Starcraft AI blog

Wow, did you see the new protoss bot Bereaver? It was uploaded today at SSCAIT. In its first game it failed to start (oops). But in its second game it played strikingly well against Krasi0, breaking Krasi0’s bunker in the early game even while expanding and teching; Krasi0 defended well and held, of course, because that’s what Krasi0 does. Then Bereaver put up a fierce fight in the middle game with reavers and high templar, repeatedly wearing down and breaking Krasi0’s pushes until Bereaver ran out of resources, unable to expand beyond its third in the face of terran map control.

Somebody with game-scheduling power must have seen the game too, because games against other top bots came up right away. Bereaver lost more than it won, but it did defeat IceBot despite misplacing its natural nexus and being unable to take a third, ignorant of how to clear the mine blocking the expansion spot.

I was also impressed with the game against Andrew Smith’s Skynet. Bereaver apparently diagnosed Skynet’s dark templar rush and prepared against it, cannoning and easily holding its ramp. The cannons were misplaced and blocked dragoons and reavers inside, a fatal blunder, but the basic skill is there.

It’s a great start for a new bot. Many rough edges are in plain sight, which means that improvements should come easily!