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The AI they so proudly showcased last year learned to beat the limitations put in place. It was really funny. The DeepMind team put a cap on the average APM it

by JyB 7y ago

The AI they so proudly showcased last year learned to beat the limitations put in place. It was really funny. The DeepMind team put a cap on the average APM it could perform over some period of time. Being a micro intensive game, having a perfect micro even for a short time is a game changer. The AI just learned that by dropping it's APM low it would be allowed to have insane and inhuman bursts during critical fights and still be within the "rules" made up by the DeepMind team. It turned out it was one of the most successful way to win games.

ehsankia 7y ago
I feel like this really undersells what they showed though. Sure, APM was an issue, but all the different and varied strategies in managed to come up with was still really impressive. It seems like they have since focused more on the "single screen" model, with more restrictive APM limits (hopefully also limiting short peaks). I'm really curious to see how far they've come. I'm assuming the big showcase will be during Blizzcon.
tareqak 7y ago
Exactly, you can't simply cap peak APM, you need to cap the maximum APM too.
pjspycha 7y ago
It was also really unimpressive in my opinion, instead of being smarter and making broad decisions about tactics that are harnessed by some perfect unit composition knowledge, the AI won on a purely micro scale. There are videos from several microbots such as Automaton 2000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs that showcase what super APM can do. The DeepMind AI that beat some pro players did it by having better micro while generally having worse strategies. The DeepMind matches showed how better micro can turn a generally weaker unit composition into the winning unit composition just as that Automaton 2000 video did. To me it seemed that the DeepMind team figured out that the only way to beat competent players was to do what all those microbots do and pump APM into godly levels. They decided to limit APM, however like you said, just average APM and have the bots explode APM when needed. The real funny match was when MaNa beat Deepmind by completely breaking the AI with generally simple drop strategies and made Deepmind look very much inept.
schwurb 7y ago
> It turned out it was one of the most successful way to win games. Meh. That statement is euqivalent to "Turns out being able to calculate 400.000 chess positions per second it one of the most successful ways to win games". Given perfect Micro, SC2 is a totally different game that what we are playing.

by JyB 7y ago

ehsankia 7y ago

I feel like this really undersells what they showed though. Sure, APM was an issue, but all the different and varied strategies in managed to come up with was still really impressive. It seems like they have since focused more on the "single screen" model, with more restrictive APM limits (hopefully also limiting short peaks). I'm really curious to see how far they've come. I'm assuming the big showcase will be during Blizzcon.

tareqak 7y ago

Exactly, you can't simply cap peak APM, you need to cap the maximum APM too.

pjspycha 7y ago

It was also really unimpressive in my opinion, instead of being smarter and making broad decisions about tactics that are harnessed by some perfect unit composition knowledge, the AI won on a purely micro scale. There are videos from several microbots such as Automaton 2000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs that showcase what super APM can do. The DeepMind AI that beat some pro players did it by having better micro while generally having worse strategies. The DeepMind matches showed how better micro can turn a generally weaker unit composition into the winning unit composition just as that Automaton 2000 video did. To me it seemed that the DeepMind team figured out that the only way to beat competent players was to do what all those microbots do and pump APM into godly levels. They decided to limit APM, however like you said, just average APM and have the bots explode APM when needed. The real funny match was when MaNa beat Deepmind by completely breaking the AI with generally simple drop strategies and made Deepmind look very much inept.

schwurb 7y ago

> It turned out it was one of the most successful way to win games. Meh. That statement is euqivalent to "Turns out being able to calculate 400.000 chess positions per second it one of the most successful ways to win games". Given perfect Micro, SC2 is a totally different game that what we are playing.