Starcraft AI blog

The annual rush of new bots is well underway. The latest is a batch of terran bots from the Charles III University of Madrid, none of which seems to be 100% working yet. One step at a time!

Meanwhile, Steamhammer has been unchanged on the server since September, a longer stretch than ever before. I have been working more slowly, but it has been a long time and I have done a lot in total. But mainly I delayed in order to release 1.4 with the promised opponent model, and yet I didn’t feel like working hard on the model.... And now the 20 December SSCAIT tournament deadline is threatening to wrap around my neck. I’ve made a ton of improvements, and it would be crazy to go into the tournament without a look to see what new bugs I’ve added too.

I’m still not sure exactly what will be in 1.4, but today I uploaded the test version Steamhammer 1.4a1. Why that version number? Because it’s inconsistent with the version numbering scheme I used before, and nothing could be more important than inconsistency!

This version has noticeably more complex and interesting play than the September Steamhammer. Most of the opponent model features are disabled; I expect to turn on more of them for the tournament version, because the gain can be big. But watch this version and you will see much improved scouting in the opening and middle game (to support the opponent model), somewhat smarter decisions from squads (to support the opponent model), better reactions to some kinds of rushes (as a result of the opponent model), and many tweaks to strategy (because it desperately needed them). On the stream, look in the upper left for the new “Opp Plan” line that tells Steamhammer’s inference of the opponent’s intention in the opening. It starts out as “Unknown” and often stays that way the entire game, but sometimes changes to “Fast rush” or “Heavy rush” or one of several other values. A few of the values can lead to dramatic strategy shifts, "Heavy rush" has only a subtle effect, and others are unimplemented and have no effect.

I’ll go into detail starting tomorrow.