Starcraft AI blog

The SSCAIT rules include 2 items about copying other bots. Here’s the first item:

The SSCAIT admins reserve the right to disqualify any bots that are implementation-wise too similar to previous entries (e.g. clones and forks) without adding anything novel / original to the table.

On the upside, it openly admits that the decision is a judgment call, and otherwise it is simple. On the downside, it offers little guidance on what counts as “too similar.” On balance, I like this rule.

The second item is listed separately and seems to have been inserted independently:

If you copy other bots or use IP/files/source code/logic/techniques etc from other bots, you must familiarize yourself with their licenses and ensure that you are not infringing their licenses. Copying other bot(s) is allowed, so long as it does not infringe their licenses and so long as you modify their logic or if you use/wrap it without modifying it and add some of your own logic on top of it, similar to how MegaBot used Skynet/Xelnaga/NUSBot in year 2017, or wrapping/modifying Randomhammer/UAlbertaBot/CommandCenter etc. If you do something like this, you must provide the source code and compilation instructions etc of the bots that you use, so that we can compile them. We decided that to foster research it is best to have the next generation of programmers stand on the shoulders of giants, rather than re-invent the wheel. We encourage authors to take code from old years of this competition and improve it. If you copy a bot, please uphold the spirit of competition and ensure you make significant modification or addition before you submit it. We don’t want multiple apparently near-identical copies of the same bot competing! Additionally, please contact the original bot (in case it has been updated at least once during the past year) author and ask them for permission to upload it.

This paragraph looks like it was partly copied from CIG rules, which were themselves partly copied from old AIIDE rules. Not all of it makes sense for SSCAIT. It gives the impression of having been dropped in without careful thought. It declares multiple rules. In more detail:

The rule about obeying licenses is good, except that borrowing a “technique” from another bot is universal. If you use MCRS, do you have to obey the license of UAlbertaBot because UAlbertaBot with SparCraft invented the technique of making Starcraft decisions by combat simulation? The technique that has been accepted as standard and used nearly everywhere? That makes no sense at all. The word “technique” without qualification is too vague to interpret; leave it out.

Next is some wording about when it’s OK to copy other bots. It’s unclear how much this is establishing a rule and how much it is providing guidelines to interpret the rule already established that something must be “original / novel.” In any case it overlaps with the first item, and if it’s worth keeping at all, part at least should be combined into that paragraph.

Then there’s a strange and awkwardly-worded rule that seems to require source code of the original bot that you wrap or modify, “so that we can compile” it. I don’t think SSCAIT does this. Am I wrong? Is anything similar to this rule enforced at all, or even understood by the organizers? It has the smell of a copy-paste error.

Finally, there is a rule about asking the author for permission. I don’t like that rule. I deliberately chose a license that does not require forks to ask permission, or even to let me know. As far as I am concerned, the license grants permission; to require anything from me is a waste of my time. Instead of this rule, I propose a suggestion to authors that they may want to consider whether to add a permission requirement to their license. Then the obey-the-license rule is all that’s needed.

ambiguous cases

Here are 3 edge cases related to Steamhammer. Maybe they can get people discussing what guidance to add to the rules.

Steamhammer 0.2 was forked from UAlbertaBot and played in SSCAIT 2016 after about 3 weeks of development. I made bug fixes and macro changes and stuff, but 3 weeks is not long enough for substantial code changes. Nevertheless, from the start Steamhammer’s strategy and game plan were very different from UAlbertaBot’s. Nobody suggested that it might be too similar, even though the tactics and micro were nearly identical.

NLPRBot is a 2017 fork of Steamhammer, and has not been updated. The link is to a blog post where the comments discuss what to do about shallow forks. It was accepted in tournaments in 2017 under the rules of the time. SSCAIT chose to accept it in 2018 too, though if today’s rules had been in effect in 2017 it probably would have been rejected then. I think that allowing it in 2018 is fair; NLPRBot plays like an old Steamhammer, differently from the current one, so it still adds variety. But it is an edge case, and there is an argument for rejecting it.

insanitybot is a recent fork of Steamhammer. It adds wraiths and minelaying skills and has other changes, but you could argue that it is a shallow fork; its play is in many ways closely similar to how Randomhammer plays terran. I think it is right to accept it into the tournament, because of the improvements and because Steamhammer doesn’t play terran except as random. But again, it is an edge case.