Battle Royale

This example illustrates how to leverage higher dimensions of a GridSpace to identify the distance from neighbors not just spatially, but also categorically. We'll also use the walk! function extensively.

The Models module includes this example as Models.battle.

Rules of Engagement

Agents wander around the map looking for opponents. When a grid space is occupied by two or more agents there will be a battle. With experience gained from the fight, the victor searches for more opponents to crush and losers scurry away defeated or possibly even die. This process repeats until there is a single, definitive winner.

For this battle ground to exist, the following rules must be followed:

  • Agents have an experience level, starting at level 1 up to a maximum of 10.
  • Agents will search for the nearest worthy opponent (one with equal or ±1 experience level) and move towards them to attack, so long as something more important doesn't happen, which could be
    • A tougher opponent (with experience level +2 or higher) is nearby: run!
    • There are no worthy opponents available, but there are weak ones (with experience level -2 or lower): chase them down.
    • Capture and taunt a weaker opponent, then kill them.
    • Notice a tough opponent is occupied, sneak up and kill them.
    • There is no-one worthy to fight, but also no-one left to taunt. All bets are off: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.

Battles are won by weighted chance - a higher level gives an agent a larger chance of winning, but does not guarantee it. When a victor is chosen

  • The difference in experience between opponents is swapped.
  • If an agents experience reaches 0, they die.

Captured opponents will be killed once taunted. The captor will gain half of their experience. If an opportunist manages to take the captor by surprise, they can gain up to half of the captor's experience. This means a level 1 agent may eliminate a level 10 captor and jump straight to level 6.

Once all rules of engagement have been exhausted, the final showdown begins. Opponents fight their closest adversary regardless of experience level. Winner takes all.

Model Setup

using Agents
using Plots

mutable struct Fighter <: AbstractAgent
    id::Int
    pos::Dims{3}
    has_prisoner::Bool
    capture_time::Int
    shape::Symbol # For plotting
end

As you can see, the properties of out agent are very simple and contain only two parameters that are needed to store context from one time step to the next. All other properties needed are stored in the space. pos is three-dimensional, two for the actual space agents move within, and a third categorical dimension representing their level. shape is used solely for plotting (well, used once just for convenience).

Now let's set up the battle field:

function battle(; fighters = 50)
    model = ABM(
        Fighter,
        GridSpace((100, 100, 10); periodic = false);
        scheduler = random_activation,
    )

    n = 0
    while n != fighters
        pos = (rand(1:100, 2)..., 1) # Start at level 1
        if isempty(pos, model)
            add_agent!(pos, model, false, 0, :diamond)
            n += 1
        end
    end

    return model
end

model = battle()
AgentBasedModel with 50 agents of type Fighter
 space: GridSpace with size (100, 100, 10), metric=chebyshev and periodic=false
 scheduler: random_activation

50 opponents positioned randomly on a 100x100 grid, with no escape (periodic = false). To leverage categorical dimensions fully, non-periodic chebyshev space is necessary.

Game Dynamics

To implement the rules of engagement, only an agent_step! function is required, along with a few helper functions.

space(agent) = agent.pos[1:2]
level(agent) = agent.pos[3]
level (generic function with 1 method)

space allows us to invoke a number of helpful utilities provided by Agents.jl but only operate on our spatial dimensions, level is a wrapper to access the agent's experience easily.

Nearest agents that satisfy our search criteria can be identified via Euclidean distance solely on the spatial dimensions of our GridSpace.

function closest_target(agent::Fighter, ids::Vector{Int}, model::ABM)
    if length(ids) == 1
        closest = ids[1]
    else
        close_id = argmin(map(id -> edistance(space(agent), space(model[id]), model), ids))
        closest = ids[close_id]
    end
    return model[closest]
end
closest_target (generic function with 1 method)

Since our battles are only between opponents with equal, or as much as one level apart, the odds can be set explicitly. Stronger opponents have twice the capacity of winning a match.

function battle!(one::Fighter, two::Fighter, model)
    if level(one) == level(two)
        # Odds are equivalent
        one_winner = rand() < 0.5
    elseif level(one) > level(two)
        # Odds are in favor of one
        one_winner = 2 * rand() > rand()
    else
        # Odds are in favor of two
        one_winner = rand() > 2 * rand()
    end

    one_winner ? (up = one; down = two) : (up = two; down = one)

    new_lvl_up = min(level(up) + 1, 10)
    new_pos_up = clamp.(rand(-1:1, 2) .+ space(up), [1, 1], size(model.space)[1:2])
    move_agent!(up, (new_pos_up..., new_lvl_up), model)
    new_lvl_down = level(down) - 1
    if new_lvl_down == 0
        kill_agent!(down, model)
    else
        move_agent!(down, (space(down)..., new_lvl_down), model)
    end
end
battle! (generic function with 1 method)

