Engineering Features to Improve Pass Prediction in Soccer Simulation 2D Games

Abstract

Soccer Simulation 2D (SS2D) is a simulation of a real soccer game in two dimensions. In soccer, passing behavior is an essential action for keeping the ball in possession of our team and creating goal opportunities. Similarly, for SS2D, predicting the passing behaviors of both opponents and our teammates helps manage resources and score more goals. Therefore, in this research, we have tried to address the modeling of passing behavior of soccer 2D players using Deep Neural Networks (DNN) and Random Forest (RF). We propose an embedded data extraction module that can record the decision-making of agents in an online format. Afterward, we apply four data sorting techniques for training data preparation. After, we evaluate the trained models' performance playing against 6 top teams of RoboCup 2019 that have distinctive playing strategies. Finally, we examine the importance of different feature groups on the prediction of a passing strategy. All results in each step of this work prove our suggested methodology's effectiveness and improve the performance of the pass prediction in Soccer Simulation 2D games ranging from 5\% (e.g., playing against the same team) to 10\% (e.g., playing against Robocup top teams).