what’s next for Steamhammer?
Steamhammer 3.5.10, the AIIDE 2021 tournament version, is uploaded to SSCAIT and SCHNAIL. I chose to turn on DrawClusters this time as the debug flag to entertain watchers, because it now draws enemy unit clusters as well as friendly ones. I’ll post the source before long.
Next up will be Steamhammer 3.5.11, a bug fix release. It seems that I often issue bug fixes shortly after tournament versions, because there are a few things I wish I had gotten done in time. I don’t intend to take long with it. It will include the production freeze fix that I mentioned in the change list, and likely a few other quick items.
After that, it is time to re-evaluate my priorities again. Earlier, I had planned work on opening timing, and started some of it. Then I had to wait for data to accumulate before I could dig in deep, and my motivation flagged. Now the data has accumulated, but the skills I wanted to gain from opening timing no longer seem like the most urgent for Steamhammer: It is losing games for different reasons than back then. When I made the analysis that led to the opening timing decision, Steamhammer was losing due to poor opening choices and strategic mistakes. Now it seems to me that its losses are more often due to tactical weaknesses. The old problems are not fixed, but neither are they foremost; the scene has passed them by and exposed different problems. Maybe my changed analysis comes from watching SCHNAIL games? That’s probably one reason.
I want to improve tactical play somehow. I wrote down a number of medium-size projects that promise progress and that I could reasonably complete in time for the annual SSCAIT tournament in December. Some are work on tactical control of units that need help, and some are more general skills.
They’re all important, and I haven’t decided. At the moment I’m leaning toward doing the tactical analysis that I’ve often mentioned. The tactical analysis would provide an information framework for squad tactics and other decisions, so it’s logical to do first. With new priorities, the version after the bug fixes of 3.5.11 will be 3.6.
Besides one multi-month project, I need to put some level of effort into solving a few critical tactical weaknesses. Number one is indecision between advancing and retreating, the constant back-and-forth of the front units. It causes losses that add up quickly, and it happens virtually every game. Number two is defense when closely contained outside the sunken line, which is outright broken—units take fire without shooting back. Against humans, much more than bots, a key ZvP weakness is lack of storm dodging. Bots storm poorly. Storm dodging is a solved problem, so I hope the implementation won’t be hard.
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Dilyan on :
Dilyan on :
Jay Scott on :
By the way, queen skills do contributes to wins, especially against turtling terrans. I added queens for fun, but in practice they succeed, at least sometimes.
Dilyan1 on :
SH went blindly on 2hatchery fast lurker contain. Lurker contain is only good if terran is on 1 base. If he goes expo, lurkers should combine forces with zerflings and try to kill opponent. or lose trying. Its all in opening. If you wait as happened terran will just hold until has enough... SH switched to muta but was fatal error, but was already over by then. Switching to other advanced unit is often suicide when you go for early aggression and don't have enough economy. Switching works when you already are on like 3 bases saturated with drones
Tully Elliston on :
Strategic: check total our army sizes and bases versus estimated enemy army size and bases to figure out if we should be defending or attacking. If defending (we have greater economy but significantly smaller army) immediately retreat to sunkens.
Tactical: if not retreating due to above layer, measure based on total enemy army size figured to be in the local area versus our own army size in the same area. If we think our force is significantly smaller decide if to retreat - in which case we back up until the cluster receives more units or until we've reversed a good distance before checking tactical again. Include our statics in the area in the calculation. Ignore retreat case from this layer when local area has more than x (ours or enemy) workers present.
Micro: if not retreating due to above layer, decisions based on combat sim results. If tactical thinks we have local superiority but combat sim says we lose, then the present retreat behavior of moving back and forth (allows the cluster to concentrate in one place) is probably optimal.
Dilyan on :
https://youtu.be/HON-vo3N_Fk
You can try this strategy. Against protoss bots you might skip sim City, because of often early goon aggression and just add few more sunkens. Notice how zerg turtle ups and doesn't get out with ground units until he is on 4 bases hive, upgrades and has enough units. You won't lose ground units to poor micro for free.. Meanwhile you can try muta harras to keep protoss army at home and not busting thru sunkens.