If an agent has a prisoner, it will taunt it for a time, then kill it, so long as an opportunist doesn't sneak up on them first! Here we use the tuple constructor with nearby_ids to look for agents at the same position as the captor (0, 0), and any level (..., 10). We could also use the range constructor in this instance nearby_ids(agent, model, [(1, 0:0), (2, 0:0)]), meaning which is more performant but not as readable.

function captor_behavior!(agent, model)
    close_ids = collect(nearby_ids(agent, model, (0, 0, 10)))
    if length(close_ids) == 1
        # Taunt prisoner or kill it
        prisoner = model[close_ids[1]]
        if prisoner.capture_time > 10
            agent.shape = :square
            gain = ceil(Int, level(prisoner) / 2)
            new_lvl = min(level(agent) + gain, 10)
            kill_agent!(prisoner, model)
            agent.has_prisoner = false
            move_agent!(agent, (space(agent)..., new_lvl), model)
        end
    else
        # Someone is here to kill the captor. Could be more than one opponent
        prisoner = [model[id] for id in close_ids if model[id].capture_time > 0][1]
        exploiter = rand([
            model[id]
            for
            id in close_ids if
            model[id].capture_time == 0 && model[id].has_prisoner == false
        ])
        exploiter.shape = :square
        gain = ceil(Int, level(agent) / 2)
        new_lvl = min(level(agent) + rand(1:gain), 10)
        kill_agent!(agent, model)
        move_agent!(exploiter, (space(exploiter)..., new_lvl), model)
        # Prisoner runs away in the commotion
        prisoner.shape = :utriangle
        prisoner.capture_time = 0
        walk!(prisoner, (rand(-1:1, 2)..., 0), model)
    end
end
captor_behavior! (generic function with 1 method)

When there are only few fighters standing, the stakes are higher. Prior experience is paramount since there is no gain, and fights are to the death.

function endgame!(agent, model)
    origin = space(agent)
    end_ids = collect(Iterators.filter(
        id -> model[id].shape == :circle && id != agent.id,
        allids(model),
    ))
    agent.shape = :circle
    if !isempty(end_ids)
        opponent = closest_target(agent, end_ids, model)
        target = space(opponent)
        if origin == target
            # Battle
            agent.shape = :square
            opponent.shape = :square
            showdown!(agent, opponent, model)
        else
            walk!(agent, (sign.(target .- origin)..., 0), model)
        end
    end
end

function showdown!(one::Fighter, two::Fighter, model)
    if level(one) == level(two)
        # Odds are equivalent
        one_winner = rand() < 0.5
    elseif level(one) > level(two)
        # Odds are in favor of one
        one_winner = level(one) - level(two) * rand() > rand()
    else
        # Odds are in favor of two
        one_winner = rand() > level(two) - level(one) * rand()
    end

    one_winner ? kill_agent!(two, model) : kill_agent!(one, model)
end
showdown! (generic function with 1 method)

The rest of our interactions flow down a hierarchy, so we'll place them directly in the agent_step! function. We use the tuple search for occupied_ids here, as we did with close_ids above. The rest of the searches however use the range search to provide a more precise criteria.

The easiest context to explore is worthy_ids: all we want to do is find an agent with a similar level. If we used the tuple search here, we would have to search (100, 100, 1) - even though we are not at all interested in the spatial location of the neighbors at this time. (3, -1:1) is therefore more accurate representation.

