still returning to normal
Well, so much for “back to normal.” My energy has improved somewhat but remains low. Let me try again.
progress
I’m pleased with how well Steamhammer has held up without updates. It remains #1 zerg on BASIL, in the top 10 overall and above 2700 elo except for occasional wobbles. Other zergs have improved at ZvZ so that ZvZ is no longer Steamhammer’s top matchup—I let it coast too long on an edge it has held for years. Instead, improving win rates versus terran has made ZvT the best matchup. In the last 60 days, Steamhammer is 18% versus #3 Krasi0, better than even against the tricky #4 Halo by Hao Pan (Steamhammer is tricky too), and about even versus #5 adias, all good rates facing higher-ranked opponents. ZvP skills trail far behind and need the most work.
My plan for Steamhammer remains to release a version 3.1 with minor improvements soon-ish. My rate of work has been low. So far I have restored several small side features from the rolled-back scout boss version and made one new tweak; each step was a trivial amount of effort. I want to restore a couple more side features and write one new feature from scratch, and then I’ll call it done. I could do it in a day if I worked hard, but I think it will take longer....
SSCAIT broadcast
I enjoyed Jealous as commentator last time. He contrasted well with the usual casters: Strong game knowledge, less familiarity with the bots so that their play looked fresh and surprising, and a slow and thorough style of examining the game events. Casters with varying approaches and knowledge make the casts more fun.
Commenting Broodwar games is a difficult skill! Even learning to consistently notice important events in the minimap takes practice and concentration.
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Antiga \ Iruian on :
MarcoDBAA on :
I looked it up, and it seems, that only AILien and Simplicity have ZvP as their best match up.
Did not watch many games lately in general, but seen some AILien games, when it was updated again. It could have won even more games vs Protoss, but often throws the advantage away when trying to follow a retreating, but strong enough army, even though there is no good reason to do so.
Engagements it wins, it either retreats deep into its sunkens, then exploits bots that think, that they can attack because no army seems to be there, or it swarms the microing dragoons instead of following one/a few of them and getting attacked by the others encircling the zerg army. But it also takes too many bad fights, has no learning and missing late game units. I nevertheless think, that it does indeed do some things better vs Protoss, even though other bots including SH are better in absolute (but not relative) strength vs Protoss.
Think, that you need to split the army and pressure all the goons. AI protoss might micro them better (at least APM micro) than humans, but AI zerg should also be able to swarm them more effectively, than a human player can. And if protoss goons micro away in all directions zerg might regroup faster and catch some of them isolated from the rest.
And well, try to bait them into your sunkens. ;)
Another possible strategy is to sunken up and harass the protoss on the whole map with mutas. Like Killerbot does it, but you cannot be as predictable in your opening of course. Also and maybe especially attack the reinforcements.
Late game needs Dark Swarm vs goons, and they need to do it better than all the current zerg bots are able to. Arrakhammer still does it best in my opinion (not sure about the latest updates of all other bots, like Crona for example).
But it might be the case, that ZvP is more difficult in the AI world (protoss instead of zerg advantage), but I am not convinced yet. And not an expert of course...
Jay Scott on :
Jay Scott on :
http://www.openbw.com/replay-viewer/?rep=https://basilicum.bytekeeper.org/bots/Microwave/Microwave vs Locutus Benzene CTR_567261CF.rep
Microwave got ahead because Locutus played a timid anti-rush build against a mass macro opening; that’s the main story. I want to point out the engagement after 8:40 in the upper left: Locutus found itself outgunned and tried to retreat, but the main zerg force was behind it rather than ahead. Protoss would have lost the battle regardless, but in the event it lost without a fight. The weakness is from UAlbertaBot and remains in Steamhammer and Locutus.