The final implemented improvement facilitated by our flexible teamwork structure is the introduction of set plays, or pre-defined special purpose plays. As a part of the locker-room agreement, the team can define multi-step multiagent plans to be executed at appropriate times. Particularly if there are certain situations that occur repeatedly, it makes sense for the team to devise plans for those situations.
In the robotic soccer domain, certain situations occur repeatedly. For example, after every goal, there is a kickoff from the center spot. When the ball goes out of bounds, there is a goal-kick, a corner-kick, or a kick-in. In each of these situations, the referee informs the team of the situations. Thus all the players know to execute the appropriate set play. Associated with each set-play-role is not only a location, but also a behavior. The player in a given role might pass to the player filling another role, shoot at the goal, or kick the ball to some other location.
We found that the set plays significantly improved our team's performance. During the RoboCup-97 competitions, several goals were scored off of of set plays.