Comparing coevolution, genetic algorithms, and hill-climbers for finding real-time strategy game plans

  • Authors:
  • Christopher Ballinger;Sushil Louis

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA;University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 15th annual conference companion on Genetic and evolutionary computation
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

This paper evaluates a coevolutionary genetic algorithm's performance at generating competitive strategies in the initial stages of real-time strategy games. Specifically, we evaluate coevolution's performance against an exhaustive search of all possible build orders. Three hand coded strategies outside this exhaustive list provide a quantitative baseline for comparison with other strategy search algorithms. Earlier work had shown that a bit-setting hill-climber only finds the best strategies six percent of the time but takes significantly less time compared to a genetic algorithm that routinely finds the best strategies. Our results here show that coevolved strategies win or tie against hill-climber and genetic algorithm strategies eighty percent of the time but routinely lose to the three hand coded baselines. This work informs our research on improving coevolutionary approaches to real-time strategy game player design.