mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

BattleAgentBench: A Benchmark for Evaluating Cooperation and Competition Capabilities of Language Models in Multi-Agent Systems

arXiv 2408.15971 ↗First posted 28 Aug 2024cs.CLcited by 26

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks

Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) are becoming increasingly powerful and capable of handling complex tasks, e.g., building single agents and multi-agent systems. Compared to single agents, multi-agent systems have higher requirements for the collaboration capabilities of language models. Many benchmarks are proposed to evaluate their collaborative abilities. However, these benchmarks lack fine-grained evaluations of LLM collaborative capabilities. Additionally, multi-agent collaborative and competitive scenarios are ignored in existing works. To address these two problems, we propose a benchmark, called BattleAgentBench, which defines seven sub-stages of three varying difficulty levels and conducts a fine-grained evaluation of language models in terms of single-agent scenario navigation capabilities, paired-agent task execution abilities, and multi-agent collaboration and competition capabilities. We conducted extensive evaluations on leading four closed-source and seven open-source models. Experimental results indicate that API-based models perform excellently on simple tasks but open-source small models struggle with simple tasks. Regarding difficult tasks that require collaborative and competitive abilities, although API-based models have demonstrated some collaborative capabilities, there is still enormous room for improvement.

Key facts. Cited by 26 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 23 of its 55 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Aug 2024.

Builds on

23 of 55 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024AvaTaR: Optimizing LLM Agents for Tool Usage via Contrastive Reasoning17 Jun
  2. 2023Cooperation on the Fly: Exploring Language Agents for Ad Hoc Teamwork in the Avalon Game29 Dec
  3. 2023LLM-Powered Hierarchical Language Agent for Real-time Human-AI Coordination23 Dec
  4. 2023Creative Agents: Empowering Agents with Imagination for Creative Tasks5 Dec
  5. 2023Describe, Explain, Plan and Select: Interactive Planning with Large Language Models Enables Open-World Multi-Task Agents3 Feb

Other references · 18

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  2. 2022Large Language Models Encode Clinical Knowledgecited by 1,807
  3. 2024ChatGLM: A Family of Large Language Models from GLM-130B to GLM-4 All Toolscited by 1,096
  4. 2024Yi: Open Foundation Models by 01.AIcited by 706
  5. 2023A Real-World WebAgent with Planning, Long Context Understanding, and Program Synthesiscited by 350
  6. 2019On the Utility of Learning about Humans for Human-AI Coordinationcited by 345
  7. 2017StarCraft II: A New Challenge for Reinforcement Learningcited by 268
  8. 2023War and Peace (WarAgent): Large Language Model-based Multi-Agent Simulation of World Warscited by 143
  9. 2024A Survey on Large Language Model-Based Game Agentscited by 106
  10. 2023Avalon's Game of Thoughts: Battle Against Deception through Recursive Contemplationcited by 102
  11. 2023Large Language Models Play StarCraft II: Benchmarks and A Chain of Summarization Approachcited by 79
  12. 2023ChessGPT: Bridging Policy Learning and Language Modelingcited by 73
6 more
  1. 2023Suspicion-Agent: Playing Imperfect Information Games with Theory of Mind Aware GPT-4cited by 67
  2. 2024Enhance Reasoning for Large Language Models in the Game Werewolfcited by 44
  3. 2024SciInstruct: a Self-Reflective Instruction Annotated Dataset for Training Scientific Language Modelscited by 38
  4. 2023Cooperative Open-ended Learning Framework for Zero-shot Coordinationcited by 30
  5. 2023LLaMA Rider: Spurring Large Language Models to Explore the Open Worldcited by 21
  6. 2023GlitchBench: Can large multimodal models detect video game glitches?cited by 21

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 1; 2025: 12; 2026: 13.

26 papers.

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  1. 2025Why Do Multi-Agent LLM Systems Fail?cited by 559
  2. 2025Advances and Challenges in Foundation Agents: From Brain-Inspired Intelligence to Evolutionary, Collaborative, and Safe Systemscited by 125
  3. 2025G-Memory: Tracing Hierarchical Memory for Multi-Agent Systemscited by 112
  4. 2026A Survey of Agentic Reasoning for Large Language Models: Towards Recursively Self-Improving and Collective Agentscited by 47
  5. 2024Project Sid: Many-agent simulations toward AI civilizationcited by 46
  6. 2025The Coming Crisis of Multi-Agent Misalignment: AI Alignment Must Be a Dynamic and Social Processcited by 21
  7. 2025Evolutionary Perspectives on the Evaluation of LLM-Based AI Agents: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 12
  8. 2026The Five Ws of Multi-Agent Communication: Who Talks to Whom, When, What, and Why -- A Survey from MARL to Emergent Language and LLMscited by 10
  9. 2025TextAtari: 100K Frames Game Playing with Language Agentscited by 6
  10. 2026Beyond Individual Intelligence: Surveying Collaboration, Failure Attribution, and Self-Evolution in LLM-based Multi-Agent Systemscited by 5
  11. 2025The Decrypto Benchmark for Multi-Agent Reasoning and Theory of Mindcited by 4
  12. 2025Can Large Language Models Master Complex Card Games?cited by 4
14 more
  1. 2026Interactive Evaluation Requires a Design Sciencecited by 3
  2. 2026CivBench: Progress-Based Evaluation for LLMs' Strategic Decision-Making in Civilization Vcited by 2
  3. 2026Benchmarking Open-Ended Multi-Agent Coordination in Language Agentscited by 2
  4. 2026RAILS: Verification-Native Clearing For Agentic Commercecited by 2
  5. 2025Shall We Play a Game? Language Models for Open-ended Wargamescited by 1
  6. 2025The Emergence of Altruism in Large-Language-Model Agents Societycited by 1
  7. 2025The Hunger Game Debate: On the Emergence of Over-Competition in Multi-Agent Systemscited by 1
  8. 2026FM-Bench: A Benchmark for Long-Horizon Management with Competing Agentscited by 1
  9. 2025Toward Adaptable Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning: An Assumption-Aware Reviewcited by 0
  10. 2026Cooperate to Compete: Strategic Coordination in Multi-Agent Conquestcited by 0
  11. 2026When Does Hierarchy Help? Benchmarking Agent Coordination in Event-Driven Industrial Schedulingcited by 0
  12. 2026When Passing Tests Hides Vulnerabilities: An Empirical Study of Silent Failures in Agentic Systemscited by 0
  13. 2026VehicleArena: A Realistic Urban Environment for Multi-Agent Drivingcited by 0
  14. 2026Prompted Identity Degrades Cooperation in Multi-Agent LLM Systemscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025MultiAgentBench: Evaluating the Collaboration and Competition of LLM agents
  2. 2026MASBench: Benchmarking LLM-based Multi-Agent Collaboration under Partial Observability
  3. 2025Multi-Mission Tool Bench: Assessing the Robustness of LLM based Agents through Related and Dynamic Missions
  4. 2024Your Co-Workers Matter: Evaluating Collaborative Capabilities of Language Models in Blocks World
  5. 2025X-WebAgentBench: A Multilingual Interactive Web Benchmark for Evaluating Global Agentic System
  6. 2023AgentBench: Evaluating LLMs as Agents
  7. 2026Beyond the Leaderboard: A Synthesis of Tool-Use, Planning, and Reasoning Failures in Large Language Model Agents
  8. 2026T1-Bench: Benchmarking Multi-Scenario Agents in Real-World Domains