archive by month
Skip to content

win ruthlessly like LetaBot and ZZZKBot

One of the stories of SSCAIT 2016 is that LetaBot (playing under its author’s name, Martin Rooijackers) scored easy wins over certain tough opponents with SCV rushes. Classic LetaBot used to play bunker rushes and recent LetaBot versions still sometimes performed SCV-marine rushes, so the rush opening should not have been a total surprise. But it worked perfectly against Krasi0 and even against micro-virtuoso Iron. The losers tried hard to keep their own SCVs safe, lost too much mining time, and could not keep up.

I approve. That’s the way to do it. If you find a weakness, exploit it ruthlessly and don’t worry about whether people look down on you as a cheeser. In fact, that is ZZZKBot’s entire modus operandi, and ZZZKBot is doing well with it, departing from its traditional 4 pool often and effectively with opponent-specific builds. Ruthless wins are your opponent’s way of telling you what you need to fix, and that’s good for everybody.

LetaBot’s rush looked similar to the rush we used to see from Stone, before Stone evolved into Iron. LetaBot pulled back its damaged SCVs into loving mutual-repair couples before returning them to the fray. I rather wish Stone were still playing alongside Iron. Stone would constantly remind other bot authors of the importance of good worker micro—worker micro is difficult (and I sure haven’t gotten around to it in Steamhammer), but it’s key.

Trackbacks

No Trackbacks

Comments

LetaBot on :

That is indeed the idea behind what I did. To make sure bots don't get defeated by such strategies in the future.

What surprises me is that the developer of Stone (the SCV rush bot) is the same developer of iron bot (which got SCV rushed by my bot).

Igor Dimitrijevic on :

We don't need programmers that can exhibit smart counter strategies at the tournaments times.
What we need is programmers that can exhibit smart counter strategies as often as possible!
Because there are only 3 tournaments per year, while any bot has hundreds of weaknesses that can be exploited.
So, basically, using secret counter strategies at the tournaments times only is not going to make the targeted bots any more robust. Not much more, really. It is, yet, an effective way to convert lost games to won ones. Which is perfectly fair and fine because rules are rules.
But, now, just think about this: what if, saying, the top ten of the bot authors decide to go the sneaky way against each other? What would we get then? Chaos and chance. Just consider one game. Who's gonna win? Chance, but probably the counter strat that comes first. Will the first counter strategy work? Sure, since it was designed to and it is secret. Will the game be interesting? Likely not. Will the game be interesting if ever the secret counter strategy fails? not if it is an all-in. Such a tournament would be a brillant demonstration of how many and various are the weaknesses of bots. But we all know this already, right? The tournament of chaos and chance might be exciting, but in the end, I think what people want to see is what bots are already good at. Not what is not implemented yet. They want to see fights between bots at their best, and thus beeing able to compare bots strengths.
Also, it should be noted that, in the tournament of chaos and chance, some bots are more likely to be targeted: the strongest ones, the ones that are easy to test locally, and the ones that are updated often during the year. Some bot authors may thus decide to update their bots less often. I think it is a pity and counterproductive for the community.
Iron and SCV-rushes? Well Iron shamefully beats Stone's SCV rush, which beats LetaBot's SCV rush if I remember well (the flying CC thing helps in such mirror games), so I didn't ever bother about SCV rushes. But of course, Stracraft is not a transitive game! Actually, I have restrained Iron's SVCs abilities in some situations. For exemple, only a limited set of miners is allowed to repair themselves or to go fighting away. Easy fix. Also Iron can complete a factory during the SCV attack. I think cancelling the Factory and the Refinery should save enough time and ressources to train a couple of marines for an easy win.

Jay Scott on :

You make a good point that being reminded of your weaknesses every day is better than being reminded a few times a year. I agree. About the chaos of counter-strategies, I’m not so sure. Some early rush strategies are asymmetrical, in that they are easier to execute than to defend against, which means that new bots will rarely be able to defend against them and rushes will often pay off. That I do see as a problem of a kind; SSCAIT addresses the problem by disabling rushbots when they get too boring. Other rushes are hard to execute, like Steamhammer’s mutalisk rush versus terran, which exploits a weakness in most terran bots. In the last game against Krasi0, mutalisks defeated defenses in the terran main and seemed poised to win, but then Steamhammer’s poor mutalisk tactics took over, and it made awful choices and lost. Exploiting weaknesses is often as hard as correcting them. Also, I think that simple varied play is underrated. A bot can play openings at random even without learning, or can make different tech choices based on scouting (which will always be affected by random events). Leaving aside the fastest rushes, if a bot shows variety in its play, with different weaknesses in different games, then an opponent must have a variety of exploits plus the adaptability to apply them at the right times. And then it’s a game!

LetaBot on :

Looks like your bot and Zia Bot are draw for 16 place. Not sure what happens now.

I hope a Bo3 match to decide it, since the current score between the bots is 1-1. I would like to know which one is better.

Jay Scott on :

I’ve run test matches between them, so I know the answer: Zia is an opening learning bot. Which of the two is better depends on how much Zia has learned about Steamhammer.

Add Comment

E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

Form options

Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.