On the evolution of corewar warriors

This paper analyzes corewar, a very peculiar computer game popular in mid 80´s where different programs fight in the memory of a virtual computer. The μGP, an evolutionary assembly-program generator, is used to evolve efficient programs, and the game is exploited to evaluate new evolutionary techniques. The paper introduces a new migration model that exploits the polarization effect and a new hierarchical coarse-grained approach applicable whenever the final goal can be seen as a combination of semi-independent sub goals. Additionally, two very general enhancements are proposed. Analyzed techniques are orthogonal and broadly applicable to different real-life contexts. Experimental results show that all these techniques are able to outperform a previous approach.