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Comment by tyrust | Hacker News Reader

I haven't played SC in a few years, but I think I can give a basic answer.

There's would not be one optimal strategy, but many optimal strategies depending on the matchup between units. By taking advantages in differences in movement speed, attack range, attack projectile speed, and attack cooldown, a weaker group of units can potentially beat a stronger group.

This is an older video that demonstrates some examples of winning with good micro: https://youtu.be/CdSKD3LRHV8?t=11. An AI knowledgeable of and capable of executing such tactics would be pretty strong.

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Given that the game wasn't balanced for the possibility of infinite micro, I think it's highly probable that there's a globally optimal strategy.

Could you give an example of what that might look like?

Just on the surface, these sorts of games are notoriously difficult to balance properly. Someone discovers a strategy that tips the balance, and units/abilities/whatever have to get nerfed. The odds that there's a stable balance at a level of play not actively tested (e.g., infinite APM) are extremely low.

One example is a sibling post's video of 100 zerglings against 20 siege tanks. For humans, the zerglings are capable of destroying only a handful of tanks before being killed of. For an AI with infinite APM, they can move all but an individual targeted zergling out of the way of the tank's splash damage. This allows them to take out all of the siege tanks with only moderate losses. Many such matchups will be tossed on their heads, and it's likely that one of them is totally game-breaking.

There is a lua widget in spring rts that allows for units with at least one farsighted unit to automatically stay out of los. Sneaky army will wriggle through all defense lines.

Void rays are countered by AOE anti air. With infinite APM there is no need for two rays to be hit by the same aoe. Further AOE tends to do less direct dammage, so VR with infante APM may hard counter a lot more unit types than intended. IMO, the risk is more from something like blink stalkers becoming insanely resource efficient.

Perfect Muta flocks.

They regenerate, so the AI just has to keep them alive and do damage to win.

I'm pretty sure Muta flocks were a winning strategy of Starcraft 1's AI tournament, actually, so good call.

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