2016: The year of bullying kitbots and hypothetical situations

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by thatnameistaken

According to the G11 clarifications, the only time this is true is when you willingly put your robot in the opponent's secret passage. No other time.

If the GDC wanted to they could have made the secret passage a safe zone, instead they gave it complex mechanics. The secret passage is dangerous but it isn't without its rewards.

[thatnameistaken]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

If the GDC wanted to they could have made the secret passage a safe zone, instead they gave it complex mechanics. The secret passage is dangerous but it isn't without its rewards.

Yes. This is the idea. Stealing a boulder from your opponent's secret passage is a high risk/high reward strategy. Not being familiar with this may hurt rookies (or any team founded since 2014, really), as you stated earlier. However, not being familiar with the intricacies of the rules can always hurt any team, and always will.

I still don't think this is as complex as you're making it out to be, though. Essentially:
-Only enter your opponent's secret passage from the courtyard.
-If you go in your opponent's secret passage, don't get touched.
-Don't push your opponent into your own secret passage for no reason.

...and that's it, really. I suppose this is comparatively more complex than just "don't go in", but every team is supposed to thoroughly read the manual. For whatever reason, the GDC decided you should be able to take boulders from your opponent's secret passage (though if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's so an alliance with a big enough lead can't just hoard all the boulders in their secret passage and sit there for the rest of the match).