Krasi0 and other updates
I count 10 bots updated since the mini-tournament. That’s a lot. 5 Pool started losing some games and was disabled, with a message “Want to create a bot which doesn’t only 5 pool.” I think the strategy is showing its limits. Once you’ve seen the range of followups, it seems to me not all so hard to counter all of them.
I miss Pinfel, disabled before the mini-tournament with a losing score of 3-10. It played a zealot-probe all-in bringing every single unit, unlike any other bot. I recommend occasional all-ins for strong bots, even if they’re risky. If you have opponent modeling, recognize greedy opponents and bust them; if you have good judgment, recognize opportunities and seize them; if you’re not that bright, like Steamhammer, then randomly all-in (say) 5% of the time to keep ’em on their toes, to challenge their opponent models and judgment.
A few observations on Krasi0’s new play:
• I thought Krasi0 was more cautious about detaching groups and sending them forward without enough support. That’s an improvement. It also seemed even more hesitant than before to expand, at least while under pressure. I suspect that a bot which could keep up constant pressure while simultaneously defending its expansions from vulture raids and harassment drops might starve out Krasi0 and win.
• Against Iron, Krasi0 backed up its bunker with a vulture, which appeared to forestall Iron’s runby—and then went 2 port wraith! Is that a new build, or is only the vulture new? An early vulture seems normal in a 2 port wraith build. Anyway, it worked well enough; Krasi0 beat Iron, which it has rarely done lately.
2 port wraith could be deadly against macro zergs, or against any bot which doesn’t grasp air defense. For terran against Iron, for the middle game I suggest a tank-heavy army with some goliaths mixed in. I think that meets all of Iron’s preferred unit mixes.
• In the most recent games, I noticed that against Steamhammer’s mutalisk play, Krasi0 made turrets only near the bunker where Steamhammer persistently maneuvers. Against 5 Pool’s mutalisks, Krasi0 made turrets all over its base before any attack, which was helpful given how that zerg plays. What’s the difference? Is it a hard-coded behavior, or is it the result of opponent modeling? Or did I watch the wrong games?
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PurpleWaveJadien on :
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PurpleWaveJadien on :
Jay Scott on :
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krasi0 on :
Regarding the amount of turrets, some BOs have more turrets predefined than others but the actual positioning and whether to construct all of the turrets mentioned in the BO is decided on the fly depending on the circumstances in the game (the BO is more of a guideline when the bot is unsure on how to proceed). That TvZ6 BO in particular has been specifically developed to counter an early ling rush with a mutalisk follow up (a la 5 pool).
As usual though (and it will remain like this in the future), nothing is hardcoded per map name nor opponent name. The bot just tries to figure out on its own which of the available openings do well against each bot. Against SH, it's tried many openings in turn and so far has decided that the dominant one (tvz1) has the highest expected value, although once it loses it will probably decide to switch again for the surprise effect. That's the beauty of opening learning - in a long (say Bo9+) match, it becomes something like an AI psychological poker game. Since SH comes equipped with many openings, I might re-enable even more openings on my side and schedule a long match on SSCAIT for the lolz :)
Jay Scott on :
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