Stronghold involves breaching the opponents’ defenses, known as outer work as well as capturing their tower.
This is accomplished by first firing "boulders" (small foam balls) at it, and then surrounding or scaling the tower using a singular rung on the tower wall.
Points were scored by crossing elements of the tower's outer works, shooting boulders into the opposing tower's five goals in order to lower the tower strength, and by surrounding and scaling the tower.
Driver stations were split between the tower, with two driver stations to its left and one driver station to its right.
Each team was given the option to display a team standard above the team's driver station.
This standard was a small flag (made out of paper, cloth, or other flexible materials) and held up with a support structure built by the teams.