Competition, Coevolution and the Game of Tag

Tag is a children’s game based on symmetrical pursuit and evasion. In the experiments described here, control programs for mobile agents (simulated vehicles) are evolved based on their skill at the game of tag. A player’s fitness is determined by how well it performs when placed in competition with several opponents chosen randomly from the coevolving population of players. In the beginning, the quality of play is very poor. Then slightly better strategies begin to exploit the weaknesses of others. Through evolution, guided by competitive fitness, increasingly better strategies emerge over time.