Acquiring Tactical and Strategic Knowledge with a Generalized Method for Chunking of Game Pieces

Abstract

The physical configuration of playing pieces on a game board contains a plethora of information which can be used by the game player. Current computer game programs deal well with some positional and tactical information that is built into the program, but are incapable of acquiring and using strategic information. We present a technique for capturing strategic and tactical chunks or patterns of pieces in game domains. The chunking technique models the cognitive method employed by expert level human game players and acquires knowledge that is mostly domain independent. Induction is performed on the collection of chunks captured for a particular adversary to identify the playing style of that adversary.