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Bot Name: Ximp
Bot Race: Protoss
Author Name(s): Tomas Vajda
Affiliation(s): independent
Nationality(s): slovak
Occupation(s): programmer

(These will be listed on the competition website)
Bot URL:
Personal URL:
Affiliation URL:

Q: How did you become interested in Starcraft AI?
I became interested in StarCraft AI at my faculty on Comenius University where I was enrolled in artificial intelligence class and one of projects on that class was to program StarCraft bot to SSCAI tournament.

Q: How long have you been working on your bot?
I have been working on my bot approximately for three months, but before this bot I have programmed another bot for SSCAI 2011, but Ximp is much different than that bot.

Q: About how many lines of code is your bot?
LocMetrics counted 9624 lines of code.

Q: Why did you choose the race of your bot?
I choose Protoss race because it is my favourite race in StarCraft.

Q: Did you use any existing code as the basis for your bot? If so, why, and what did you change?
No I didn't used any extending code.

Q: What is the overall strategy/strategies of your bot? Why did you choose them?
My bot has only one strategy which does every time. He first do fast expand and secure that expansion with many cannons and then tech to Carriers and build many Carriers and attack to enemy base. It is only cheese.

Q: Do you incorporate learning of any form in your bot? If so, how was it accomplished? 
No I haven't incorporated any learing in my bot.

Q: Do you use any interesting AI techniques or algorithms in your bot? If so, which?
I haven't used any interesting AI techniques yet. Carrier and Corsair controlling is only a state machine. But for Corsairs I am planning to do more sophisticated algorithms for controlling them.

Q: What do you feel are the strongest and weakest parts of your bot's overall performance?
Strongest part are Carriers themselves. Weakest is no army in beginning when bot is teching to a building Carriers.

Q: If you competed in previous tournaments, what did you change for this year's entry?
I competed in SSCAI 2013 which my bot won and for AIIDE I didn't do any change to bot.

Q: Have you tested your bot against humans? If so, how did it go?
I tested it against humans and it didn't go successfull because they know bot's strategy and they violated his weakness.

Q: Any fun or interesting stories about the development / testing of your bot?
Unfortunately no.

Q: Any other projects you're working on that you'd like to advertise?
I have studied computer graphics and I love creating games and I am working as a programmer on one game, but unfortunatelly we didn't recorded any video from game. If you are interested you can send me an e-mail and I provide more information.



Optional Opinion Questions:

Q: What is your opinion on the current state of StarCraft AI? How long do you think before computers can beat humans in a best-of-7 match?
I think that it is heading to that AI will beat best of human players, because it is more faster in doing commands, but AI don't have creativity and thinking of human player which is bigger disadvantage than speed of doing many commands at one time.

Q: What do you feel is the biggest hurdle (technological or otherwise) in improving your bot's AI?
I think that it is learning and good reaction to new states that didn't occured in previous games which bot played. My bot isn't doing any learning, but I think that this will be the sbiggest hurdle.

Q: Which bots are the most interesting to you and why?
Most interesting for me is ICEBot because it is very strong and I think that it has very good responds to game states.