DarkBlizz

Played a handful more games against the cheating AI yesterday, as all 3 races. Had a few surprises, and my time was mostly spent examining the AI's behavior.

TvZ: Zerg seemed to get confused and hover outside my base.. had two expansions, was creating units from all 3 hatcheries (makes sense).

PvP: Protoss is wonky, to say the least, as noted by Turd. What surprised me though, (not sure if this is hardcoded, or added) is that the Stalkers actually Blinked when in combat. Albeit not significantly (and I ripped them apart), they did blink forward, and one blinked down a cliff to get away from my forces.

PvT: Terran expanded 3 times (did not destroy rocks), was building (!!) on its closest expansion, possibly only after almost completely filling its own base up. Building as in, more than a CC and extractors. I saw starports and barracks, as well as a few sparce missile turrets.

http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft/news/11050-new-starcraft-2-map-twisted-peaks

Quick google search

Too bad it wasn't in the beta, but they did include alot more maps than I expected them to.

99% of my games in SC1 were UMS. Plus, Blizzard knows RPGs and other fantastic game types will be made into maps (along with standard SC PVP). The Galaxy editor will allow people to make what they want, with even less limitations.

UMS is pretty much the main reason I've played SC for so many years.

In terms of AI, you don't know how little these guys have to work with to make what we have today. Blizzard only left in the bare minimum (Very Easy), out of 5 difficulties, which is what all of the people working on AI, have to work with.

If the map editor is released during beta (Blizzard wants to, but anything can happen) I imagine we'll see some crude maps, including defense.

I haven't been able to beat them yet, myself. Even if I turtle, my defenses and any forces I'm building up, if they cut it, only hold them off for so long. I also noticed, that instead of permanently hovering outside your base going back and forth, they're just waiting for a few more units to arrive so they can attack. Haven't had the chance to see them expand more than once, but when they attack...

Nonetheless, this is still good fun, and practice. (I never was one for SC melee against people/computers).

Considering all this is being done off of (what I assume is) the Very Easy AI that Blizzard left in, this is pretty impressive. I can't imagine how good the AI is in the full game, though. If this is mostly Blizz, this is pretty neat.

I did notice in V5 that the enemy (haven't played vs terran in this one, yet) sends a worker to different corners, and continues doing so, and they hang around. They never build though. I assume this was an attempt to get them to expand.. It certainly freaked me out the first time I saw a drone move to an expansion just outside my base (would have worked too, if it had some protection).

Keep it up!

Just played a 4P Metalopolis as Terran vs 1 T and 2 Z. One zerg expanded very well (creep was far outside their base). Terrans harassed me in the beginning VERY well. Two marines first (they micro'd them pretty well, too) Then they attacked me with a large Marine/Hellion/Siege tank/Viking raid later on, which was taken out. Several minutes later, I got a suitable defense and kept their constant Viking harassment to a minimum.

One Zerg got overthrown by the other Zerg. Didn't notice much of them until the end of the game, where I noticed the Terran AI was ripped to shreds and only had an economy, almost nothing else left. Then I got swarmed by 20+ Ultralisks, Roaches, and Zerglings. I managed to take out 90% of this force but it crippled my economy to the point where I couldn't continue, so I left it there.

4.0 is a very impressive move forward in terms of AI (played 3.0 before this, notable differences).

Still haven't managed to get a protoss enemy =/ -- Before this I was playing Zerg, same map, 1Z 2T enemies. Other zerg completely devastated my puny base with mutalisks and roaches.

Keep up the great work.

As for features, all I can think of is varied difficulties (I'd say the zerg rated around "hard", but the other two were "medium" or lower). If you could add a color changer perhaps, to StarCrack, that'd be awesome too.