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Subject: Starcraft Re: chess and AI.

Author: Pekka Karjalainen

Date: 04:34:44 06/28/01

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 This is verging off topic, but I will comment something.  Thank you, Bruce, for
describing what the game is about.

On June 27, 2001 at 17:21:34, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>>  So, he is saying that Starcraft is really complex in a computational sense.
>>All that means that we cannot use the same approach of AB-searching with
>>enhancements to play it like chess.  Some other approach might work better,
>>though.
>
>It's easy in a computational sense.  The strategy is to make a clump of
>buildings, make creatures that collect resources, make a bunch of offensive guys
>and run them at the opponent.  These guys keep shooting until they destroy all
>of the opponent's stuff or are themselves destroyed.  Repeat until you win or
>lose.
>
>The problem is that it's hard to find a real "best move".  It's more about
>creating guys at a high rate and in a proper mix, and doing damage to your
>opponent without losing more than you destroy.  The AI in most of these games is
>pretty bad, but I'm not convinced that it has to be bad.

  I agree with your last sentence.  Certainly there hasn't been any comparable
amount of research into this sort of AI as there has been for chess playing
programs.

  By computational complexity I mean a very simple measure of how many possible
moves there are and how many possible game situations there are.  Probably huge
amounts of both.  So, the concept of a "best move" doesn't really seem to make
much sense.  No human players tries to find the best move, but a good solid
strategy to maximize how well he does.

>
>These games are much less structured than turn-based games like chess or go, so
>you have to adopt a very generalized heuristic approach.

  And this is how you say it.  Much more clearly :-)

>
>I doubt that the AI's in any of these games are really computationally expensive
>the way they are implemented now.

  "Hey, guys, just slap something together for the AI so we can ship the game
now!"  -- a caricature

  It *could* be that bad, I suppose.  But I am not a games programmer nor will I
ever be.

>
>bruce

  Pekka



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