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The winning bot's strategy seems a bit one-sided (mutalisk-heavy). I guess no bots were good enough to build real counters to that? Looking at the videos, everyone is trying to kill mutalisk with Goliaths, which is not exactly the strongest tactic.


Mutalisks are a natural choice. The AI can individually control units to a super-human degree. Mutalisks are a harassment unit with a lot of potential upside when controlled properly.

Mutalisks are cost/power balanced around a human's ability to use them. Since AIs extract disproportionate value from them, they're likely overpowered for AI play.

The effect of AI control actually turns some aspects of game balance upside down. For example, Archons are normally considered an effective counter to Mutalisks (because of their splash damage). But AIs can exploit the Mutalisk's slightly superior range:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNpy8Wnvf7g

In human play, Scourge are usually a decent way to handle large numbers of Mutalisks. Small numbers of Mutalisks can evade Scourge, but in large numbers they're forced to trade. Not when the AI gets involved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4dTVAATktY

Here are Wraiths versus Hydras (normally a cakewalk for the Hydras):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcjQhig88wE


Goliaths are the standard response to mutalisks, as goliaths are Terran's strongest anti-air unit. They have a pretty good dps vs air, and they significantly outrange mutalisks.

The Berkeley bot's mutalisk micro was just too good.


Goliaths alone? I don't think so. Any player with good micro (and we're talking bots here) will keep dancing out the damaged mutas, since Goliaths can't follow to kill. You should at least throw a couple of Valks into the mix. A bot could also pull off the cloaked Wraith + medic combo, perhaps.


Scourge snipe valks since they cannot move between attacks #1 and 8.

Valks also cannot fire once there are too many sprites/actions going on. They may have been excluded because of that if you didnt see any.




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