vision tracking systems if they are mounted low.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Having a bunch of these little pocket modifications and mix ups to a strategy you run is what can provide you the security or comfort of going up against not just an average robot but the unknown. If you only ever did boulder breaching scouts would pick up on it in an instant and then someone would go "just do this" and you would be out of luck again.
In a community full of smart people like this one no matter what strategy you bring to the table, unless its a choke hold someone, somewhere, will figure you out. All that is needed is time.
I posted one of my mixups at 1:00pm in less then twenty minutes someone had formed a solid counter point, and by the 40 minute mark the counter strategy started to form. By 2:30pm someone had called a different strategy to address the same problem.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

You all were great partners, and we can't express how much we appreciated all the effort that you and 5098 gave to get us to another world championship. You both performed above our expectations, and we will be cheering for you guys at the Lonestar regional. That's going to be a tough one! Good Luck and we will see you in St Louis

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

the tape robot saved us so much.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

i will try to get you the video.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Here's what our video team has offered. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDH...TNU4b_rGHTVFjg

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Nice, I'd hope that with enough successful defensive robots that maybe teams will start to see this as a viable strategy.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Yeah. In our finals two match we actually sheared all 6 bolts that were holding on the sprockets to our first chain driven wheel. I think by the looks of driving, we did some damage in the semis as well.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

One of the most exciting games to play and i have to admit what an amazing defense by 5098, we always thought about the strategy but were never able to execute it. Since we weren't able to shoot from outerworks or batter we only had the option to score low goals which also very difficult against such a good defensive robot. Congratulations 1806, 4857, and 5098! what an alliance to play against.
:D

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Our biggest concern was trying to defend against both you and 4522 since you shot from different positions. Unfortunately we didn't get that opportunity since 4522 had issues in both matches. Not sure how things would have turned out then, but I'm sure both matches would have been very close.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

I have to admit, watching from home, I was really looking forward to the finals matches between teams we have formed friendships with over the years. It was hard to choose who to root for. I was so disappointed to see 4522 sitting still after autonomous. I believe the finals would have been very exciting if all six robots were in action.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

My team has been debating, with the exception of the pinning rule is it illegal to just push the defender into the moat? For a defender to be mobile they are usually kit-bot style chassis (not always I know) and I am pretty sure we can push them (provided we aren't on the batter) anywhere we want to in 1st gear.

Not talking about breaking their robot just pushing them out of the way.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

There would be some penalties for pushing them into the moat, I'm not sure how it would be called, but it is illegal for them to make contact with you while in the outerworks, but you may get called for pushing them into the moat to intentionally draw a penalty.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

It is illegal for them to make conact with you while YOU are in the outerworks. If you push THEM into the outerworks without entering the outerworks yourself, I don't see any rule violations (nor did the refs at the couple of matches where I saw this happen).

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

I guess depending on the size of your robot and the robot you push you might not have to enter the outerworks yourself to push someone into them, but even if just your bumpers cross the plane of the outerworks a penalty of some kind should be called.

I think if you are able to move a robot around the field without them being able to control their movements at all a pin should be called.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

But pushing them around starts the count, at that point you have a few seconds to push them around. Just trying to figure out what we can and can't do. We got a foul for a defense bot breaking the arm off our bot. (just popped a bolt, was fixed by time the next match started). We'd like to within the rules be able to fight back.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

I don't think pushing them around starts the count unless they're up against a wall and cant move or something like that.

Re: A video guide to playing shutdown defense in Stronghold
 

Yeah thats how I have always seen it called.
If a robot is completely prevented from moving by another robot (its pushed into a corner its wheels are lifted off the ground, its stuck between two robots) then it is a pin.
If you are spinning out a robot, or just pushing a robot away from its intended direction (without stopping them completely) then I have never seen that called as a pin.
In my head I think of it as "if you are preventing directional inputs on a controller from doing anything then you are pinning if you are not preventing directional inputs from influencing a robot then you are not pinning"
Not that I've ever seen any indication that anyone on the field will be watching controller inputs to robot to robot contact.