Adversarial search with procedural knowledge heuristic

We introduce an adversarial planning algorithm based on game tree search, which is applicable in large-scale multiplayer domains. In order to tackle the scalability issues of game tree search, the algorithm utilizes procedural knowledge capturing how individual players tend to achieve their goals in the domain; the information is used to limit the search only to the part of the game tree that is consistent with pursuing players’ goals. We impose no specific requirements on the format of the procedural knowledge; any programming language or agent specification paradigm can be employed. We evaluate the algorithm both theoretically and empirically, confirming that the proposed approach can lead to a substantial search reduction with only a minor negative impact on the quality of produced solutions.