UCSC Students Creating Killer StarCraft Bot
Two PhD students are working on an AI that will kick your butt in StarCraft.
GamePro has an interesting article about two PhD students at UC Santa Cruz who are working on an artificial intelligence (AI) that could take down the very best StarCraft player in the world. The project is just a portion of the University's overall goal in exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence, art, and design.
“Our goal is to create compelling new forms of interactive art and entertainment that provide more deeply autonomous, generative and dynamic responses to interaction," said Michael Mateas, the associate professor behind the project. "A major thrust of this work is advanced A.I. for video games, including autonomous characters and interactive storytelling.”
Currently the bot plays Protoss exclusively, and so far manages to rack in a 20-percent win ratio when playing against humans. Ben Weber and Peter Mawhorter, the two students executing the AI project, said that StarCraft was the perfect choice for the AI because of the active community.
"In South Korea, hundreds of professional gamers actively participate in tournaments such as the MBC and OGN star leagues," Weber said. "This community generates a large amount of replays that are available for building bots. It also generates a large number of interesting StarCraft matches to watch. StarCraft is played all over the world and there are several active community websites. It's easy to find players interested in playing the EISBot and our bot has already played against players in over 30 countries."
Mawhorter said that they also chose StarCraft because of its complexity. "StarCraft has three distinct races and is a well-balanced game; in any particular match up in StarCraft, there are a large number of strategies that are valid," he said. "Despite being over 10 years old, StarCraft does not have a dominant strategy. StarCraft has an active meta-game in which popular strategies are constantly evolving. This factor adds to the challenge of building strong computer opponents."
To learn more about their StarCraft-playing AI, check out GamePro's article here. Below you'll find the AI fighting against a human player named "PandaBearGuy."
Considering it's playing against the world's best players it's a good start.
The implication from this statement shows you don't really know anything about PhD research in engineering/science-related fields. PhD students aren't necessarily geniuses... Their certainly smart, but doing research doesn't involve conquering everything you touch. Research involves dedicated work towards reasonable goals set by a thesis. These goals constantly evolve as the research matures. It's a learning process, not a process of conquest.
You got rushed if you are bad or take the risk and expanded, else the rushing guy will usually lag in econ.
Anyway, it will be a interesting project. Consider the complexity of the game, a 20% win is good. I wonder if the AI takes in considerations when a terran is shelling over a cliff and try to lure the toss army in for an ambush.
Considering it's playing against the world's best players it's a good start.
i take it that they never heard of a zergling rush
You got rushed if you are bad or take the risk and expanded, else the rushing guy will usually lag in econ.
Anyway, it will be a interesting project. Consider the complexity of the game, a 20% win is good. I wonder if the AI takes in considerations when a terran is shelling over a cliff and try to lure the toss army in for an ambush.
The implication from this statement shows you don't really know anything about PhD research in engineering/science-related fields. PhD students aren't necessarily geniuses... Their certainly smart, but doing research doesn't involve conquering everything you touch. Research involves dedicated work towards reasonable goals set by a thesis. These goals constantly evolve as the research matures. It's a learning process, not a process of conquest.
"It's easy to find players interested in playing the EISBot"
I missed the part where they were designated as the world's best players...
Anyway, what they're doing is certainly impressive. I hope that they won't resort to the kind of cheap cheats developers are using nowadays instead of real AI.
However, 20% is a just a number. We need #s of win and loses against what faction.
Also they said the bot is protoss exclusive, why is the video only shows Terran?
Cute, but it's not going to be beating top players anytime soon.
Yeah if they are going to make an AI thats going to beat the best player in the world then it should be based on skill not because a human player couldnt possibly click or move the mouse as fast as a computer. A computer AI will be able to micromanage at any speed. The player should have the option to play it in slow motion if he so chooses to level the playing field.
Nowhere in the article does it say they've played against the best, it says they've played against players in 30 different countries, that is all.
http://eis.ucsc.edu/StarCraftAICompetition
There are lots of entries that deserve stories as well. It will be more interesting to see who wins.
EDIT: They're* God, my grammar is awful.
yeah, and 30 countries implies at least 29 countries that are not Korea, hence not the best
I would be interested to know if they are trying to write an algorithm specifically tailored to be effective at StarCraft, or whether they are writing a more general purpose learning algorithm and simply testing its effectiveness on StarCraft.
But, is every single unit individually micromanaged? Something that would be generally impossible for a human to do when controlling dozens of units?
I suck at RTS games because I can't control any more than 2 units at a time effectively...
Keep up the good work.