Automaton 2000 Micro - Dodging Siege Tanks

> We're talking about hundred unit zergling swarms perfectly dodging tank shells. Exactly the reference I was thinking of ▶ this video

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: ▶ this video 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.

It makes a huge difference. In this video, 20 tanks kill 100 zerglings and lose only two tanks. With super-human micro, the results are... quite different. ▶ this video

For anyone who actually plays SC2, or any real time game where human speed is a limitation, it should not be surprising that AI would crush human opponents. This video demonstrates why: ▶ this video AI has crushed humans in Go, the most complicated (widely played) board game. I'll be impressed again by AI when it beats us in physical sport.

Frankly, superior reaction time and other mechanical skills in Dota2 (or Starcraft, or other games which are being tested) makes me think that a typical AI would beat a human. ▶ this video That's the "gloves come off" AI. Granted, its a problem solved by raw, mechanical button-pushes at a rate beyond what is possible on a keyboard/mouse, but it demonstrates the greatest skills an AI or computer has. Of course, no one wants to see an AI beat a human using known methodologies. They want to see an AI win at the abstract game of "a game of strategy". From this perspective, I think the poker AI results over the past year or two have been far more interesting. AIs figuring out the Nash Equalibrium and playing bluffing games around it. Sure, its a bit mechanical and mathematically inclined, but generalizing and solving the bluffing game is IMO far more useful.

dota 2 is not as extreme about this as, say, starcraft. in starcraft, most "strategies" are heavily scripted build orders that almost never deviate from a handful of openings (similar to opening moves in chess) and a large amount of winning comes from the ability to quickly give orders to your troops ("micro"). This is an example of a strategy that is not viable without superhuman reactions: ▶ this video if you directly attack 20 siege tanks with 100 zerglings you will only kill about two siege tanks, but an AI can kill all the siege tanks with some zerglings left over. There's some of this in dota, but there's a cap on the skill level for most playable characters that pros generally get "close enough" to, and beyond that the strategic depth comes from area control decisionmaking. Theres over 100 heroes and many of them have really weird abilities, like the possibility of creating a temporary wall (earthshaker) or the ability to teleport anywhere on the map every 20 seconds (furion). I could be wrong though, maybe the AI is winning games by playing heroes with long range and perfectly microing them to harass and prevent the other team from ever getting gold/xp.

Yes, they start punching way above their weight against tanks, too. Even moreso if you throw in an auto-scatter script. ▶ this video

A 'perfectly' micro-ing AI is both boring to implement and boring to play against. Somebody made one for SC2 back when that was popular, take a look at these videos to see how uninteresting it would become after the first attempt. link ▶ this video link

For human vs AI there will have to be APM rate limits otherwise the AI can win with no real strategy[0]. For AI vs AI it could be interesting to see what strategies develop with two opponents with the ability to perfectly microcontrol their units. [0]Zerglings vs Siege Tanks when controlled by AI with perfect micro. ▶ this video

>The units basically just dance at maximum range, magically dodge hits, etc. While it certainly isn't fair to play against, it does have a certain elegance[1]. There's also the problem that even if it's AI vs AI, the races and units are balanced around reaction times of humans. [1] ▶ this video

When Watson won at Jeopardy, one of its prime advantages was the faster reaction time at pushing the buzzer. The fairness of that has already been hashed out elsewhere, but..... We already know that computers can have superior micro and beat humans at Starcraft through that(1). Is DeepMind going to win by giving themselves a micro advantage that is beyond what reasonable humans can do? (1) ▶ this video as one example

Yeah, I remember this vid with zerglings doding siege tanks shots: ▶ this video The difference is quite drastic.

It's possible but it's a lot more context-driven than you think with a human involved. The bots do great against each other with their strategies and muscle-memory stuff. Throw a human in the mix, they start noticing patterns in how the units are managed, what strategies are likely, etc. They've exploited these in the competitions to hilarious effect. Here's the main site on prior work & results at the competitions: link Here's a few examples of how the muscle-memory approach, esp if focused on unit vs unit, can fail against humans. " In this example, Bakuryu (human) notices that Skynet's units will chase his zerglings if they are near, and proceeds to run around Skynet's base to distract Skynet long enough so that Bakuryu can make fying units to come attack Skynet's base. This type of behaviour is incredibly hard to detect in a bot, since it requires knowledge of the larger context of the game which may only have consequences 5 or more minutes in the future. " (2013) Note: At this point, they also sucked at building and expansion strategies which surprised me since I thought a basic planner would be able to do that. The constraints between rate of expansion, where to place stuff, what units to keep/build, and so on get really hard. The other thing they weren't good at was switching strategies mid-game based on what opponents are doing. " despite Djem5 (pro) making the bots look silly this year... they were able to defeat D-ranked, and even some C-ranked players. After the

AI already beats humans at StarCraft, not because it's smarter, but because it can control all the units simultaneously. ▶ this video link link

Really rudimentary AIs are already significantly beyond the skill of humans (in terms of micro, at least). ▶ this video

A big part of Starcraft is that certain units counter other units. Tanks counter zerglings, because they do splash damage to a bunch of them at once. Here's what you can do with infinite APM: ▶ this video It's just broken. It's not even the same game.

Unfortunate. I personally would love play against an AI with strong game sense as well as insane micro a la ▶ this video

And as cool as that is, this is even more terrifying, as a hundred zergslings dodge seige tank cannons and destroy them. ▶ this video It's enough to make you scared for the future of humanity.

That's incredible. The speed advantage here: ▶ this video Brings to mind the power of high frequency trading

Well, anyone who says that advantage in micromanagement is not a big thing should see "Automaton 2000" videos. Given that automaton is a map script and thus can have virtually unlimited APM, it beats people from a horribly disadvantageous positions (40 banelings vs 21 marine [1], or 100 zerglings vs 20 sieged tanks [2]). [1]: link [2]: ▶ this video