How did you feel about Stronghold?

[Hjelstrom]

Stronghold was an awesome game and engineering challenge! It was easy to show to relatives and friends and was a big hit with them. I think it struck just the right balance of defense to offense. At the end of the day I want to see robots do their thing not be shut down by overwhelming defense but defense could definitely impact a match.

[Michael Hill]

It more than exceeded my expectations. I knew it was going to be a good game from the start, but I didn't think it would turn out to be one of the best games yet.

[Michael Hill]

Also, I was sure there was going to be a lot more complaining on CD about how many field elements there were to build (I know we had a few choice words we shared with each other), but there seemed to be not too much of that.

[chamingflicken]

In terms of theme, FIRST nailed it this year.
Having all of the field reset crew dubbed "field heralds" and the refs wearing feather hats... it was just a fun event to attend and compete in. Our first district event even had the medieval music going in the pits. 10/10, please partner with Disney again.

[caboosev11]

I thought from a strategy perspective, Stronghold was a lot more fun than past games. Where in past games match strategy was mostly what each robot on the alliance would do and what to do if opponents started interfering, this year's addition of selection of defense made match strategy much more intense.
For my team, Stronghold was a great year. We've made it further than we ever had. Our engineering, programming and marketing all vastly improved.
Even though things went better for me and my team in Stronghold, I still don't like it as much as Aerial Assist. Something about Aerial Assist was just more fun and interesting.
Either way, both are better than Recycle Rush.

[scooty199]

It was a really solid game, and I liked it a lot. FIRST did a good job with it. Good strategic depth, good engineering challenge, a lot for teams to do. It didn't suffer from the 2014 Foul calls, which is a plus.

It did feel as though during tournaments especially at Worlds I was watching less great strategy and more of robots trying not to mess up. It became an exercise of who makes fewer mistakes.

I liked it better in Aerial Assist where it was lot more varied and open to strategic complexity.

Also this year was tough for field reset and other volunteers.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

I would argue there were *too many* engineering challenges. I personally prefer games with fewer required mechanisms so that we can focus on getting those few working really well, without sacrificing capability. Others will disagree with me though.

I felt it was a good balance. A basic KOP bot would have been capable of contributing to breaches and captures. Low resource teams could build a KOP bot and make minor variations like swapping out the wheels, beefing up the frame, and adding a single manipulator to handle balls and defenses. The MCC was very attainable.

Meanwhile, teams that wanted to custom make a full drive train, multiple mechanisms, turrets, vision assist, tank treads, etc. could do so. But it wasn't a given that a custom engineered robot with many mechanisms was going to beat the pants off something simpler.