Today I will cover the Probots season two finals. The finals were played between SarsaBot and dmytrobot. dmytrobot is mostly known for its worker rush strategy, but also showed in the semi finals that it could do a zealot rush. SarsaBot uses more macro style play. The finals will be best of 7.
Game 1
The first game, dmytrobot goes for its zealot rush. SarsaBot scouts it and puts five spine crawlers up in its natural as well as going for roaches. The large number of zealots do manage to take out three of the spine crawlers, but they do die in the process.
After this first attack, dmytrobot keeps sending in three zealots at a time. SarsaBot has spent so many drones building it defenses and even taking a third that it now has only thirteen left. SarsaBot decides to drone up, despite a constant influx of zealots. The remaing spines and queens hold for quite a while. SarsaBot manages to get back up to 50 drones against the 23 drones of dmytrobot, but in the meantime it has completely neglected its defenses. Its last spine crawlers fall. Only a single queen remains as defense. SarsaBot goes into a panic trying to rebuild the spine crawlers, but the only thing it accomplishes is sending a lot of drones to their deaths. The zealots take out the natural and main of SarsaBot. Only the third and fourth base remain. The zealots of dmytrobot don’t know to attack those bases though, instead they dance around under an overlord in the ruins of SarsaBots main. A single zealot does a good job at taking out the fourth base of SarsaBot. Then SarsaBot ggs and leaves the game.
This game is most remarkable for a number of shortcomings on both sides:
- After a perfect defense, SarsaBot decides to only make drones and allows itself to be defeated by the small groups of zealots, despite having a huge lead in economy.
- After basically defeating SarsaBot, dmytrobot is unable to find the remaining bases, allowing SarsaBot a chance to get back into the game.
- SarsaBot ggs in a situation that may be dire, but certainly not unwinnable.
These are all issues that should be easy to fix, but for this tournament such mistakes will mean the difference between winning it all or settling for second place.
Game 2
This game, SarsaBot switches things up and goes for a proxy hatchery at the natural of dmytrobot. When the hatchery finishes, SarsaBot starts some spine crawlers, a queen and some zerglings. The zealots of dmytrobot attack as soon as they come out of the gateways and they are easily defeated. Soon SarsaBot has three spines and two queens up. It also starts putting creep tumors inside the actual base of dmytrobot, limiting where it can place its buildings.
SarsaBot pulls back the queens and lets up to pressure. dmytrobot finally gets the chance to get a decent amout of zealots. As soon as there are ten zealots they all move out. The three spines and two queens are not enough to hold. The proxy hatch gets taken out. SarsaBot builds five spines in its main against the mass of zealots that is approaching. dmytrobot barely manages to break through though. dmytrobot takes it second win.
Game 3
Game three looks a lot like game one. SarsaBot goes for three bases quickly, while making five spine crawlers and a decent number of roaches to defend. Two spines get taken out in the first wave of zealots, but all in all it is a good hold. The zealots start trickling in again. There is only a small number of roaches and they do not kite the zealots or fight near the spine crawlers, so quite of few of them die needlessly. SarsaBot starts making queens instead of roaches. It goes up to as many is five queens, while it still has only ten drones. Luckily the queens micro a bit better than the roaches. They actually move back when under attack, so they get help from the spine crawlers. They manage to stay alive a lot better. Finally SarsaBot starts adding on more drones. As its economy gets back up it also adds roaches again. eventually it goes up to five bases before taking out dmytrobot, who is still on one base.
Game 4
This game, dmytrobot goes for its probe rush. The probes micro back when their shields are down, similar to the probe rush strategy my own bot has. This allows it to keep its probes alive and defeat opponents, even if it has fewer workers.
For a while it seems as though SarsaBot will be able to hold on, but dmytrobot keeps a single probe mining at home, creating reinforcements for the attack. The reinforcements overwhelm SarsaBot and dmytrobot wins another game.
Game 5
Another probe rush, similar to last game. SarsaBot tries to take an expand, even after seeing the probe rush. The game is very one sided. If only SarsaBot had spent those minerals on a pool, or even just more drones it might have ended very differently.
dmytrobot wins the finals 4-1. I find it remarkable how such a simple bot could win the tournament. When I first used the probe rush in my own bot, I had expected it to only be strong for a short while. I had expected other bots to adept quickly. Bots are indeed learning to hold it off, but it is a slow process, with lots of mistakes in the meantime. I do hope (and expect) that simple rush bots like dmytrobot will eventually be dealt with and we can move on to more solid play. In the meantime, congratulations are still in order for dmytrobot. The strategies may be simple, but it did manage to take out a lot of strong bots.
Tyr 