Revealing Resources in Strategic Contexts

Abstract

Identifying an optimal game strategy often involves estimating the strategies of other agents, which in turn depends on hidden parts of the game state. In this paper we focus on the win-lose game The Settlers of Catan (or Settlers ), in which players negotiate over limited resources. More precisely, our goal is to map each player’s utterances in such negotiations to a model of which resources they currently possess,or don’t possess. Our approach comprises three subtasks: (a) identify whether a given utterance (dialogue turn) reveals possession of a resource, or not; (b) determine the type of resource; and (c) determine the exact interval representing the quantity involved. This information can be exploited by a Settlers playing agent to identify his optimal strategy for winning.