All the hobbyists were using proxybot because it allowed you to use more fun languages than C/C++ but proxybot lacked the features to effectively play Zerg. I really wanted to play Zerg so I built a really sweet API+DSL in Ruby around proxybot and then used that to give the other newbies a hard time with a zergling rush.

Unfortunately the proxybot limitations precluded me from expanding its capabilities so I tried to switch to having ruby embedded in C++ and I basically got mired there and was eventually distracted by real world concerns like actually finishing my degree.

I think I played against Krasi0's bot a couple times in the early days. Hopefully they stuck with AI and have suddenly become crazy rich after 2016. It certainly wasn't a given that AI was going to lead to a fruitful career back then, let alone to unimaginable riches.

In the early days of SC2, I remember people using genetric programming to optimize build orders. I remember a slightly unorthodox Zerg Roach Rush which was _really_ fast.