FIRST Stronghold Match Strategy

[BenGuy]

Hello, our team hasn't played in any events yet, and our first event is next week at MI Livonia. As a potential driver, one of the things that I was considering is the 'schedule' of teleop, As in like, is it best to breach all first then go for boulders, to do both as efficiently as possible, ect.? Please share what your team found successful if you've played already. Thanks.

[Michael Hill]

Scouting is key this year. Find out what your opponents can't cross. Put those defenses in front of them. The biggest thing to do before your match is plan your strategy. Exactly who will be doing what on your alliance. Make sure you know who will be crossing what defenses. From what I've experienced, making sure you breach is the number 1 priority, but it can generally be done so quickly with good planning, that you end up doing it while getting balls to the courtyard for scoring. Consistent low goals were key at our week 2 regional (Pittsburgh), but depending on what your competition is like, high goals may have their place. It is also taking teams a long time to line up for high goal shots, especially in the middle of the courtyard. Have someone play defense on them if they're not a good goal scorer (and have crossed their designated defenses).

[CalTran]

Well, let's take a look at the bigger picture: Seeding.
Seeding for this particular game is decided by Ranking Points (5.3.3), which you can get by 3 methods - Winning, Breaching, and Capturing.

Originally Posted by 5.3.3 Ranking Score (RS)

A. Each Team on the winning ALLIANCE receives two (2) Ranking Points.
B. Each Team on the losing ALLIANCE receives zero (0) Ranking Points.
C. In the event of a tied score, all Teams receive one (1) Ranking Point.
D. Each team on an ALLIANCE that CAPTURES a TOWER receives one (1) Ranking Point.
E. Each team on an ALLIANCE that BREACHES the OUTER WORKS receives one (1) Ranking Point.

As such, your first priority in a match should be to Breach the opponent's Outer Works, since it is the only way to guarantee that you gain at least 1 RP per match.
Now, let's say that you can get 2 crossings during autonomous (Your robot and one of your alliance partners.) That leaves 6 necessary crossings, so that's roughly 6 boulders you can score. If you can pull this off, which is not an easy feat by all means, your odds of winning the match go up significantly. This means that you can somewhat reliably get 3 RP per match. From here, if you can manage to score the last 2 boulders somewhere, and get your alliance to Challenge the tower, you will most likely win the match and be raking in 4 RP per quals and be well on your way to winning the regional.

TLDR; focus on Breaching, then scoring, then Challenging.

[TimTheGreat]

Originally Posted by CalTran

TLDR; focus on Breaching, then scoring, then Challenging.

What seemed to work well for us is splitting up the alliance into scoring and breaching (meaning robots focus on one or the other, and not REALLY both). Now, if you don't have a strong breacher or strong scorer then this won't really work, but chances are you have one of them. If you have a strong breacher, have the other two bots work mainly on putting balls in. If you have a strong scorer, than the other two focus on breaching. Surprisingly enough, it's pretty easy to get the full breach (all 5) without much effort. The two scoring bots can take care of 'low' defenses (Bar, B, and D classes) while the breaching bot handles A and possibly C (if not on their own they can perform some love taps to get through). If the scoring bots work well they should be able to each get 3 or more in during the match. That's 6, and if the breacher either finishes early or grabs 2 during the breaching period and puts them in, that's 8. It's very doable, but doesn't show up much during quals. At CHS DC we were part of the only alliance to get a capture during quals.

[Michael Hill]

Yeah, I forgot...no excuse to not at least challenge.

[NShep98]

I'll give you an example. My team's robot is a particularly strong breacher. We can go through the low bar, and the B and D defenses very quickly, so we tell our partners to focus on shooting if that's what they do. If our partners can do the Portcullis/Cheval, we let them, as we haven't tested on those yet. Otherwise, we do what we've referred to as "chaining" the drawbridge/sally port, where one robot holds the door open for one or both of the other two.

After the breach is finished, our job is to fall back on defense and mess with enemy shooter bots or prevent them from crossing defenses (before they reach them to avoid fouls). Since we have to leave our courtyard at 30 seconds anyway, we make a dash for the opposing castle where we attempt to scale.

Each match, we coordinate with our partners who will take which defenses in what order.

EDIT: Make sure you figure out auto defenses as well. Be prepared to not get low bar.

[Boltman]

First off YOU MUST BREACH (all three bots) that will be a win 90% of the time in quals.

Second you must have several 100% effective at least crossing autos.


Breach THEN go after boulders in castle, try easy ones first and make sure the lights go out.

Once you hear the bell finish last score or two then get to the castle and either challenge or scale..every match


Rinse repeat

In eliminations everyone breaches so make sure you can also cycle boulders by then and put some of that on tape for scouts

Remember its all about efficiency and reliability..become a scoring/RP machine.

RP and Auto pts are HUGE...job #1

yes scouting is also very important to find best elimination partners.

[Rangel]

Breaching is important but absolutely make sure you focus on other points like challenging and boulders. Too many teams lost matches because they spent the first half breaching and then began to score after. While this guarantees the breach, it wastes time since to score boulders, you have to cross defenses anyways. A good rule of thumb is that the more confident you are of your alliance, the less time you should dedicate to ONLY breaching.

[BenGuy]

Also, as a follow up question, at what point (if ever) before the match, do you find out the defenses that you're going to have to breach?

[Richard Wallace]

See the Manual, section 5.5.10.

Quick answer, you make your defense selections two matches ahead of your own, and find out what defenses your opponents have selected one match ahead. This happens in the queue.

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Back to your first question: match strategy depends on your robot. If you have a fast (touch-it-own-it) intake, then you should carry a boulder during every crossing you make. Then either complete the cycle yourself, shooting high or low (whichever is quicker and more accurate for your robot), or leave the boulder for one of your partners to shoot. Repeat until you have the breach. Then cycle boulders by your fastest method; or, if your partners have that role covered*, go play defense to slow the opposition's cycles, until the endgame warning. Then haul 'bot to the challenge.

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*'Covered' means they can weaken the tower without your help.

[NShep98]

Originally Posted by BenGuy

Also, as a follow up question, at what point (if ever) before the match, do you find out the defenses that you're going to have to breach?

You find that out in the match before yours.

[GKrotkov]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

A good rule of thumb is that the more confident you are of your alliance, the less time you should dedicate to ONLY breaching.

I agree with this emphatically. Match strategy this year is a little interesting: you have to have an idea of relative strength of each alliance in order to make the correct call*. The breach is important, yes, but we're now getting to the time in the game where breaching is no longer enough to be confident in winning the match. How exactly you should try to guarantee the win is highly variable, and it would be foolish of me to try and give you a simple set of rules to follow for making match strategy. It just depends too much on how your event plays out and how your particular robot likes to play.

* and that's where scouting comes in. Yes, in qualifications as well. It's not just useful for alliance selection.