Sure, but how would you know? Sacrificing officers in chess is a typical example. Negative expected value short term, but typically long term positive when done intentionally. But generally, if you can come up with a robust fitness function, genetic algorithm is one method, although typically there are better alternatives giving faster results. In my experience, genetic algorithms can be a great start to get something but typically slow. Which matters if you need to simulate a few billion games... Interesting article anyway, thanks.