Starcraft AI blog

The new terran bot Rhonin (named after a character from Warcraft) appeared today, played 5 games, and disappeared in about an hour. “Just wanna test” says the description. The 5 games were 3 losses against strong opponents Krasi0, CherryPi, and Killerbot by Marian Devecka, plus 2 wins against weaker opponents Sparks and KaonBot.

Rhonin plays a marine and medic strategy, which might explain why it didn’t try any games against protoss. The marines set out in waves of ever-increasing size, which reminded me a bit of Black Crow’s zerglings. The marines don’t immediately rush to attack, but gather at a safe distance from the enemy, a location that appears to be decided dynamically depending on what Rhonin sees. Rhonin also expands quickly across the map, not as quickly as KaonBot, but still fast. The marine forces become huge.

I thought Rhonin was pretty capable for a brand new bot on its first outing. It has a limited unit mix, but it seems organized and not reckless. It knows how to scan, though it gets scan late. It seemed to get scan reactively against Killerbot’s lurkers, and very late in the game against KaonBot. It put pressure on Krasi0 and Killerbot, and I thought that an opponent which defended less firmly would be in trouble. The great masses of infantry later in the game will be dangerous unless you know how to counter them.

The sudden appearance and disappearance suggest that the test games found out what the author wanted to find out. I expect that Rhonin will be back with improvements.