Starcraft AI blog

A middle group of bots finished close to each other, from #5 McRave at 41.70% to #8 DaQin at 39.63%. #6 WillyT is the second of the group.

WillyT’s learning files record the bot’s strategy as 01, 02, 03, or 04. Last year it only went up to 03. There may be an expectation of going up to 10 someday! Here is how I translated the strategy numbers into names, based on the numbering in the bot’s top-level README.

Stardust got special treatment, and it was still only good enough for 3%. The tonk build seems to have been specially devised to give a chance against Stardust. I checked on BASIL and found that the chance there was never high. But it’s over zero, that’s better than Steamhammer did!

Switching between the rush and bio-mech was able to squeeze a little blood from BananaBrain. It’s interesting that mech scored lower, though the expected win rate is so low that it’s hard to be sure the difference is real. Does the build suffer from a weak timing?

The author explained in a comment that WillyT is weak at TvT because it does not understand siege lines. With only one terran opponent, it wasn’t critical. This version of Dragon always makes a slow start to the game, so any slowness in WillyT’s bio-mech build did not matter, and having tanks likely helped.

WillyT could not outscore Steamhammer, but it made a good attempt. I find it distressing that the rush won so many games; it’s a strong rush but not that hard to hold. Again, bio-mech was better than mech. Well, that’s more expected versus zerg, but I wonder whether the reason is the same as versus BananaBrain?

McRave is meticulous in defense, which shows in these numbers. But it suffered against 2-base play. I think we can infer that WillyT has good mutalisk defense.

The tonk build had success against Microwave, but was neither successful nor much played other than here and versus Stardust. I’d say the build is overspecialized, useful only in a narrow range of situations. The rush was overwhelming, though.

And again, bio-mech over mech. It’s not conclusive, but I feel that something may be weak in the mech build. Maybe WillyT is just better with marines.

FreshMeat is newer and perhaps not ready yet to face the rush.

UAlbertaBot, with aggressive openers and no strong defensive skill, also fell to the rush. It got outrushed. It strikes me that WillyT scored nearly the same against #5 McRave, #7 Microwave, #9 FreshMeat, and #10 UAlbertaBot, even though the four are different in style and strength. WillyT did not crush any opponent. To me that suggests some kind of inconsistency in its play: It may have flaws that even weaker bots can exploit sometimes.