How to play vs BWAPI bots

LetaBot

Netherlands557 Posts

April 28 2016 00:39 GMT

This video tutorial on how to play versus the BWAPI bots has already been posted in the general AI thread. But I am re-posting it here in case people on TL have specific questions about it.

Link to the SSCAI bot page with all the .DLL files:

http://www.sscaitournament.com/index.php?action=scores

Connor5620

Australia208 Posts

April 28 2016 16:52 GMT

nice, ive wondered how to play against the bwapi bots im going to have to give this a try
~cheers

pebble444

Italy2503 Posts

April 28 2016 20:48 GMT

"G+"

Okay, so this seems overly complicated for someone like me. What would be great is the option of having it integrate in a launcher, like mca64. Is this a realistic possibility?

Also a somewhat un-related question:
Can a bot ladder on iCCup? if so are there any bots that have archieved noticable ranks?

nepeta

1872 Posts

April 28 2016 21:00 GMT

On April 29 2016 01:52 Connor5620 wrote:
nice, ive wondered how to play against the bwapi bots im going to have to give this a try
~cheers

Glhf. Let us know how it went!

On April 29 2016 05:48 pebble444 wrote:
"G+"

Okay, so this seems overly complicated for someone like me. What would be great is the option of having it integrate in a launcher, like mca64. Is this a realistic possibility?

Also a somewhat un-related question:
Can a bot ladder on iCCup? if so are there any bots that have archieved noticable ranks?

Watch the video, follow the instructions, should be doable

Integrating this in a launcher is not possible, as there is no-one willing to do that. Also bots get updated a lot, so it would be a lot of work to maintain.

Bots 'can' play on iccup, just be sure to ask permission first. Rank achieved... 0. Current estimates of the best bots are about D+, but as they are not as adaptive as human players, that only holds for the first couple of games. After that, the human player usually finds out how to abuse it. There are some bots with multiple build orders, but they have been trained to fight bots with fixed build orders, essentially in the AI vs AI matchup. There are currently no bots which specialize in AI vs human.

Broodwar4lyf

304 Posts

April 29 2016 14:59 GMT

used to be like that in online poker where bots would just have a hand chart and fixed postflop instructions. now the best bots can play headsup highstakes and beat top players (except the best of the best). lots of middle stakes bots are profitable now even.

maybe in a couple of years they crack the code and build the bot which could beat decent human players, they've done it in online poker, which is also really complex.

WGT-Baal

France3558 Posts

April 30 2016 11:13 GMT

I just played a game against KillerBot and boy was it hard.
But fun! I really felt like I was playing against a regular human (with pretty good army movement).

Thanks a lot for this tutorial!

It s actually really easy to set up, pebble444, you should give it a try

snowfruit

Germany34 Posts

May 15 2016 22:14 GMT

I just want to say thank you to everyone who made their bot available. For someone like me who just discovered Starcraft about a year ago, these bots are great practice. Until now I was a little hesitant to join ladder, so I've played over 300 games againts bots by now (okay, very hesitant).

I don't know if there are other people like me, but in the hopes that I can help someone else, here is a short list of AI training partners from a zerg perspective:

Letabot (Terran): Standard-looking 1Rax expand into a scary MM/tank/vessel push

ICEbot (Terran): Tries to do a midgame mech deathpush; Adapts to Mutalisks by building Valkyries. It's also the only bot I've seen that uses drops.

Skynet (Protoss): Randomly chooses between builds, one of which is 1base DTs without corsairs (easy), another is 2gate zealots into corsairs and double expand. Somehow I still don't have a solid answer to the second build. I've beaten it by simply killing the protoss natural or third early on, but that's because Skynet doesn't always build cannons when it needs to, and instead suicides all of his probes. It also keeps sending single units to attack. If it didn't have these weaknesses to exploit, I imagine it would be very difficult to have enough units to deny the third and defend my own third at the same time, all while droning up to not fall behind massively in supply.

Skynet also does a standard Forge Fast Expand, which only comes out by chance on Tau Cross. This is invaluable for good practice.

I have yet to find a bot that plays a good ZvZ.

I mostly used bots from another source which I don't remember, so the results may differ.

Just in case someone is interested, I made a small pack of 5 (mostly ridiculous) replays: http://www.mediafire.com/download/nmvwmxlc5igsefb/botreplays.zip

One of them is a basetrade with Letabot. There's also a rather old replay against Ximp, who apparently won a few tournaments with 2base carriers, but is easily defeated by floating 5000 minerals with 70 APM. =p

I'm looking forward to start making my own AI, hopefully in the near future. In the meantime, feel free to contact me if you are a developer and want to test your bot. (That was a long first post, huh)

nepeta

1872 Posts

May 15 2016 22:52 GMT

Thanks for the replays, always good to have some man vs machine games!

ZvZ is very hard for AIs, you could try Killerbot (Marian Devecka) or tscmooz.

LetaBot

Netherlands557 Posts

May 15 2016 23:07 GMT

On May 16 2016 07:52 nepeta wrote:
Thanks for the replays, always good to have some man vs machine games!

ZvZ is very hard for AIs, you could try Killerbot (Marian Devecka) or tscmooz.

in ZvZ marian devecka only builds zerlings AFAIK.

tscmooZ would be the most interesting ZvZ for a human.

