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Steamhammer’s improved tactical skills

The development Steamhammer version still makes many facepalm-level mistakes—the guardians press forward into enemy corsairs while the devourers run away, that level. Even so, testing today shows that its tactical play has improved so much that it can win long difficult macro games against opponents that used to smash it every time in those games. The old blunders where Steamhammer might at any moment throw away its army by suddenly retreating through the enemy, or the like—those blunders are completely gone. In restructuring squads I introduced an all-new stockpile of different mistakes, and those mistakes I have cleaned up enough that they are minor by comparison. Defense squads especially needed a lot of attention.

Since late last year, Steamhammer has been able to play with strong macro. It has finally gained the ability to use the large number of units it can make without wasting too many. It can freely enter into situations that formerly I tuned its openings to avoid. The work took a tremendous amount of time, but the time was well spent.

I still have stuff to fix and features to add, and the time is wearing on. In AIIDE, I hope that Steamhammer can keep up with the field and finish about as high as it did last year. Progress has been blistering, and if I can keep up with it then I feel I’m doing great.

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McRave on :

The retreating through enemy fix was long overdue, glad you sorted it out!

Jay Scott on :

A great many other improvements are also overdue. :-)

krasi0 on :

I look forward to seeing the new tactical skills in action. :)

Tully Elliston on :

Looking foward to seeing dat changelog!

Have you addressed indecision (dive-retreat-dive from Zerglings)?

Jay Scott on :

Indecision has multiple causes, or you could say it the other way around, decisiveness is a complex skill. Expect modest improvement.

Dilyan on :

If you have fixed overlord suiciding will be good improvement.

Tully Elliston on :

And Drone pathfinding/threat avoidance :D

Jay Scott on :

If you guys keep this up long enough, you’ll eventually reproduce my to-do list. :-)

Arrak on :

They would have to keep at it for at least a century. :^)

Tully Elliston on :

Decisiveness would be a nicely thematic skill to have strong for Steamhammer, the brutal macro bot

Arrak on :

Eager to see how clustering goes. I am likely to adopt some form of it myself.

MicroDK on :

Instead of relying on Jay to develop all your suggestions, you could do it yourself. ;)

Joseph Huang on :

What's the fun in that?

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