I would disagree that creating a StarCraft: BW bot doesn't require experimental feedback. The way a human author typically improves their bot is by having it play opponents and A/B test tactics and strategies.
replyThere's also a pretty high profile StarCraft: BW bot right now called Pluto trained exclusively by self play RL (AlphaStar style).
Strong agree. Even if you understand StarCraft well and are an excellent programmer, and anticipate and correctly handle every situational edge case, it is hard to know the dynamics of how your behaviors will pan out without experimentation.
replyJay Scott put it well: Adding features lowers your winrate. Only iterating on them increases it.