GarmBot was reuploaded twice recently on SSCAIT. It looks as though it is under development again. Woohoo! Its description has added the message “Now with some lurkers. Big update coming to upgrade to BWAPI 4.1.2.” And I did see it build lurkers, which could spell trouble for some opponents (ones that GarmBot didn’t already overwhelm, I mean!).
GarmBot’s strategy is unsound, of course, but it’s also unique and delightful. It has a lot of room to improve without varying from its extreme macro, every-unit-for-itself game plan, so I’m interested to see how far Aurelien Lermant will go. Will some units get better micro or better decision-making? Will it make cleverer choices about which units to make where, such as not hatching drones to die instantly at a base that’s under attack? I would be interested to see whether it helps at all to build defensive units at a base that’s under light harassment and to waste as few resources as possible at a base that’s under massive attack—improvement or “so what?”
Not to put impossible expectations on anybody, but I can hope.
Update: The current GarmBot seems cleverer in some ways. For example, it is smarter with overlords. It’s also less aggressive about expanding and less successful overall. That’s OK—when adding ideas to a performance program it is normal to make the program worse at first, even when the ideas are good. The rest of the program may be optimized for the old behavior, and then you need a lot of updates.
The last two are not even completed and LetaBot is starting another tournament. The announcement post on Team Liquid: StarApple D/D+/C- man vs machine tournament.
I like these tournaments. Human players and bots both face game play that they haven’t seen before, which is a great way to get new ideas. I hope lots of bots will sign up.
Update from Martin Rooijackers, aka LetaBot, who runs the tournaments. He points out 1. In one of the still-running tourneys, all bots are eliminated so it is no longer a man-machine event, and in the other, one bot team is already eliminated. Bots have it tough. And 2. the bots are under active development and several have updates already. Play tourney, get smacked, fix weaknesses—sure is nice when the next event is soon!
Hey, as long as people keep signing up.
Games of Iron against different versons of LetaBot have been entertaining me. Iron has learned the same trick as Tscmoo of killing tanks by laying mines next to them. LetaBot often suffers unnecessary mine hits when it sieges up just as a mine triggers. On the other hand, LetaBot also has micro skillz and likes to kill mines after they trigger—I’ve seen it kill a mine with two fast-reacting SCVs!
The games go back and forth, but Iron has the upper hand for now. Iron has become strong against other bots. LetaBot could improve by sieging more cautiously, which is part of the terran technique of inching units forward to force a minefield. Or it could scan for mines. Scanning intelligently for mines is not that easy because the bot has to keep track of where mines are likely or possible, which seems like a lot of coding work to support a single skill.
in other news
Rob Bogie has uploaded MaasCraft (originally written by Dennis Soemers) to SSCAIT, and it plays like the replays I watched last month. MaasCraft is scoring poorly—the opposition is a lot stronger than in 2014. He also re-uploaded it, which sounds like an update. Is MaasCraft going to see major updates under its new ownership? I haven’t yet noticed any changes to its play.
PS Making slow progress on the website improvements. I chose a hard road for myself.
Here Tscmoo has discovered that Tyr built near the edge of its low-ground main base and is vulnerable to attack from outside. Blasting down buildings with no losses helped Tscmoo in its easy win.
Did Tscmoo’s tank just happen to wander into a good position, or did Tscmoo analyze the situation to find the opportunity?
Noticing when you can shoot across a barrier is a great skill. I’ve seen other bots miss chances for free kills with tanks and even with dragoons. And it’s not hard—all you have to do is figure out what’s in range from where, and recognize simple cases where it gives you an advantage. Human players are always on the lookout for chances like that.
Fewer posts, not zero.
The new protoss WuliBot is on top of the SSCAIT ranking today. The ranking is unstable, of course, but even so it’s doing well. WuliBot is an offshoot of UAlbertaBot, and I can’t see what it is doing differently than UAlbertaBot protoss. Can anybody tell me?
The name “Wuli” looks to me like a reference to The Dancing Wu Li Masters. But if so, I don’t know the meaning of the reference. What is it really?
