A novel strategy: Always score for your opponents

[Swampdude]

I can see where duking it out with no defense will screw the loser if this becomes the norm. Knowing this the loser would always opt to help the winner. So it doesn't make sense to try and outright win unless you know for certain that you can AND the other team WILL score some points for them in your benefit to cover some of your penalties.

So now, it seems to me if you could get an agreement from all 6 teams to score for the team that has hangers. Plus give the losing team 1 or 2 points to cover the winning teams penalties, then you would have assurance from everyone that it was reasonable to cooperate from the beginning, hence optimize the assured seeding and coopertition points. Otherwise playing chicken with them will just lower everyone's points.

There's some logistical issues. It's going to get crowded at the winning teams goals. So put your 2 best herders there, the mid field bots can make shots, the far bots just help move balls forward then help if they can or just stay out of the way. Then the winning team hangers hang making more room for the other bots to move in and continue scoring till the end. This could make a consistent 15-20 point seeding/coopertition score for both teams fairly reasonable.

I think this is worth proposing, but the purists will spit on you. And you need to be able to trust the agreed winning team for this arrangement to work. Maybe we need an insurance agreement document, where the cheated party gets to pick a spare motor from your kit if you diverge.