# Ensemble Framework for Real-time Decision Making

## TL;DR

This paper presents an Ensemble framework that combines reactive and deliberative agents for real-time decision making in video games, enabling faster and more effective gameplay strategies.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel ensemble approach that integrates reactive and deliberative agents with role-based decomposition and an arbiter for efficient real-time decision making.

## Key findings

- Ensemble agents outperform single-agent approaches in real-time scenarios.
- The framework effectively balances speed and strategic depth.
- High-performing agents are created from simple, focused components.

## Abstract

This paper introduces a new framework for real-time decision making in video games. An Ensemble agent is a compound agent composed of multiple agents, each with its own tasks or goals to achieve. Usually when dealing with real-time decision making, reactive agents are used; that is agents that return a decision based on the current state. While reactive agents are very fast, most games require more than just a rule-based agent to achieve good results. Deliberative agents---agents that use a forward model to search future states---are very useful in games with no hard time limit, such as Go or Backgammon, but generally take too long for real-time games. The Ensemble framework addresses this issue by allowing the agent to be both deliberative and reactive at the same time. This is achieved by breaking up the game-play into logical roles and having highly focused components for each role, with each component disregarding anything outwith its own role. Reactive agents can be used where a reactive agent is suited to the role, and where a deliberative approach is required, branching is kept to a minimum by the removal of all extraneous factors, enabling an informed decision to be made within a much smaller time-frame. An Arbiter is used to combine the component results, allowing high performing agents to be created from simple, efficient components.