Starcraft AI blog

Today Steamhammer 1.0 got to try, for the first time, its planned strategy versus Iron (Brood War replay file). It worked as intended, and Steamhammer won quickly. In the screenshot, Iron placed both its marines on the ramp, which made it easy. In my tests, the ramp still breaks and the bunker falls if Iron gets marines into the bunker.

I’m sure Igor Dimitrijevic will update Iron before long, but for the moment Iron loses to a standard 9 pool speedling opening—an opening that Steamhammer also plays 10% of the time versus other terrans, with fair success. Iron’s zergling defenses at that timing are not enough; the lings overwhelm the blocking SCVs and the bunker. Try the same against LetaBot and you will die!

By the way, getting zergling speed is critical versus terran. Zergling speed gives tactical and micro advantages against all races, but bots play poorly and don’t gain full value from the advantages versus protoss or zerg. But terrans have ranged units, and the gain from spending less time under fire before reaching the target is giant. It takes many more marines to overpower fast zerglings; marines should be unable to move out onto the map at all until academy tech. My suggestion: By the time you have 6 or more zerglings versus terran, you should at least be collecting gas to start Metabolic Boost. I think the main exceptions are unusual low-economy builds and zerglings for immediate emergency defense.