Brood War vs. Starcraft 2

Today I want to compare the Starcraft 2 AI scene and the Brood War AI scene. The Brood War scene has had many more years to develop so far. The Starcraft 2 AI Ladder currently has 8 bots listed (not counting stock blizzard AI). In comparison, the Brood War AI Ladder currently lists 86 active bots. Starcraft 2 has a long way to go.

So what can we expect for Starcraft 2, based on the history of Brood War? Number one is rushes, lots and lots of rushes! Rushes tend to be the easiest to program and they can often do surprisingly well, even against stronger bots. The SSCAIT ladder has a huge list of bots which do nothing other than a simple zergling rush. Most of these have now been disabled in favor of more varied playstyle.

Other strategies include: Zealot rush, Cannon rush, DT rush, Barracks Barracks Supply (Build two barracks before the first supply depot, preferably mid-map and send all marines directly at the opponent). There are even some worker rush bots, most notably Stone, which is surprisingly effective with its incredible SCV micro.

For the most part, the top bots know how to fend off all of these rushes. Martin Rooijackers, author of LetaBot has even proclaimed the end of rushbots in Brood War. Despite this, some rush bots still manage to claim fairly high places for themselves. WuliBot (Zealot rush) and Neo Edmund Zerg (Zergling rush) both managed to place high during the last SSCAIT.

I expect that for starcraft 2 this will be much the same. I expect there to be a lot of bots with simple strategies at first, but later on I expect the more capable bots to adept. I hope that the experience from the Brood War bots will allow us to get past this point quicker, so we can get to those awesome high level macro games!