Progress in RoboCup Revisited: The State of Soccer Simulation 2D

A remarkable feature of RoboCup’s soccer simulation leagues is their ability to quantify and prove the exact progress made over years. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of an extensive empirical study of the progress and the currently reached state of 2D soccer simulation. Our main finding is that the current decade has witnessed a continuous and statistically significant improvement of the overall level of play, but that the magnitude of the progress made has dropped clearly when compared to the previous decade. In accordance to this, we envision possible future prospects for the 2D league that might respond to our empirical findings.