Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

[haverfordfords]

I apologize in advance if this was brought up before, but I haven't found anything on the topic.

Say you had a robot without an arm. Strategically, you could just take tetras from the human player and depositing them into the goal and repeating. Also, I guess you could play some sort of defense, possibly going as far as to remove tetras from the opponent’s goal. You could also get some tetras onto the field if requested. You would get back to the line for the bonus 10 pts. if applicable.

Now my question is, seeing as this strategy only nets a few points, would you call this 'bot valuable to the alliance? I sort of feel that in order to be liked by your alliance partners you have to get points and be offensive. Would you not pick a team with our strategy in the playoffs? Are we worth anything to other teams - do we have any value?

Basically, in the past have the successful teams been the ones with gung-ho offensive tactics that get many points, or can the little guys succeed as well, even though they may not contribute as many points in the end?

Do you need an arm to make a difference in the match? Do defensive, low scoring tactics work? What makes a "winning robot"? What are your thoughts?

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by haverfordfords

possibly going as far as to remove tetras from the opponent’s goal

you can't remove the tetras as you are describing from what I understand, but yes I believe defensive robots are a very valuable alliance partners....

[haverfordfords]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

you can't remove the tetras as you are describing from what I understand, but yes I believe defensive robots are a very valuable alliance partners....

You can remove tetras from inside goals (as long as they are not stacked)

[dlavery]

Funny you should mention that. Check this thread for some related discussion.

-dave

[haverfordfords]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Funny you should mention that. Check this thread for some related discussion.

-dave

Thanks for that Dave!

[Holtzman]

YES!!!

Defensive tactics most definitely do work. Take a look at the last few years national champions. The scores may not be low, but defense played a HUGE roll in last few Championships.

2004 -All of the alliance's that made it to Einstein had great offensive robots in their alliance(469, 71, 67, 175). What set 71, 494, and 435 apart, was defense. 494 could play defense till the last 20 or so seconds then go hang.

2003- wildstang would get a lead in autonomous mode, then sit at the top of the ramp and defend their lead till the buzzer.

2002- well, there wasn't much anybody could do to stop Beaty

2001-wasn't a whole lot of point to defense here(four on none)

2000- well before my time. Maybe some of the guys that have been around for longer can fill in the gaps.

Defensive tactics work better in eliminations, when all your concerned with is winning. Qualifying rounds are a different story all together.

[Billfred]

I will argue the case for stacking, just to play devil's advocate.

Suppose Redabot can pick up tetras from the human player, then stack them. We'll say Redabot stacks three tetras. Worst case scenario, Redateam just scored nine points. If it's a row, we're talking nineteen.

Then consider Bluabot. It's a box on wheels. It also takes tetras from the human player, but it sends them underneath the goal. In order to match the scoring potential of Redabot, Bluabot will have to get those tetras under the goal three times as fast as Redabot can stack (as it would have to score nine tetras to Redabot's three to score nine points). If we assume Redabot is making rows, that speed for Bluabot balloons to roughly six times as fast in order to keep pace.

And Redabot's got the advantage of keeping at least those nine points, no matter what happens. So I'll ask the question--do you feel lucky?

[RogerR]

Originally Posted by Billfred

I will argue the case for stacking, just to play devil's advocate.

Suppose Redabot can pick up tetras from the human player, then stack them. We'll say Redabot stacks three tetras. Worst case scenario, Redateam just scored nine points. If it's a row, we're talking nineteen.

Then consider Bluabot. It's a box on wheels. It also takes tetras from the human player, but it sends them underneath the goal. In order to match the scoring potential of Redabot, Bluabot will have to get those tetras under the goal three times as fast as Redabot can stack (as it would have to score nine tetras to Redabot's three to score nine points). If we assume Redabot is making rows, that speed for Bluabot balloons to roughly six times as fast in order to keep pace.

And Redabot's got the advantage of keeping at least those nine points, no matter what happens. So I'll ask the question--do you feel lucky?

but how would the score look if Bluabot played defense and blocked Redabot from scoring any tetras instead of trying to keep up with Redabot. instead of being at a six point (at least!) deficit, blaubot and redabot would break even. blaubot could conceivably cancel out a much higher scoring opponent without ever touching a tetra.

[Billfred]

This is true--however, this field seems to offer plenty of Plans B. If Bluabot is blocking you, win a shoving match. Or whistle for a partner to come over and dance with Bluabot for a while. Or, retreat and head for the nearest wall--there's three more goals there.

