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new bot Crona

New bot Crona is, as it says in its description, BananaBrain playing zerg. It was uploaded today and has started out well. The name “Crona” is after an anime villain.

Sp far, I have only seen Crona play with zerglings and mutalisks, no other units. Here are the names of Crona’s openings, extracted from the binary. “Main Muta/Hydra/Ling” looks like an unrelated string that sneaked into the list, but maybe it’s an opening too.

ZvZ_2hatchling
ZvZ_5pool
ZvT_2hatchling
ZvT_4pool
ZvT_2hatchmuta_12pool
ZvT_2hatchmuta_12hatch
ZvP_2hatchling
ZvP_5pool
ZvP_4pool
ZvP_2hatchmuta
Main Muta/Hydra/Ling
ZvU_2hatchling

The build ZvZ_2hatchling is the “Styx build” of 9 pool, 3 pairs of zerglings, second hatchery, extractor, research zergling speed and produce zerglings for a long, long time. (Note 1: One of the rules of naming is that the origin of a thing cannot be the name; you have to pick something later. Note 2: I’ve tested both variants, and I’m pretty sure that the PurpleSwarm variant with extractor before the second hatchery is better.) Likely the other 2hatchling openings are too.

When playing 4 pool, and presumably other builds, Crona sticks with 1 hatchery and 3 drones for a while, then transitions to 2 hatcheries and 7 drones, then later to 3 hatcheries. I assume the sequence continues. My impression is that the expansions are on a timer: I’ve done this long enough, time for another hatchery. It’s a simple way to slowly increase pressure on the opponent.

Crona’s zerg play is good—see its results—but still looks a little rough to me. It doesn’t scout with its overlord. It has a glitch where, at a certain point in the opening, all the drones move away from the minerals for a second before returning. Crona seems a little confused about drone transfers in general. These things should not be hard to fix, though.

I see terran openings in the binary too. Can anybody guess what the terran BananaBrain will be called?

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Dan on :

We got to witness the birth of Crona on a live coding stream with Sonko: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/497205827 -- though to me the highlight is the incredible post-game strategy analysis Johan has, including reverse-engineering opponent learning files and dropping them into tables!

It wasn't my intent to add the gas before the second Hatchery. It might happen sometimes as a result of incorrectly predicting the availability of minerals (Swarm's economic projections are off compared to other races due to not predicting the arrival of larva).

I think both variants have merits -- after all, 9 pool speed is a thing -- but in ZvZ especially I think you want that Hatchery first. You're not in a rush to get speed, but you do want an overwhelming number of Zerglings once speed is ready.

Jay Scott on :

My thinking is that gas first barely delays the hatchery, but gets speed significantly sooner. I timed it. That should also be why a slightly sloppy build system might accidentally get gas first, if it is a little slow starting the hatchery.

Jay Scott on :

Which is better might depend on how skilled the bot is at exploiting the advantage of zergling speed. I think bots are weak that way.

Jay Scott on :

I want to post separately about the “Styx build”. There is a lot to say about it. I’ve already added 3 variants in Steamhammer that are close to equally strong, but have slightly different timings. The post should be after the upcoming Steamhammer 2.4 release.

Johan de Jong on :

I just found the cause of the glitch where all workers would stop mining for a second. It happens at the moment that the bot builds an extractor. Building an extractor causes the geyser to morph into an extractor and the drone to be destroyed. The destruction of the drone causes an onUnitDestroy event to be triggered and because of this Crona thinks that the mineral line is under attack. It then decides to evacuate the workers. After a few frames it realises that there is no attack and the workers return to their duties. The version I just uploaded fixes this glitch. Overlord micro is for a later version, when I have more time.

Crona can also use hydralisks, see for example: http://www.openbw.com/replay-viewer/?rep=https://basilicum.bytekeeper.org/bots/Crona/Crona%20vs%20Jakub%20Trancik%20La%20Mancha1.1%20CTR_6ADD8AB0.rep

Also, I do not think that anyone is going to guess what the name of the terran will be ;)

Jay Scott on :

No one can guess, eh? A challenge to my powers of deduction! BananaBrain is named after an American animated character, and Crona after a Japanese animated character. Obviously the terran will be named after a French animated character. Following the established pattern, the chosen character will be—drumroll please—Mayura!

Johan de Jong on :

BananaBrain is named after a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXlZfc1TrD0
I am not aware of an animated character with that name.
But no, Mayura is not the correct answer. Maybe you want to guess again?

MarcoDBAA on :

Nice, a new zerg helping to maybe break the dominance of the other two races.

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