By Duncan Geere, Wired UK

A coder has created an application that can generate optimum tactics for StarCraft II using genetic algorithms.

The app, which is called Evolution Chamber and was built by a chap known as Lomilar, only works for the Zerg race so far. It allows the user to set a goal – say, seven of a tough armored ground unit called the Roach that is powerful in the early part of a game – and then work out the fastest way to achieve it, listing the exact sequence in which you should build units and structures to optimally reach that point, known as a build order.

The application divides up the game into its most basic actions: Building workers, building structures, building supply units, etc. These actions are arranged into different "chromosomes," which then compete against each other in a "population," with the most successful reproducing to the next generation. Different populations are compared against each other, with those that grow stagnant dying off, leaving only the most efficient alive.

The results are having an impact on competitive play, with the 7-Roach build tearing apart players' strategies at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. One player has come up with a strategy that can beat it, but it severely limits the tactical options available to the user, opening them up to a simple shift in strategy from their opponent that can still overwhelm them.

The app has also raised moral questions. A significant amount of the satisfaction to be had in StarCraft involves coming up with your own strategies and testing them out, and while players are free to ignore Evolution Chamber, they're still likely to come up against players who do use it, and who'll therefore almost always beat them. It'd be the StarCraft equivalent of nuclear weapons, if they weren't in the game already.

Most players don't seem too fussed, however. A thousand respondents to a poll on the TeamLiquid forums asking whether the app should be allowed to see the light of day saw 89 percent respond affirmatively. But others have warned that it could be the start of a slippery slope that leads to the destruction of the tactical element of the game, leaving only the skill in a player's execution of the strategies it spews out.

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