[EricH]

How about the implementation of those ideas? Ideas are relatively easy compared to making them a fully-functional reality.

I think probably the best way to come up with ideas like that is prototyping and/or game simulation. Simulating the game tells you that X will be important; the prototypes tell you what highly effective methods you can come up with.

Sometimes, it's just the execution, though. In 2005, the powerhouses tended to go for single-tetra robots, built for "surgery"--they could get in, cap a row in a particularly awkward place for an opponent, and get out to load up and strike again quickly and cleanly. Other robots built single-tetra robots, but they couldn't pull that kind of maneuver cleanly and reliably. (The multi-tetra robots had a much harder time; I actually saw one single-tetra robot clear a stack of 3-4 off the top of a multi-tetra robot just by hitting the tetras.)