Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I bet most top seeds would be happy to get 1114 or 217 if they don't decline...

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

Is this for the top hurdlers?
Or is it for the 1/2/3 in being alliance picked?
Because, i think that the top team would pick a hurdler, and then a D bot on the way back.
Any team that picks 3 hurdlers that are good hurdlers. (E.g. 1114,217,330) Would be at a disadvantage, because it would be 3 people fighting for balls. 2 hurdler, 1 Def bot would be the ideal one for this game.
And on the thought about 8th seed getting the better picks, i dont believe this to be true this year. the 8th seed will likely have an inferior hurdle mechanism compared to #1 seed. And they will pick another not as good hurdler because the top teams will pick them first. And the 3rd round pick will be a bot that will play defense, which most bots can do.
Last year, the 8th seed had a real advantage, because they would pick a person who can put rings on AND then get the best Ramp that they could climb.
This game it will be a strange alliance picking at nationals for sure.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I'm inclined to add 1086 to this mix. They have very good ball capture and handle abilities in addition to a very high-powered catapult. Their drivers learn very quickly and know how to maneuver their mecanum drive through traffic very well without getting penalties. They've repeatedly knocked the ball off of their own side overpass in hybrid and the only reason it was slow was b/c it was designed to ensure alliance members were not in the way.

You'll see them in Atlanta: they won VCU finals and VCU chairman's.

This depends on your point of view. It is much more efficient to offensively score than to do preventative defense, in my opinion. 3 partners who have a system for handing off balls to each other may benefit their score differential more than one of those bots could while playing defense on the opposing alliance. It's all just an opinion though.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

Lots of good points about alliance picking the last several posts.
A good example of breaking up alliances was in 2006 in the Newton division.
Forgive me if you dont agree, but CLEARLY, Newton was the best division with the most top tier robots.
Aces High, a fairly consistent winner year in and year out, broke up a deep division as stated earlier on how to do it.
Examples: 111, 25, 254, 987, 968, 71, etc. etc. 25 was arguably the best robot in the world that year.

I just wanted to add since it wasn't mentioned that breaking up alliances weakens the other seeds, which indirectly makes your own alliance a better one on a more equal playing field of alliances.

VCU '08 this year is a prime example.
#1 picks 4, 4 denies, picks 2, 2 denies, then picks 11 (arguably the best robot at VCU, team 1731). They wanted 11 from the very beginning, but would have loved to have either 2 or 4 (sparky twins).
So 1 picked 11, 2 picked outside the top eight, then we picked 10 since we couldnt take sparky, team 4.:D

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

Until THEY play defense against YOU, realistically making both sides defense bots null and void.

3 good hurdlers requires at least 2 teams from the other alliance to be playing defense. Period. And I'm willing to bet one of the three hurdlers on my team can play pretty good defense if needed (They seem to have a grasp on the playing the game, I'm sure they can handle running balls into the wall...).

3 hurdlers keeps the opponents on their feet. They are no longer keeping the ball away from 1114. They now need to keep the ball away from the entire alliance, which is much harder to do. Defensive robots will accrue more penalties and have less options.

An alliance with 3 hurdlers will score less points on average, but win a higher percentage of their matches. It scales the scores unevenly in favor of the pure offensive alliance.

For example: my 2 hurdle/1 defense team can win matches 100-80 against a similar alliance. My 3 hurdler alliance can win matches 80-50 against the same team

This is all IMHO.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I really think that every alliance at champs. will be strong for eliminations. Rather than having 1 or 2 good robots at a regional, all of the strongest robots are in one place. The thing you will have to worry about is the weaker robot that gets lucky and creeps into the top rankings. These teams will create weaker alliances but a more even spread of the good teams if they manage to break them up. I would not worry about not being able to get good alliance partners if I was a lower seed. There is soo much talent.

And to Tom, I am starting to like the 3 hurdler alliance. I think it could work really well if you had the right teams and proper coordination.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I like the way you think- we always talk about hypothetical situations like this before alliance selections.

And your story about L.A. sounds a lot like what we saw in Connecticut- of four or five really good hurdling robots, two of them seeded in 1st and 2nd. When seed 1 picked seed 2, and none of the other good hurdlers ended up paired with one another, alliances 2-8 were a little disadvantaged.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I think you've got to include 1717 in Tier 2 or better.

We're flattered by the Tier 3 ranking, but we are definitely a role-player (defense, herder, etc.) for an alliance with two good hurdlers. Maybe that's a formula that will work in Atlanta, but we're really not in the same echelon as 33, 111, 118, 254, 1024, 1625, ...

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

4 tiers is too many and I didnt want to give 330 too much credit for your dominance in LA... ;)

Also I will have to check out 1717, for some reason their bot design escapes me.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

Black tower and base, white logos/numbers. It's a three-wheeled roller claw on a lift. 6WD. Something like 254/968 from last year with a variation of the roller claw in black and white. No pictures from this year in CD-Media, but TBA has one.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

This is a great point although it only works for few select alliance. Obviously is 1114 and 217 are in an alliance, a third hurdler is questionable, especially if it is picked in the third round (which it would be). Would you really want this third hurdler to take the ball away from the power house scorers. If you are against a defensive robot a good alternative is a pure racer, such as 148.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I honestly don't think there is any "Ultimate Alliance" this year that would roll over all competition. Obviously any alliance matching 1114 with 217 or 968 with 330 will be a power, but once you get to that high level of play, luck and strategy start to play a much greater role.

Remember 2006 IRI? - Going into the elims everyone, and I mean everyone, thought the #1 alliance, combining the two most feared teams of '06 (25 & 1114) would dominate. How'd that work out?

People will always speculate how things will play out, but year after year we are surprised when David takes down Goliath. It's why they play the matches, folks. (Though for the record, I would love to see 217 & 1114 pair up. It would just be fun to watch.:D )

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

The third hurdler wouldnt be taking the ball away. They would just create more scoring opportunities, which draws more defense, which drops the opponents score.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I absolutely see your point, but i think that having three hurdlers would cause a lot of confusion in the alliance. I do see it happening if the alliance has great communication and strategy, especially during the match.

Re: 2008 Ultimate Alliance
 

I really enjoys Mike's point. I mean I was the human player for 1625 and I was sure we wouldn't make it past Semis, but look what happened. I really can't wait to see how alliances pair up at champs.