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The "collusion" strategy will not necessarilly result in weak robots winning top seeds if most teams use the strategy.
Lets say I'm the United States, and you are the Soviet Union and we each have thousands of ICBM's pointed at each other. I won't launch my nukes because I know that you will retaliate by utterly destroying me with mine and that is an unacceptable outcome. But, if I know that all of your ICBM's are defective than it becomes a little easier for me to push the button. (This is of course a thought experiment)
Lets say I'm a strong alliance in FIRST and I decide to use the "collusion" strategy with another strong alliance. Since neither alliance is sure they can win if they decide to betray their opponent, the "gentlemens agreement" will go off as planned. Now lets say your a weak alliance and I'm a strong alliance, I will feel a little bit better about betraying you at the last minute because my chances of winning will be higher. In this way weaker alliances will be weeded out.
If we were only playing to win, then this strategy would be fine. Here's the problem though: all of a sudden I don't know whether my opponent will betray me or not. Any trust between teams is shattered, and because betrayals will inevitably occur, rivalry and strife will spread from the arena to the pits. We have enough trouble not being bitter towards teams that beat us fairly, I doubt many FIRST people would take outright betrayal in stride. The best part of FIRST is the friendliness and cooperation between teams. Unless it is universally accepted "collusion" will shatter any trust teams have in each other. Thats why my team (782) will not use this strategy.
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