Unless there is a wall involved (and there isn't too much wall this year, as the goals and loading zones take up quite a healthy piece of real estate), it'd take the majority of the Blue alliance to stop one offensive Redabot.

I'll be very interested to see if defense is as powerful as it has been in the past.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by RogerR

but how would the score look if Bluabot played defense and blocked Redabot from scoring any tetras instead of trying to keep up with Redabot. instead of being at a six point (at least!) deficit, blaubot and redabot would break even. blaubot could conceivably cancel out a much higher scoring opponent without ever touching a tetra.

Bluabot won't be able to completely stop redabot from scoring. There are just way too many goals to try and defend.
The rules, also, lean toward offense, with the rules about the loading zones and de-scoring.

[russell]

Yeah, all redabot has to do is score once then bluabot has to take a break from defending and go and score four tetras to take the lead back, and while it does that redabot goes and scores four more itself, so bluabot has to go and score twelve more giving redabot time to score twelve more..... see a pattern? What happens if a match is tied.... like say tied at 0-0?

[Joe Ross]

I'm going to add a little bit of more information and years to Holtzman's list.

2004 -All of the alliance's that made it to Einstein had great offensive robots in their alliance(469, 71, 67, 175). What set 71, 494, and 435 apart, was defense. 494 could play defense till the last 20 or so seconds then go hang.

2003- wildstang would get a lead in autonomous mode, then sit at the top of the ramp and defend their lead till the buzzer. 469 and 66 played defense the whole match as well.

2002- SPAM came very close to beating 71 by getting to the goal first. However, 71's strategy was fairly defensive as well, grab the goals and make sure no one else gets them. The offensive robots that year would have been the ball grabbers, like 173, 121, etc.

2001- wasn't a whole lot of point to defense here(four on none). However, there were many teams in the division finals that didn't ever score more points then the points for getting back to their end zone. I'd say those drive-train robots are similar to other robots of other years.

2000- 25 would move balls from the opponents goal to their goal with ease, and won the national championship.

1999- The finals were a battle of team 1 and 45 fighting over the puck and once one got on, keeping the other people off.

1998- 45 would remove the opponents balls off the ladders early on, and then load up the center. This was the last year before alliances, and a very balanced strategy won.

1997- 47 would shut down the center goal until the last seconds of the match. They made it to the finals doing this, and only got beat because Beatty was a little bit faster.

1996- From what I understand, 73 was a very offensive robot and won, but I don't know about the other teams around them.

[n0cturnalxb]

I've been reading this thread for the past few days (.. okay, so I skimmed the last few posts!), but..

Even though defense MAY be a good strategy, I don't necessarily think it's wise to build solely for defense. My team was leaning towards the defense-only strategy and I.. became very annoyed, very fed up.

What's the point of building a box on wheels?

That's all I really have to say. Build for offense, but make your robot sturdy. Make your chassis strong. That way, you have two options and you're not so limited - if your alliance doesn't have enough offense, you can contribute; but if you have too much offense and not enough defense, your robot can STILL DO defense. ... Whereas, if you built a box on wheels.. you're not going to be able to contribute much to offense, whether you want to or not.

[Alex Salomonsky]

Originally Posted by n0cturnalxb

I've been reading this thread for the past few days (.. okay, so I skimmed the last few posts!), but..

Even though defense MAY be a good strategy, I don't necessarily think it's wise to build solely for defense. My team was leaning towards the defense-only strategy and I.. became very annoyed, very fed up.

What's the point of building a box on wheels?

That's all I really have to say. Build for offense, but make your robot sturdy. Make your chassis strong. That way, you have two options and you're not so limited - if your alliance doesn't have enough offense, you can contribute; but if you have too much offense and not enough defense, your robot can STILL DO defense. ... Whereas, if you built a box on wheels.. you're not going to be able to contribute much to offense, whether you want to or not.

I agree, people on my team want to build soley on defense too, and I think its stupid, defense ,IMO, is a last resort when you go to comp. and you find out your lifting device is ineffective. Plus, you're relying on the fact that your partners are not soley defenders as well, like football, you can't with all defense and no offense. Plan for offense, if ineffective, play defense.

[russell]

Exactly. Anyone can play defense, but only offensive bots can play offense. Keep your options open. Hey a tetra manipulator should make a good defensive "tool" anyway.