StreetSoccer tactics

I looked at StreetSoccer threads back through 2006, but did not find any with "strategy" or "tactics" in the title. Perhaps someone can find a thread that I have not. Meanwhile, let's start a discussion of tactics here. Tactics that I have noticed, in the order I noticed them, are verticality, scoring, blocking, ball control and territory.

1. Vertical communication of the players. Your players have what we might call vertical communication, or the ability to pass up the field, if they are arrayed so that you could score a goal if you rolled a 6 on a post-goal kickoff.

2. The importance of scoring. If you have several moves, and on some your opponent could then score only if he rolls a 6 and on some your opponent could score on a roll of 5 (or 6), always choose one of the former. In general, choose from among your moves that make x highest in "My opponent can score if he rolls an x."

And if you can score, choose among only those moves that score.

3. Blocking a kick. There are two cases for the ball passing from player-to-player or from player to final destination. If the start cell and end cell are on a straight line, whether orthogonal or diagonal, then a single opposing player is enough to block it. If not, the ball must travel on one of exactly two different possible paths, and two opposing men are needed to block it.

Special case: if your opponent would have two possible paths and you don't already have a player blocking one of them, then you can't block the kick.

Special case: If you're yellow and the ball is at bc (see notation below), you can prevent your opponent from scoring an unassisted goal by placing a player at cc.

x

x

xoy

x

xxxxxxxx

4. Ball control. In general, if you can't score a goal on this move you want to place the ball where it's close to at least one of your players and far from all your opponent's players. I don't have a hard-and-fast rule about this like I do for scoring.

5. Territory. I have only the vaguest notions about this. The idea would be to array your men so that your opponent cannot achieve ball control. That is, so that there are no cells to which he can kick the ball that are significantly closer to his players than to yours.

Notation: The LG software uses the a Cartesian coordinate system to denote cells on the board. You can see the notation in the URL while you're making a move. A cell is denoted by an x-coordinate followed by a y-coordinate. The x-coordinate varies from "a" through "h" from left to right. The y-coordinate varies from "a" through "l" from bottom to top. (Note: If you're logged in as the Red coach you see the yellow goal at the top, and cell aa is at the top right instead of the bottom left.)

Thats pretty good already, thanks. It doesn't get you over 1800 though, so there must be more.

I have two other rules I think make sense, but I'm not sure and would like to get feedback:

1. try to keep your people away from the border fields. With everything else equal, do not kick the ball to a field right at the right or left borders, because you would have to move there next move.

2. (really a corollary to 1.) try to make your opponent move to the border fields. If you have a bad roll and basically have to give up the ball, kick it to the far right or left, so your opponent has to move to the border to grab it.

Both are based on the idea that having a player on a border field is positionally bad, but maybe I'm wrong there - anyone willing to spill some knowledge?

I would like to get more elaborate on 4. I always try to put the ball so the opponent needs a least 4 to get it (the more the better of course).

But if I have a choice between different fields where me/him would need 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, should I chose the 3/4 field? My idea was that if I chose the 1/2 field (I need 1, he needs 2), the chances are the ball is gone anyway, so it does not help me to be able to get there with a 1. On the other hand, if I choose a 3/4, and he does not get there (no 4+ rolled), I have to spend 3 steps to get there, and can't get anything accomplished afterwards.

So what is optimal?

@aganju when choosing a 3/4 square, you must be very carefull that he rolling, say 2, wouldn't be able to block you in such manner that your 3 to get the ball becomes a 4 or even 5; basically, Marley's rules got me over 1800 (I might weigt them a little different than him, though)

Regarding territory (or what I would call "field position), it's nice if you can systematically break up your opponent's "verticality" throughout the game. The more you can scatter your opponent so he cannot use his players for assists, the better.

Regarding Aganju's border squares, I think it's fine to have one of your players on the border if he is alone and hard for the opponent to reach. He would have some "breathing room" if you made a pass to him. (It is like switching sides of the field in real soccer.)

There is also the matter of stalling when you have a lead; by that I mean when you stop aggressively trying to set yourself up for more goals and instead kick the ball to places where your opponent would need a few moves to have a chance to score. There is a proper time to do that, and you don't want to do that too early.

This game is incredibly simple to learn, but very deep in strategy!

@Aganju, would you mind if I mentally renumber your 1 and 2 as 6 and 7, just to keep the numbering unambiguous?

8. Rex's breaking the opponent's verticality.

9. Stalling.

Of course not. Repost them with new numbers if you like. I could even delete my post if you want

For most of you, this must be so common knowledge, that is worthless to mention. I didn't know that - and I got over 1900 without knowing it - until I saw some mention to it in some other forum topic (lost track of which one) and then checked it in my games:

10. When putting your players in the field at first move, the dice for the starting player is already known, so there's an optimal setup for each case.

Before someone mention that the dice shown was indeed the roll for first player I used to believe it was just some random number shown because the interface is programmed to show a dice there. Now that I came into this big breakthrough (once againg, for me) knowledge, I will struggle with it for some time before I can correctly incorporate this information into my gameplay (sorry, Canarinha).

Yes, 10 (the starting player and first roll are known when you place your players on the field) is critical! And it is what makes this site so much better than mastermoves.eu where you have to set up your team without knowing whether you will get the first move or not (original rules).

Here, there are 10 different starting conditions, but there is not one optimal setup for each. Some setups are better than others, but I am still examining the setups for other players to see if they are better than my favorites. It is hard to figure out!

I think the opening setup is the weakest aspect of my game.

i think it would be cool if the opening dice roll is hidden to the defending player(team) and the player kicking off knows the # of the roll and the defending player(team) has to try interpret what the die roll might be based on how the player(team) kicking off sets up his meeples .

I respectfully disagree with jim O. IMHO, first player already have an advantage as it is. Giving him private info would be too much.

Is it the general consensus that the first player has an advantage, despite teh fact that the pips on the first die are effectively weighted to be low?