Decision-Making in Hearthstone Based on Evolutionary Algorithm

Eiji Sakurai, Koji Hasebe

2023

Abstract

Hearthstone is a two-player turn-based collectible card game with hidden information and randomness. Generally, the search space for actions of this game grows exponentially because the players must perform a series of actions by selecting each action from many options in each turn. When playing such a game, it is often difficult to use a game tree search technique to find the optimal sequence of actions up until the end of a turn. To solve this problem, we propose a method to determine a series of actions in Hearthstone based on an evolutionary algorithm called the rolling horizon evolutionary algorithm (RHEA). To apply RHEA to this game, we modify the genetic operators and add techniques for selecting actions based on previous search results and for filtering (pruning) some of the action options. To evaluate the effectiveness of these improvements, we implemented an agent based on the proposed method and played it against an agent based on the original RHEA for several decks. The result showed a maximum winning rate of over 97.5%. Further, our agent played against the top-performing agents in previous competitions and outperformed most of them.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Sakurai E. and Hasebe K. (2023). Decision-Making in Hearthstone Based on Evolutionary Algorithm. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, ISBN 978-989-758-623-1, pages 845-852. DOI: 10.5220/0011783900003393

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icaart23,
author={Eiji Sakurai and Koji Hasebe},
title={Decision-Making in Hearthstone Based on Evolutionary Algorithm},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART,},
year={2023},
pages={845-852},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0011783900003393},
isbn={978-989-758-623-1},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART,
TI - Decision-Making in Hearthstone Based on Evolutionary Algorithm
SN - 978-989-758-623-1
AU - Sakurai E.
AU - Hasebe K.
PY - 2023
SP - 845
EP - 852
DO - 10.5220/0011783900003393