senfkatze Profile Joined September 2010 Germany 66 Posts #1



Hi guys,

I'm Senfkatze, a coder / modder / mapper / SC2 player from germany.



I want to present a project im currently working on called "Microbot".

Its a SC2 mod / custom map, in which Im trying to implement a complete Micromanagement AI.







So basically you choose two army compositions, one for you, one for your opponent and click the start button. The AI will now do all the Micromanagement for your opponents army, like kiting, focuss firing, stim, blink, split, storm, emp...and so on... pretty much anything a human would do.



Ive made a short video to show some of the features ive already done:

I'm Senfkatze, a coder / modder / mapper / SC2 player from germany.I want to present a project im currently working on called "".Its a SC2 mod / custom map, in which Im trying to implement a complete Micromanagement AI.So basically you choose two army compositions, one for you, one for your opponent and click the start button. The AI will now do all the Micromanagement for your opponents army, like kiting, focuss firing, stim, blink, split, storm, emp...and so on... pretty much anything a human would do.Ive made a short video to show some of the features ive already done:



The mod is still far from done, very far to be honest. Ive been working on this for a couple of months now. It is a shit-ton of work to implement scripts for all the different situations and how to micro exactly and so on, plus its kind of hard sometimes, some of that stuff i really racked my brain.



One important thing:

I'n not trying to create an A.I., that does perfect micromanagement, I'm trying to create an A.I., that does micro like a (good) human player would do, which is actually way harder to code than a perfect micro A.I.

But I think a perfect micro A.I. would be less useful. Of course it also would be intresting, but a human-like opponent is just more usful, especially in the long-run (in my opinion).







Theres still a lot of stuff to do, so what i'd like to know, is, would this actually be useful if I'd finish it? Like, would there be intrest in a mod like this?

I think it could be really useful to train your own micro, like playing specific engagements over and over again, see which army compositions work best vs others or try out different ways to micro a specific engagement. Usually you would need a human opponent for this, and even then, its easier to play vs a bot, who plays when you want to play, as long and as often as you want to play, 100 times with the same composition without complaining.

Of course players could also just use it for fun, "challenge" the bot, see if you can beat it in different scenarios, or just play around a little bit.



So what I'm looking for at this point is feedback.

Do you like this? Do you think it might be useful / fun to play?

What would it need, what would be important, just gimme all your thoughts on this.

I'd also appreciate some oppinions of high level / pro players on this.

Basically what I want to find out is, is it worth continue working on this projekt for me? And if yes, what do ppl want / need.

Thx a lot for reading. In case someone wonders, I'm a mid-high masters level player.

I have not published the mod on BNet yet. If I continue working on it, i will publish a version soon. The mod is still far from done, very far to be honest. Ive been working on this for a couple of months now. It is a shit-ton of work to implement scripts for all the different situations and how to micro exactly and so on, plus its kind of hard sometimes, some of that stuff i really racked my brain.I'n not trying to create an A.I., that does perfect micromanagement, I'm trying to create an A.I., that does micro like a (good) human player would do, which is actually way harder to code than a perfect micro A.I.But I think a perfect micro A.I. would be less useful. Of course it also would be intresting, but a human-like opponent is just more usful, especially in the long-run (in my opinion).Theres still a lot of stuff to do, so what i'd like to know, is, would this actually be useful if I'd finish it? Like, would there be intrest in a mod like this?I think it could be really useful to train your own micro, like playing specific engagements over and over again, see which army compositions work best vs others or try out different ways to micro a specific engagement. Usually you would need a human opponent for this, and even then, its easier to play vs a bot, who plays when you want to play, as long and as often as you want to play, 100 times with the same composition without complaining.Of course players could also just use it for fun, "challenge" the bot, see if you can beat it in different scenarios, or just play around a little bit.Do you like this? Do you think it might be useful / fun to play?What would it need, what would be important, just gimme all your thoughts on this.I'd also appreciate some oppinions of high level / pro players on this.Basically what I want to find out is, is it worth continue working on this projekt for me? And if yes, what do ppl want / need.Thx a lot for reading. In case someone wonders, I'm a mid-high masters level player.I have not published the mod on BNet yet. If I continue working on it, i will publish a version soon.

( bush Profile Joined April 2011 321 Posts #2 This is really impressive, i cant wait to try out. oo

Quakecomm Profile Joined April 2012 United States 344 Posts #3 Thats really cool gorkey island is the only good map

qotsager Profile Joined March 2012 Germany 470 Posts #4 is this going to be WoL, since there's no hots units or upgrades? or are you gonna implement those later?

this sounds nice, it would be good if there was a way to alter the "difficulty". or maybe disable certain features, so that the bot does split, but not focus fire. because i'm pretty sure that lower level players like me (plat) would like to try this as well, while not having much of a chance against masters level micro.

i'm not sure how much training value something like this would have, because it is not easy to create a situation that's definitely gonna happen like that ingame often enough to make it valuable to train it. just playing games is probably a better way to spend your time if you're trying to get better.

i'm sure the map would be fun though. if you are able to code a working AI, it should be possible to make the map multiplayer, right? ***Official ABL Winner 2013***

Quakecomm Profile Joined April 2012 United States 344 Posts #5 Do we get an NA publish? gorkey island is the only good map

senfkatze Profile Joined September 2010 Germany 66 Posts Last Edited: 2013-06-10 01:22:10 #6 At the moment it's WOL only. I started making this, when HotS wasnt out yet. But of course i will add HotS stuff, if i continue working on it.

When I will publish, i will publish for all the regions. Isnt a big deal anymore now where we have global play.

But it will still take some time, theres stil some things i wanna fix before publishing.