A more complex example is that of strong_ids. We are looking for agents with a level 2-4 points higher withing a distance of (5, 5). The range search becomes a little verbose, but precise. An equivalent tuple search is not completely possible however. The closest solution is (5, 5, 4), which also looks for weaker opponents and must be filtered to the correct neighbor set after the fact. In this instance the range search has significant performance gains.

function agent_step!(agent, model)
    if agent.capture_time > 0
        # Captured agents are powerless, but we need to keep track of how long
        # they have been in this state
        agent.capture_time += 1
    elseif agent.has_prisoner
        captor_behavior!(agent, model)
    else
        origin = space(agent)
        # Find agents that have captives, they are not focused
        occupied_ids = collect(Iterators.filter(
            id -> model[id].has_prisoner,
            nearby_ids(agent, model, (7, 7, 10)),
        ))
        if !isempty(occupied_ids)
            # Sneak up behind them
            target = space(closest_target(agent, occupied_ids, model))
            agent.shape = :pentagon
            walk!(agent, (sign.(target .- origin)..., 0), model)
        else
            # Opponents that are greatly higher in rank that the current agent
            strong_ids = collect(nearby_ids(agent, model, [(1, -5:5), (2, -5:5), (3, 2:4)]))
            if !isempty(strong_ids)
                # Run away from nearest
                target = space(closest_target(agent, strong_ids, model))
                agent.shape = :utriangle
                walk!(agent, (sign.(origin .- target)..., 0), model)
            else
                # There are no distractions. Search for the closest worthy opponent
                worthy_ids = collect(nearby_ids(agent, model, [(3, -1:1)]))
                if !isempty(worthy_ids)
                    opponent = closest_target(agent, worthy_ids, model)
                    target = space(opponent)
                    if origin == target
                        # Battle
                        agent.shape = :square
                        opponent.shape = :square
                        battle!(agent, opponent, model)
                    else
                        # Move towards worthy opponent
                        agent.shape = :diamond
                        walk!(agent, (sign.(target .- origin)..., 0), model)
                    end
                else
                    # Find any weak targets in the vicinity
                    weak_ids = collect(nearby_ids(
                        agent,
                        model,
                        [(1, -10:10), (2, -10:10), (3, -4:-2)],
                    ))
                    if !isempty(weak_ids)
                        prisoner = closest_target(agent, weak_ids, model)
                        target = space(prisoner)
                        if origin == target
                            # Capture and taunt target
                            agent.has_prisoner = true
                            agent.shape = :vline
                            prisoner.capture_time += 1
                            prisoner.shape = :hline
                        else
                            # Chase down nearest (can move 2 steps at a time!)
                            agent.shape = :star4
                            walk!(agent, (2 .* sign.(target .- origin)..., 0), model)
                        end
                    else
                        # Abandon honour. This is the end
                        endgame!(agent, model)
                    end
                end
            end
        end
    end

    return nothing
end
agent_step! (generic function with 1 method)

Let the Battle Begin

Plotting is relatively straightforward. plotabm cannot be used explicitly (yet) since it expects our categorical dimension is actually a third spatial one. We start with some custom legends to easier understand the dynamics.

clr(agent) = cgrad(:tab10)[level(agent)]
lvl = plot(
    (1:10)',
    label = ["Level 1" "Level 2" "Level 3" "Level 4" "Level 5" "Level 6" "Level 7" "Level 8" "Level 9" "Level 10"],
    palette = :tab10,
    legend = :top,
    framestyle = :none,
)
state = scatter(
    (1:8)',
    xlims = (-2, -1),
    label = ["Battle" "Run" "Showdown" "Sneak" "Duel" "Captor" "Prisoner" "Chase"],
    markershape = [:square :utriangle :circle :pentagon :diamond :vline :hline :star4],
    color = :black,
    legend = :top,
    framestyle = :none,
)
anim = @animate for i in 0:225
    posn = [space(model[id]) for id in by_id(model)]
    cm = [clr(model[id]) for id in by_id(model)]
    shp = [model[id].shape for id in by_id(model)]
    ll = @layout [a{0.7w} [b; c]]
    battle = scatter(
        posn,
        legend = :none,
        color = cm,
        markersize = 7,
        markershape = shp,
        xlims = (-2, 103),
        ylims = (-2, 103),
        showaxis = false,
        minorgrid = true,
        ticks = (0:10:100, []),
    )
    plot(battle, lvl, state, layout = ll, size = (850, 600))
    step!(model, agent_step!, 1)
end
gif(anim, "battle.gif", fps = 10)

Some interesting behaviour emerges: sometimes you see a group of diamonds chasing one triangle. What ends up happening here is usually a close pair that wishes to fight gets caught out by the weaker one of the two running away from an even stronger opponent. Problem is that this stronger opponent is chasing the stronger of the pair, but since the weakest of the pair is still closer to the newcomer, there is a stalemate. This is usually resolved by hitting a boundary or other opponents.