Thread

1. bee_rider · 1789848470 · focus · HN ↗

   A ton of conversations about the game must be in the training set. I wonder, is there any way just from watching how they play, of telling if they tend to pick strategies that people complain or meme about online?

   1. stackghost · 1789849104 · focus · HN ↗

      I wonder if there is a library to decipher brood war replay files. Perhaps an agent could learn by watching.

      1. frutiger · 1789849206 · focus · HN ↗

         I haven’t checked for SC:BW but Blizzard has official parsers/replayers for SC2 on GitHub.
      2. benswerd · 1789850126 · focus · HN ↗

         Not hard to build. I was shocked at how fast/easy this was to pull together.
      3. duskwuff · 1789873003 · focus · HN ↗

         Yes, e.g. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;gulshngill&#x2F;bwrepanalysis" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;gulshngill&#x2F;bwrepanalysis. But I doubt an agent would learn much from them without a lot of additional processing - the replay files are little more than a stream of the orders given during the match (e.g. &quot;at tick 17, player 1 ordered unit 234 to attack-move to 56,78&quot;). They&#x27;re difficult to make sense of without a lot of additional context, like the map layout, the location and status of other units, what parts of all that are actually visible to each player, etc.
   2. tekla · 1789853394 · focus · HN ↗

      At high levels of play Zerg is generally considered significantly stronger than the other races. So I generally will assume AI will tend to pick Zerg

      1. xmcp123 · 1789854277 · focus · HN ↗

         Unless you Protoss and mind control the Zerg, and then are Zerg+Protoss.

         1. duskwuff · 1789859292 · focus · HN ↗

            This is not a viable strategy in competitive play. It&#x27;s a huge resource&#x2F;time investment with a dubious payoff.

            If you could win as Protoss by building Dark Archons, raiding your Zerg opponent&#x27;s base to capture a worker, building a bunch of Zerg production and tech buildings, and attacking with a combined army... you most likely outclass your opponent, and could have won much faster using a more conventional strategy.

            1. xmcp123 · 1789911687 · focus · HN ↗

               To be fair I’m recalling 2v2 NR20 games from an era where I played talking to my childhood friend on a landline.

               So there was enough time. The big risk was that the map would max before you could fully develop the Zerg side.

               1. duskwuff · 1789937459 · focus · HN ↗

                  What you&#x27;re describing is a casual game, not competitive play. And, of course, all bets are off if you&#x27;re playing with additional rules like &quot;no rush&quot; which remove the element of tempo from the game.
      2. rrr_oh_man · 1789854648 · focus · HN ↗

         I only played the StarCraft demo two decades ago. Why is that so? Rushing?

         1. faeyanpiraat · 1789887035 · focus · HN ↗

            Defilers
         2. dmichulke · 1789890829 · focus · HN ↗

            Production speed scaling due to hatches.

            If you want 6 carriers at the same time, build 6 starports.

            If you want 6 ultralisks or 6 mutas at the same time, build 2 hatches (which you already have)

            One consequence of this is that changing army composition as Z is very easy.

         3. iammjm · 1789896519 · focus · HN ↗

            Strong and unpredictable early game, solid middle game, strongest late game. It also has some of the best units in the game: zerglings, mutalisks, defilers. Especially defilers, they are arguably the strongest spellcasters in the game

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