Adaptive CGF Commander Behavior Modeling Through HTN Guided Monte Carlo Tree Search

Improving the intelligence of virtual entities is an important issue in Computer Generated Forces (CGFs) construction. Some traditional approaches try to achieve this by specifying how entities should react to predefined conditions, which is not suitable for complex and dynamic environments. This paper aims to apply Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) for the behavior modeling of CGF commander. By look-ahead reasoning, the model generates adaptive decisions to direct the whole troops to fight. Our main work is to formulate the tree model through the state and action abstraction, and extend its expansion process to handle simultaneous and durative moves. We also employ Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planning to guide the search, thus enhancing the search efficiency. The final implementation is tested in an infantry combat simulation where a company commander needs to control three platoons to assault and clear enemies within defined areas. Comparative results from a series of experiments demonstrate that the HTN guided MCTS commander can outperform other commanders following fixed strategies.