Starcraft AI blog

This game Randomhammer-MegaBot 2017 is an example of why it’s not such a good idea to go marines versus protoss. Randomhammer still does it (15% of the time in the live version) because its other TvP strategies are also ineffective.

Stage 1: MegaBot went 2 gate zealots while Randomhammer answered with marines from 2 barracks. If MegaBot had been aggressive with the zealots it likely would have won early, because Randomhammer doesn’t understand early game marine-zealot micro and it lets the marines get hit far too often. But MegaBot did not press. In the picture, the larger zealot army is overcautiously retreating.

Stage 2: Randomhammer got academy tech while MegaBot was still on zealots. The terran force had been dangerously small because of poor macro, but it was growing. Then the zealots took a bad engagement moving across a bridge in widely separated formation, and got wiped out. Stim is strong, and slow zealots are not the right unit to face marines and medics.

Stage 3: MegaBot got dragoons, which it should have done much earlier. Defending the ramp, a small number of dragoons was just able to hold the infantry force that had destroyed far more zealots. The better tactical situation (defending a choke instead of trying to pass through a choke) and better unit choice of dragoons versus marines made a huge difference.

Stage 4: MegaBot expanded and formed a mixed army of dragoons and zealots. Randomhammer built factories for tanks and also expanded but lost the command center to dragoons. It was partly due to more weak macro (gotta replace BOSS).

The game went on because MegaBot decided not to win on the spot, but morally Randomhammer was lost. In the end, though, MegaBot crashed. The game is also an example of the importance of reliability.

I chose the game to write up because of the stark contrasts between stages. The zealots seemed strong at first, then went poof after stim finished. A trickle of dragoons in the next stage was enough to turn it around again. The game would have been a better example if MegaBot had gotten reavers or storm and showed the infantry some real protoss devastation.