EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wH2KQx2.png)
Hosted by Czech Technical University, Prague & Comenius University, Bratislava
After the grueling, mind-boggling round of 42 of the Student Starcraft AI Tournament, 8 Artificial Intelligences have emerged, and will now play to the death for the title of “Best Broodwar AI of 2014”.
Date: 21 jan 2015
Tune: 23:00 CET VODs will be released ^^
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TuTpLIX.png)
T LetaBot, by Martin Rooijackers, Netherlands
Finishing first in the Ro42, this mean little computational machine is, truth be told, essentially a bunker rush bot, if even that. It scouts, depending on the map, very early, and from there it decides where to place its racks and/or bunkers. It has been trimmed to the bone, it has been timed and adjusted like a swiss watch, we all remember Boxer rushing Yellow when the stakes were high. All 5pool bots, there were quite a few, didn’t make top8. This one won it. Be afraid.
P XIMP, by Tomas Vajda, Slovakia
Ximp came second with a score equal to LetaBot, only because it didn’t participate in the students competition. This is another one-trick pony, another pony which does its trick very, very well. Forge, cannon, expand one or two times, and from there build 4 or 5 gate carrier. Is that all? That is all. Remember its opponents are other AIs, which have more difficulties discerning between targets; i.e. interceptors and carriers proper. Also the air element will sometimes wreak havoc with ground based defenses.
T ICEBot, by ICELab team, Japan
If you thought the first two were scary, you need to see this one. Krai0 ran this on iccup, and it beat D and D- on a regular basis. This may be the most complete bot of all, a terran AI which uses choke detection, both offensive and defensive, reacts, fast, to enemy builds and posesses the most advanced mech play of all AIs.
P Black White, by ???, ???
This one is a bit of a mystery. Remember those old DOS games where there always was one adversary about which nothing was known? Back then it was an easy way to increase suspense and a cop-out for the writers, but what do we know about this AI? Not much. Only that it stood up to cheesers and mech-pushing terrans like the beast it is. Watch it, and be amazed.
T krasi0bot, by Krasimir Krystev, Bulgaria
Another stout terran. Although not as accomplished and robust as ICEBot, it does macro like a champ, has an impressive tank push up it’s sleeve, uses vulture mines, battlecruisers. It isn’t as oppressive as ICEBot, give its enemies more room to breathe, which, coupled with its innate skill, makes for some highly entertaining games.
P Skynet 2.0, by Andrew Smith, United Kingdom
Won CIG 2012, 2013, AIIDE 2011, 2012. A year is a long time in AI development, and truth be told, Skynet has never won a SSCAIT. A tough, versatile protoss, it uses constant simulations of combat situations to decide whether or not it should engage or retreat. This is AI that approaches human conditions, lets hope it can withstand the terran wave.
T WOPR, by Soeren Klett, Germany
Named after the good old brain child of professor Falken in Wargames (80’s AI/kids/nucwar movie -watch it), WOPR (War Operations Planned Response) is an analitical AI -nvm. It’s a damn straight terran mech machine which uses tank pushes supported by battlecruisers to suppress enemy tank lines and what else it encounters. How brutal is that?
P UAlberta, by Dave Churchill, Canada
Protoss! Among the many terrans, being able to, as someone famous once said, “... throw down with the best of them.” Make no mistake, this valliant protoss will punish it. Aggressive gate play, full pressure, it won’t back down until either it or the enemy is dead.
Round of 8
In the round of 8, random maps will be chosen for the bots to play on. This seems a little unfair, a BoX would have been preferable, we’re looking into the possibility to make the final a BoX, but the broadcast had been announced, so we had to hurry like a WAR1 peasant.
The first 4 matches are:
1) LetaBot vs Skynet
Number 1 vs the valliant Protoss. This match boils down to the question: “Will Skynet hold off the rush?” If it does, it wins, if not...
2) ICEBot vs UAlbertabot
Any contender will have a hard time vs ICEBot, you really need to get lucky, hope it contains itself, or makes another error. Otherwise, the best bet is to prepare a rush to overwhelm its initial defenses and claim victory fast.
3) Krasi0bot vs XIMP
This may well be one of the more exciting matches of the Ro8. The basic premise is the same as that of the first match, main difference being that XIMP does not rush-cheese, but rather sits back and techs up to carriers. Krasi0bot does have some adaptive capabilities, also a strong mech push, so making a meaningful prediction here is beyond reason, we’ll just have to watch it!
4) WOPR vs Black White
One of the mortal terrans vs a good day to die protoss. Again, two bots who aren’t as structured as the rest, so there are a lot of options open for this match. The most logical would be for Black White to try an early rush, after that expand and macro like a beast. WOPR’s best hope is to ward off early aggression and crush its opponent with a tank/bc push.
