Oulu99 Team 2 System Overview

Oulu 99 RoboCup simulation team is a simple, rule-based client which aims to play as effective soccer as possible without requiring the use of complex artificial intelligence. The tactical decision making of the client is based on simple rules which are determined by the player’s position on the field and the locations of the other players and the ball. By adding a weighted random noise factor to rule-based decision, complex and variable game can be achieved although the basic rules are kept simple. This results in code clarity and efficiency. In addition, the system can be relatively easily enhanced to be, for example, an adaptive system by replacing the current weighted random choice, which has fixed weights, with some more versatile algorithm while the basic decision rules stay the same. 1 General Goals of the Project The original idea behind the team was to create a SoccerServer client that is as simple as possible while still being able to play formidable soccer. Since the project team consists of students with two to six years of academic experience, the complexity of the client is inherently limited. Therefore it was desirable to not use complicated artificial intelligence technics, but rather build the client with simple rule-based programming. When done properly, a simple approach can be later enhanced to deploy more advanced techniques in cooperation with the rule-based engine.