UCSC Students Creating Killer StarCraft Bot

By Kevin Parrish
published

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."

Kevin Parrish
Topics
Software
28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • icemunk
    pHD students and they're only at a 20% win ratio? I hope they just started...
    Reply
  • zorky9
    icemunkpHD students and they're only at a 20% win ratio? I hope they just started...Considering it's playing against the world's best players it's a good start.
    Reply
  • zak_mckraken
    A bot that will Zerg rush me? How clever.
    Reply
  • daft
    Despite being over 10 years old, StarCraft does not have a dominant strategy.
    i take it that they never heard of a zergling rush
    Reply
  • gzhang
    dafti 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.
    Reply
  • Silluete
    Why don't just add maphack to ai eh, it's must be more easier.
    Reply
  • drowned
    I wonder what the build in computer would score cause 20% seems kinda low. And this article doesn't specify whether the 20% win was against average (random) players or professional ones.
    Reply
  • sseyler
    icemunkpHD students and they're only at a 20% win ratio? I hope they just started...
    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.
    Reply
  • Kelavarus
    zorky9Considering it's playing against the world's best players it's a good start.
    "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...
    Reply
  • trandoanhung1991
    Try make a bot for yourself, then talk.

    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.
    Reply