Also snowfruit you can join the BWAPI IRC channel to get the latest versions that are not yet posted on the SSCAI:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=BWAPI

snowfruit

Germany34 Posts

May 16 2016 00:56 GMT

#10

Thanks for the suggestions. I couldn't run tscmoo on the first try, but now it's looking tough indeed for ZvZ. Just what I needed. =D It's an impressive AI in general over all races, at least for tactics.

nepeta

1872 Posts

May 16 2016 09:06 GMT

#11

Going to make a cast with some of the replays you made today, so keep sending good games

If you've got any tips or comments on bots, feel free to post them here, mail me (nepetanigra ad yahoo dot com) or come to the chatroom LetaBot suggested

Broodwar4lyf

304 Posts

May 16 2016 10:02 GMT

#12

Killerbot's mass hydra is kinda strong mid to long game. Once it starts pumping out hydras from 4 to 5 bases it gets really tough to beat. It's only weakness there are drops to econ but the waves and waves of hydras are just too much for me haha

LetaBot

Netherlands557 Posts

May 16 2016 12:11 GMT

#13

On May 16 2016 19:02 Broodwar4lyf wrote:
Killerbot's mass hydra is kinda strong mid to long game. Once it starts pumping out hydras from 4 to 5 bases it gets really tough to beat. It's only weakness there are drops to econ but the waves and waves of hydras are just too much for me haha

Go mass reaver and drop some reavers in KillerBot's bases. IIRC Killerbot doesn't deal very well with reaver drops.

IIRC it also doesn't switch to mutalisk even when it spots mass reaver.

snowfruit

Germany34 Posts

May 16 2016 12:21 GMT

#14

On May 16 2016 18:06 nepeta wrote:
Going to make a cast with some of the replays you made today, so keep sending good games

If you've got any tips or comments on bots, feel free to post them here, mail me (nepetanigra ad yahoo dot com) or come to the chatroom LetaBot suggested

Well that might be embarassing for me.. Looking forward to it regardless! I should mention that I lost alot of games to most of these bots, but I thought it might be disappointing to watch unless both parties put up a good fight. Actually I should probably have lost all of them..

I can't give much advice apart from what you already know. Bots hesitate too much by running back and forth. Build orders are often unsafe or do not ensure a big enough advantage later on. Lategame transitions seem non-existant. Defense is generally too weak. Bots should have superior scouting, so they should predict what and how much the opponent might be producing and where the army is going, so they can intercept to defend or counter attack.

How to make an AI learn all of this, I have no idea. I suspect it's still more efficient to tell a bot exactly what to do by programming it with a massive set of rules and constantly tweak them. Though I might be wrong as I haven't dived into it yet. It is a very short-sighted approach of course. It wouldn't be nearly as impressive as an AI that learns.

nepeta

1872 Posts

May 17 2016 22:52 GMT

#15

Thx for the info. See video here

snowfruit

Germany34 Posts

May 18 2016 09:39 GMT

#16

Thanks, It's always a pleasure to watch your casts.

I'm surprised to see Killerbot die so easily in that last game. I wonder if the situation would be different on a map like Fighting Spirit. When I played protoss or terran against Killerbot and tried some fast expansion builds, I got crushed. On the other hand, it can't hold off a simple 4gate Dragoon opening, which worries me when I think about how common aggressive openings are in AI vs AI.

razorsuKe

Canada2052 Posts

May 18 2016 11:12 GMT

#17

WOW. Just wow.
I decided to give the bots a try, and DAMN SON KillerBot's ZvP is ON POINT.

That bot knows its shit, hydra movement is so weird, (which is what I expected from an AI), but also its scouting, expansion taking, defense, everything is beautifully done.

Honestly, I'm blown away by what this bot can do.

razorsuKe

Canada2052 Posts

May 21 2016 10:43 GMT

#18

It's actually very easy, I can break it down into steps that you can complete in under 5 minutes:

1) Download BWAPI and a Bot(s)
BWAPI 4.1.2 here:
https://github.com/bwapi/bwapi/releases/download/v4.1.2/BWAPI_412_Setup.exe

(This is KillerBot) here:
http://www.sscaitournament.com/bot_binary.php?bot=Marian Devecka&bwapi_dll=true

2) Install BWAPI
For simplicity sake, just install it to Program Files\BWAPI

3) Move KillerBot.dll to StarCraft\bwapi-data
This folder should already be created after you install BWAPI 4.1.2

4) While you are in the folder StarCraft\bwapi-data, open bwapi.ini
A few lines down where it says "ai" and "ai_dbg"
Change it to this:
ai = bwapi-data/KillerBot.dll
ai_dbg = bwapi-data/

Then press CTRL+S to save the file

===
HERE SETUP IS DONE! YOU CAN PLAY NOW
===

This is how you play offline, just you vs bot

1) Goto Program Files\BWAPI\Chaos Launcher
2) Right click Chaoslauncher - MultiInstance.exe
3) Click "Run as Administrator"
4) Check BWAPI 4.1.2 Injector [release]
5) UNCHECK BWAPI 4.1.2 [Debug]
6) Check W-MODE
7) START

8) Go BACK to ChaosLauncher, UNCHECK BWAPI Injector and UNCHECK W-MODE
9) START

Ok here, you have 2 StarCrafts open, one is running BWAPI the other is for you to play on.
1) ALT+TAB and go to your first one (window mode), the one running BWAPI and click Multiplayer > Local PC
2) Create game, pick a map you want to play and choose Zerg for the bot (KillerBot is zerg)
3) Go back to the starcraft for you to play on, click Multiplayer > Local PC
4) Join the game, select your race.
5) ALT+TAB back to the starcraft with BWAPI, press CTRL+S to turn off sound, then press start.
6) Go to your starcraft game and play the bot!!

THAT'S IT

If you need live help, there are lots of friendly people on BWAPI's IRC Channel:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=BWAPI