Steamhammer-Stardust game
In this game, Steamhammer hit on a surprising plan that exploited a weakness in Stardust. Even so, Stardust had tricks up its sleeve.
It is strategically correct for the stronger bot to play conservatively, taking no risks. Steamhammer happened across an opening which Stardust answers too conservatively: It proxied in Stardust’s natural. It started the hatchery almost immediately after scouting the location of the protoss base. Correct play is for Stardust to smash the proxy before it can be defended. Stardust scouted the proxy and immediately assumed without evidence that it was contained, so it played conservatively and did not try to break out. The yellow dot in Steamhammer’s natural is the scouting probe: Stardust had all the information it needed to conclude that the proxy was indefensible, but assumed that it was too risky to attack.
The production queues tell each bot’s strategy. Stardust made a robo to escape the containment by air. Also notice the Citadel of Adun. The two cannons next to the nexus are unnecessary; zerg does not have a lair, and protoss could have scouted it but did not bother to. Steamhammer’s opening build assumes blindly that the opponent will not attack—it is a build specialized for defeating one-base protoss players who build up and attack late. Steamhammer is making drones now in preparation for sunkens at the proxy and then a large army.
Both sides have attack +1 already. The citadel was for zealot speed. A shuttle can carry four zealots but only two dragoons. Stardust cleverly elevatored zealots from its main to the north of its base where they would not be seen, and ran them across the map. Steamhammer was ready anyway. Zerglings are about to hatch, and once they joined the hydras the zealots were afraid to engage and ran away. The zealots tried to retreat to the protoss main through the proxy, where sunkens and the zerg army slaughtered them.
After that zerg was in charge. Steamhammer immediately invaded the protoss base, while Stardust airlifted a probe out for a distant hidden base. There was more fighting, but Steamhammer is reliable about winning when this far ahead.
On Jade with its low main, it’s important to defend above the ramp if you can. Otherwise you don’t see what’s coming and you have to fight uphill. But as far as I can see, it didn’t affect this game. Stardust scouted the proxy and did not try to defend its ramp, except for one cannon.
Update: Steamhammer played a second game against Stardust, on the map Python. It went very much the same way. I was right that Jade’s low-ground main did not matter.
Second update, 10 July: Steamhammer has since won a bunch of games that went the same way. Here’s the first game that went differently, on Andromeda. It shows both the strength and the fragility of a strong proxy position.
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Dan on :
Jay Scott on :
Dilyan on :
Bruce on :
In the meantime I had implemented an elevator play for going around bunker expands, as seen here: http://www.openbw.com/replay-viewer/?rep=https://data.basil-ladder.net/bots/adias/adias%20vs%20Stardust%20Heartbreak%20Ridge%20CTR_87F502D5.rep
Since the logic to elevator into the enemy main is pretty much the same as to elevator out of our own, I decided to apply it to the Zerg proxy problem too, instead of doing something boring like actually denying the proxy.
It works nicely against Monster since it aggressively builds sunkens at the proxy and leaves its main undefended. But I guess I'll need to tweak it for Steamhammer :)
Jay Scott on :
MicroDK on :
Jay Scott on :
Dilyan on :
Jay Scott on :
Not working right now, though my ML code is ready to integrate. My development environment broke, and restoring it from a good backup somehow did not fix it. I hate when that happens.
Jay Scott on :