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the bot Newbie Zerg

Newbie Zerg is, of course, not a newbie at all. It is a reincarnation of an old Newbie Zerg, and of related bots like Newbie Zergrush and 5 Pool. Like those now-classic bots, it plays rushes. This version seems more closely related to 5 Pool: It always plays 5 pool and knows a variety of followups, which are sometimes selected by hand for specific opponents. It’s also alike in being updated frequently.

In the version uploaded today, Newbie Zerg is configured to play a 5 pool macro (strange as it sounds) opening against Krasi0, SAIDA, Iron, Locutus, DaQin, and Tscmoop2. The opening line starts with 5 pool and makes only 4 pairs of zerglings, then starts drone production and transitions to 2 hatch mutalisk. No other opponents are specially configured.

If the author follows their historical pattern, we can expect carefully hand-tailored opening lines to defeat specific strong and predictable opponents. But this time around, the strong opponents are better at defending rushes and are more adaptive than before. Newbie Zerg scored one win over Locutus, but now Locutus has seen its play and a second game will not be as easy. So far it has not been able to beat SAIDA or Iron. Still, it should be a difficult opponent for many bots.

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Joseph Huang on :

Reupload with no changes so far, according to the author.

Jay Scott on :

That might be true for the first upload. 26 January: 2079744 bytes. 28 January: 2080256 bytes. 29 January: 2084352 bytes.

Newbie Zerg on :

Yes, the first version was a re-upload but then I received some inspiration from both the deepmind/alphastar matches aswell as the SSCAIT Ladder. Basically couldn't stop myself from poking around leading into some 2 base muta builds and changes.

However, so far my conclusion vs strong bots like Locutus,Saida,Iron is that It's way too far behind from the 5 Pool to be able to claw It's way back into a win. Due to pulling workers with beautiful worker micro saving the low HP ones both Saida/Iron hold beautifully and pull ahead (Not like old days) aswell as lethal vulture runbys, then you have Locotus which makes THREE cannons and pulls workers, so although that's borderline overreaction it works because It's macro is excellent.

So to conclude, very well done with alot of good changes to the bots the last 2 years. They're much tougher now. I do still want to make a proper macro version that hatches first etc, but work and such is so time consuming.

Also thank you Jay for all the work you've put in the last few years, the blogs alot of fun.

Best regards Muukzor / Newbie Zerg made possible due to you :D

Tully Elliston on :

I love well designed and clever rushes. I'm confident rush bots can still do well, they just need to be well engineered now.

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