Starcraft AI blog

I picked five winning games to show off Steamhammer’s fearsome might, such as it is. I’m happy with the improvements in the tournament version, and if there’s more to do, then when it’s done I can be happy about that too.

Steamhammer used to defeat Locutus only when Locutus messed up severely, such as by trapping its own dragoons in its natural so that zerg didn’t have to face the whole army. And it still can’t touch Stardust. I was surprised to see a couple games where Steamhammer beat Locutus by straight up outfighting the dragoons. See Steamhammer-Locutus on Fighting Spirit where zerg won impressively with All The Macro, and Steamhammer-Locutus on Jade where zerg was unable to keep a third base up for long, but still wrested a win. Some of the credit is due to the smarter upgrade choices versus protoss, though the burrowed zergling preventing expansion was key, and Locutus did supply block itself. Here’s a picture from the second game. It may look as though zerg has 3 bases beyond its main and natural, but 1 is already destroyed (you’re seeing burrowed drones on the minimap) and the other 2 will be.

Steamhammer has also been taking games from Halo by Hao Pan. That’s not new, but I like the promise it shows. Some wins are with a one-base mutalisk build: Steamhammer-Hao Pan on Fighting Spirit. I was intrigued by Steamhammer-Hao Pan on Roadrunner where Halo was winning after a vulture-wraith build and putting on continual pressure, while Steamhammer struggled with awesome determination for longer than seemed possible. The new static defense code provides for stubborn defense. Instead of winning, Halo suffered some kind of production bug, fell behind on macro, and slowly lost. I suppose it is the result of Hao Pan concentrating on Fresh Meat, but Halo is still higher ranked than Steamhammer. This is why you don’t resign too early in bot versus bot!

Steamhammer-MadMixP on Medusa shows off cannon-related skills of both bots. MadMix cannoned behind the zerg minerals, a great skill which I haven’t seen from any other bot. Steamhammer could not fight so many cannons, but it showed its own rare skill: It mined only the mineral patches that were outside cannon range. It’s not a new skill, but I’m proud of it. Unfortunately the drones that were not allowed to mine dangerous minerals idled around the base “waiting for them to open up” instead of being transferred elsewhere, but one step at a time! Steamhammer knocked down the undefended protoss main, expanded there itself, and clumsily but inevitably defeated the cannons for the win.

I recommend making no more than about 4 cannons, then adding gateways at the proxy instead. Zealots have the power to, you know, move around and hit stuff that’s outside immediate reach. The only extra smarts the zealots need is the ability to retreat toward the cannons when outmatched and fight within cannon range.