For the starcraft nerds among you, heres one of the very first builds constructed by the program:
10 extractor-trick to 11
11 overlord
11 spawning pool
15 extractor
16 queen (stop drones here)
18 overlord
18 roach warren
17 overlord (yes, two)
spawn-larva on queen when she pops
roach x7
This is a fairly fascinating build order in a number of respects.
First, from a starcraft perspective: it is incredibly strong. To be clear, I am certain virtually anyone who practiced this build and went onto the ladder and used it in every game would very easily rise to diamond level (currently the highest league). The seven roaches at that time in the game will destroy all but the most well-executed counter-builds. It caused an almost immediete stir on the starcraft forums, and had one player proclaiming that an all-in variant (all-in coming from poker and to mean that you win or lose right now, in this case it means attacking with all your workers as well as your army) was completely unstoppable in a certain matchup.
Second, as far as I know, this build was discovered by the program (or at least, its never been well known). There is a similar build thats been well known called the 5-roach-rush (the 5-roach-rush comes later, and is a bit more economical). When comparing the two, the 5RR has certain situational advantages, but the 7RR build, above, has two staggeringly obvious advantages: 1) you get two more roaches, 2) you get them almost 45 seconds sooner. Im not 100% certain this build was discovered by the program, but I do know its not been extremely popular or considered standard play so my guess is that its not been studied in too much detail.
The most interesting part of this build, however, is how counter-intuitive it is. It violates several well-known (and well-adhered-to) heuristics used by Starcraft players when creating builds. Some of this may be lost on you non-starcraft players, but Ill do my best to explain.
Double Overlord at 18/17.
First, a quick discussion about supply. Each unit you create costs supply. So long as you have supply, you can make units. Most RTS games have a similar concept. Overlords, for the zerg, are the unit that provides this supply. So for zerg, you have to spend 100 minerals to unlock additional supply. In general, it is considered optimal for you to have just enough supply to not be supply-blocked. Its generally considered wasteful to buy supply when you dont need it (since you could spend that money, instead, on units or workers now, and buy the supply later, when you need it).
In almost all cases, it would be extremely wasteful to purchase supply twice in a row. Im not sure any starcraft player would look at such a build and consider that a good idea. In this case though, it ends up working out so perfectly that youd actually have to try it any other way to understand how and why. Because your desired goal is 7 roaches, you will need to construct 2 more overlords at some point, but doing them both so early is certainly surprising. During that particular period of the build (around 18 supply), you end up waiting for your roach warren to finish so you can begin creating roaches. This causes you to max out on larva, stopping regeneration. By moving the second overlord so far up into the build, this larva ends up being free youd lose it anyway because the regeneration would stop. So the only penalty to making the second overlord early is minerals, and during this portion of the build, you are not mineral-bound. The net result is that moving that overlord so far up into the build costs nothing and frees up larva regeneration to produce quicker roaches.
This is the type of non-obvious optimization that genetic algorithms excel at.
As for the 7-roach-rush, Im certain if you are playing starcraft2, youll see this build quite a bit. As for whatever hidden and game-breaking builds remain undiscovered, that remains to be seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH1ucvJomlY&feature=player_embedded#!
video wo er die strat spielt!
vielleicht ganz interessant für die zerg unter euch, dieser push soll ja quasi unhaltbar sein.
10 extractor-trick to 11
11 overlord
11 spawning pool
15 extractor
16 queen (stop drones here)
18 overlord
18 roach warren
17 overlord (yes, two)
spawn-larva on queen when she pops
roach x7
This is a fairly fascinating build order in a number of respects.
First, from a starcraft perspective: it is incredibly strong. To be clear, I am certain virtually anyone who practiced this build and went onto the ladder and used it in every game would very easily rise to diamond level (currently the highest league). The seven roaches at that time in the game will destroy all but the most well-executed counter-builds. It caused an almost immediete stir on the starcraft forums, and had one player proclaiming that an all-in variant (all-in coming from poker and to mean that you win or lose right now, in this case it means attacking with all your workers as well as your army) was completely unstoppable in a certain matchup.
Second, as far as I know, this build was discovered by the program (or at least, its never been well known). There is a similar build thats been well known called the 5-roach-rush (the 5-roach-rush comes later, and is a bit more economical). When comparing the two, the 5RR has certain situational advantages, but the 7RR build, above, has two staggeringly obvious advantages: 1) you get two more roaches, 2) you get them almost 45 seconds sooner. Im not 100% certain this build was discovered by the program, but I do know its not been extremely popular or considered standard play so my guess is that its not been studied in too much detail.
The most interesting part of this build, however, is how counter-intuitive it is. It violates several well-known (and well-adhered-to) heuristics used by Starcraft players when creating builds. Some of this may be lost on you non-starcraft players, but Ill do my best to explain.
Double Overlord at 18/17.
First, a quick discussion about supply. Each unit you create costs supply. So long as you have supply, you can make units. Most RTS games have a similar concept. Overlords, for the zerg, are the unit that provides this supply. So for zerg, you have to spend 100 minerals to unlock additional supply. In general, it is considered optimal for you to have just enough supply to not be supply-blocked. Its generally considered wasteful to buy supply when you dont need it (since you could spend that money, instead, on units or workers now, and buy the supply later, when you need it).
In almost all cases, it would be extremely wasteful to purchase supply twice in a row. Im not sure any starcraft player would look at such a build and consider that a good idea. In this case though, it ends up working out so perfectly that youd actually have to try it any other way to understand how and why. Because your desired goal is 7 roaches, you will need to construct 2 more overlords at some point, but doing them both so early is certainly surprising. During that particular period of the build (around 18 supply), you end up waiting for your roach warren to finish so you can begin creating roaches. This causes you to max out on larva, stopping regeneration. By moving the second overlord so far up into the build, this larva ends up being free youd lose it anyway because the regeneration would stop. So the only penalty to making the second overlord early is minerals, and during this portion of the build, you are not mineral-bound. The net result is that moving that overlord so far up into the build costs nothing and frees up larva regeneration to produce quicker roaches.
This is the type of non-obvious optimization that genetic algorithms excel at.
As for the 7-roach-rush, Im certain if you are playing starcraft2, youll see this build quite a bit. As for whatever hidden and game-breaking builds remain undiscovered, that remains to be seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH1ucvJomlY&feature=player_embedded#!
video wo er die strat spielt!
vielleicht ganz interessant für die zerg unter euch, dieser push soll ja quasi unhaltbar sein.
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