I found this little game which tries to teach dragons to survive with genetic programming the assault of the player. It’s not working as desired (the dragons don’t team up and chase the player) but this makes it even more interesting. There are several flaws in the setup:

  • Genetic programming does not create complexity by and on itself. The less input/initial instructions you pass to your agents, the more thought has to go into the genetic (i.e. reproductional) part of the code.
  • The rules must enforce an active behavior. In this case, running away from the player would be a very good option for the dragon, since it is not punished for running, only for getting killed.
  • The calculation of the individual fitness has to be tailored to the problem. If a dragon is killed in the first few rounds because it was put right next to the knight, it is considered less fit than his peer at the other end of the game field.
  • There is no possibility to learn form encounters with the player: if he strikes, the dragon is slain. The dragon can not come up with a strategy in this short time.

But hey, it’s a good place to start and experiment with the code.