Starcraft AI blog

Consider a terran bot which is on low ground under the cliff of its enemy’s base and pushing toward the enemy natural. Some bots bring vision along and fire on buildings in the enemy base. Because terrans are strong in defense, defeating the push needs either a greatly superior force, or a coordinated push-break which today’s bots can’t pull off. Looking at it from the other side, the attacker needs to move the push forward to tighten the screws, but every movement introduces some risk—the push is weaker while tanks are repositioning.

Instead of pushing the long way toward the natural, terran could bring a dropship and push up the cliff, the short way into the enemy main. Pros don’t do that—they go for more dynamic dropship play. But players who are at the level of bots often like the cliff push. It’s hard to defeat at that level. The units dropped on high ground are somewhat cut off but are supported from below, and if they are lost the cliff protects the low-ground units and the cliff push can be resumed with reinforcements.