Setup
To setup the environment to write our bots we will need
Developing on Linux/MacOS/Other just isn't as easy at the moment. If you do not have a Windows machine you could use a Virtual Machine or install Windows along side Linux/MacOS/Other
At the moment Remastered is not yet supported, the only working version is 1.16.1. You can however run v1.16.1 alongside Remastered without needing to uninstall Remastered
For this tutorial from now on, when refered to StarCraft it will mean StarCraft:Broodwar v1.16.1
If you do not own StarCraft you can download it by following the simple instructions on iccup or download it for free from BattleNet and and manually downgrade it to v1.16.1
In this tutorial we have StarCraft installed in C:\starcraft\
To start writing our bot we will need to download BWAPI which will let us interface with the game. This will also install the Chaoslauncher for us, which lets us inject BWAPI and run StarCraft automatically once everything is correctly setup.
First if not installed, install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable as this is a required dependency to make BWAPI work.
For this tutorial we will be using BWAPI v4.2.0 as this is the latest version that JBWAPI currently supports. Download the installer and install it using the default configuration
We might need to point it to where we installed StarCraft, select C:\starcraft
Now we just continue using the default configuration, if everything went correctly we should get asked if we want to launch the Chaoslauncher, which we want to.
In the Chaoslauncher, tick the boxes BWAPI 4.2.0. Injector [RELEASE] to inject BWAPI v4.2.0 and W-MODE 1.02 to launch StarCraft windowed. Optionally you can also check APMAlert (1.16.1) to view your APM
Next go to the Settings tab in the Chaoslauncher and untick the Warn about missing adminprivilegues box and hit OK
Now just hit Start and if everything went correctly we should now see StarCraft!
For this tutorial we will be using Java8 & IntelliJ, but any later Java version and other IDE (Eclipse etc.) should also work
If not installed download the latest Java 8 JDK and install it using the default configuration
If not installed download and install an IDE like IntelliJ Community
In IntelliJ (or your preferred IDE) create a New Project (or clone an existing one).
For this tutorial we will be using Maven project management tool so select Maven and 1.8 as project SDK. Next give your project a name (ArtifactId) and groupname (GroupId).
We should now see a very minimal pom.xml (the pom lets us configure our project, add libraries etc.)