I saw an alliance that worked out really well where two "defensive" robots went on to the opponents side of the field and shot every ball over to the one offensive robot that would promptly score them. This starved the opposite alliance of balls.
You can play defense on more than just robots. Control of the game piece is key. If you don't have a game piece, you can't score. This should be the goal of any defensive robot. There are several methods of disrupting control of the game piece, the most common is keeping a robot from getting too one. The other (less intuitive than just bashing a robot
) is to control the game piece yourself.
For this game, I think the second strategy for defense is better as it is harder to get penalized. It will also easily swing a game into your favor.