The video... i mean of course i cutted it to show of all the cool and good working stuff, but a lot of situations the bot still missmicros heavily or does weird things.



edit: regarding the difficulty levels, i already thought about this, most likely will do it

corpuscle Profile Blog Joined April 2011 United States 1966 Posts Last Edited: 2013-06-10 01:35:20 #7 It's a really cool idea, and thinking about how you'd code a lot of the more advanced stuff makes my brain hurt, so props for trying. A feature that would be really useful (and make your job a hell of a lot harder) would be adding some simple terrain like ramps and chokes.



Also, something that I don't imagine is too tough to implement is upgrades (like, 1/1 and stuff). From the void I am born into wave and particle

senfkatze Profile Joined September 2010 Germany 66 Posts #8 upgrades are no big deal and will be added, of course. Terrain, as you say, is really really hard, right now theres no detection for any sort of terrain.

lokes Profile Blog Joined November 2011 Argentina 80 Posts #9 Have you studied the AI micro in brutal campaign? it does pretty insane things like perfect splitting, kitting and also pulls back the damaged units always. I remember because it was actually very difficult to play against. I hope that can help you discover something new.

GamerX1000 Profile Joined May 2011 United States 11 Posts #10 There is a map that has perfect micro called green tea AI

feardragon Profile Blog Joined October 2010 United States 922 Posts #11 This looks really sick. I would totally use this to warm up before playing games. I do have a question though.



I think one of the big difficulties you'll face in this is that different army compositions need to be micro'd differently. For example, it's awesome that you have blink and pull back micro with stalkers, but what if they're facing carriers? It'd make more sense for them to target down the actual carrier rather than attack the closest unit(interceptor) right? Another more detailed example might be in PvP where a zealot stalker vs zealot stalker battle, the best choice is often to ignore the zealots and target fire down stalkers so that you can eventually just kite the zealots with your remaining stalkers. But this isn't a great idea in every situation if depending on your stalker/zealot count. So what is being done to account for things like this that often times even players have to make judgement calls about general decision making? It's a very difficult problem to address but I'm really interested in how you intend to tackle it. Garbage Starcraft 2 Commentator

purakushi Profile Joined August 2012 United States 3259 Posts #12 This is really cool! June 2010 - August 2017: waiting for the return of Starcraft

Jezebeth Profile Joined May 2013 United States 23 Posts #13 This would be extremely helpful, keep at it. I am a very novice programmer myself, but I do know that you can make a program "learn" patterns (I know examples I have heard are pretty simplistic such as checkers, tictactoe, etc... but the idea should be the same). Perhaps if that is in your area of expertise or work you could download a couple replay packs and scan them for patterns of micro (mouse clicks on what, which spells cast when, etc..) to help. It would be a crap ton of work to set up what to look for in the games, but if you could get the scanning script/program right, running games through it would be much easier than writing scripts for every situation, I would think. Success is not never falling. In fact, success is falling- and getting up one time more.

Existor Profile Joined July 2010 Russian Federation 4282 Posts #14 When it will be on EU ?

senfkatze Profile Joined September 2010 Germany 66 Posts #15 On June 10 2013 12:59 feardragon wrote:

This looks really sick. I would totally use this to warm up before playing games. I do have a question though.



I think one of the big difficulties you'll face in this is that different army compositions need to be micro'd differently. For example, it's awesome that you have blink and pull back micro with stalkers, but what if they're facing carriers? It'd make more sense for them to target down the actual carrier rather than attack the closest unit(interceptor) right? Another more detailed example might be in PvP where a zealot stalker vs zealot stalker battle, the best choice is often to ignore the zealots and target fire down stalkers so that you can eventually just kite the zealots with your remaining stalkers. But this isn't a great idea in every situation if depending on your stalker/zealot count. So what is being done to account for things like this that often times even players have to make judgement calls about general decision making? It's a very difficult problem to address but I'm really interested in how you intend to tackle it.

yeah, this is one of the hardest aspects i have to face and i dont know if its possible to do that perfectly... theres pretty much 2 ways to do it... give tghe AI kind of an algorithm that decides itself or just a long list with what to do in which situation, covereing pretty much all possible situations. Both is nearly impossible and what i will do is most likely somewhere in between.



Scanning replays for information is an interesting idea... but i think it would be too much work to really make it work and get something useful out of it. yeah, this is one of the hardest aspects i have to face and i dont know if its possible to do that perfectly... theres pretty much 2 ways to do it... give tghe AI kind of an algorithm that decides itself or just a long list with what to do in which situation, covereing pretty much all possible situations. Both is nearly impossible and what i will do is most likely somewhere in between.Scanning replays for information is an interesting idea... but i think it would be too much work to really make it work and get something useful out of it.

shangul Profile Joined March 2011 Switzerland 27 Posts #16

I will def. use it for training my horrible micro. very impressive. You have my thumbs up.I will def. use it for training my horrible micro.

Mahanaim Profile Joined December 2012 Korea (South) 1001 Posts #17 I would loooooooove to play around with this.

Even if I don't visit it very often, I'm pretty sure it will help me loads with my micro. Celebrating Starcraft since... a long time ago.

Seld0N Profile Joined July 2012 Spain 3 Posts #18 Looks good.



How have you done the AI? I'm interested in doing some AI work in summer either in Brood War (with BWAPI) or in SC2, but I haven't seen decent tools (as in coding and such) to achieve it. The Terran Confederacy: Polt, TaeJa, MVP, Flash, INnoVation. The Protoss Emperor: Parting. Zerg God: Life.

nuke01 Profile Joined August 2012 Austria 6 Posts #19 i like it! very good work so far!

slowbacontron Profile Joined October 2012 United States 7722 Posts #20 Wow, sick! I think this would be very useful for pros! (though I am not exactly qualified to say haha) jjakji fan

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