Tscmoo and squad coherence
In my post about independent control for unit micro I mentioned that Tscmoo can “lose squad coherence” without explaining what that is. I meant that Tscmoo likes to spread its units out instead of keeping them in a bunch, and sometimes units that start out working together end up separated and unable to cooperate. Here are a couple games from today to illustrate. I think the behavior is especially clear with zerg, so these are games of Tscmoo zerg.
the good side
First a game to show what Tscmoo gains by scattering units over the map, Tscmoo zerg versus Wuli on Heartbreak Ridge. Tscmoo opened in a way that left itself vulnerable to Wuli’s zealot rush. When the first 4 zealots arrived, Tscmoo had 4 zerglings to try to keep its morphing natural alive. Wuli already had 2 more zealots on the way, so it was army supply 12 versus 2. It looked like the natural would fall for sure.
Well, the fight went on for a while, but Tscmoo’s basic method was to run away and lure zealots out of position, then mob any zealots that strayed and could be locally outnumbered. Wuli didn’t reinforce properly and let its units get distracted, so that its powerful army went on goose chases and accomplished little. In the picture, zealots are chasing a zergling away from the natural. Notice the yellow dots on the minimap; Tscmoo is scattered around.
Eventually mutalisks came out and zerg won. Tscmoo prevailed because its willingness to run away in different directions confused Wuli, which did not know how to concentrate its forces on a vulnerable point like the natural hatchery. Goose chases confuse a lot of bots, including Steamhammer (so far), and they are responsible for a lot of Tscmoo’s resilience when facing defeat.
the bad side
The image I had in mind when I wrote “loses squad coherence” was a Tscmoo group coming under pressure and forced to retreat. Human players like to have lines of retreat if they are pressed back, so they can keep their units together. Tscmoo likes to form a giant concave and doesn’t seem to pay attention to lines of retreat. As the concave is forced farther back, different units may retreat through different exits so that what was once a group fighting together breaks up into subgroups that the enemy may be able to defeat in detail, or ignore and bypass. There is no longer one coherent squad.
The game Tscmoo zerg versus Krasi0 is not as clear an example as the last game, but it shows what I mean. Tscmoo went for a hydralisk all-in and laid on a punishing attack. The game was decided when Krasi0 held with strong tank placement. In the picture, Tscmoo’s retreating hydralisk group is forced off the central plateau on Jade and breaks up as I described above. The hydras took different exits and did not join up again.
Goose chases do not confuse Krasi0. Krasi0 goes for the throat.
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McRave on :
IMP on :
Jay Scott on :
krasi0 on :
Wild goose chases have long been an issue for BW AIs in general and even for my bot. Fortunately, at least in my case, they are not as severe as they used to be (albeit at the cost of sometimes showing undeserved mercy to certain enemy units).
Jay Scott on :
Tully Elliston on :
I think what is missing here is that agents need to change their behavior states based on strategic situation -> eg. when AI has strategic army advantage and needs to press its attack for example, agent behaviors could switch to a new set of behaviors where pursuit is prevented where it would cause the agent to move away rather than towards the enemy base.
Likewise, where the strategic situation requires a form of retreat (enemy army threat higher much than mine), agents could switch to a set of behaviors that emphasizes flocking and shortest ground distance movement away from largest concentration of threat (where it exists, else towards retreat location) over individual safety.
In these examples all agents would still be acting independently, but the swarm would still be appropriately working together to achieve the same end as centralized group control.