An example system and method where some operations include determining constraint compliant values for each of a set of constrained variables of an optimization problem. The constraint compliant values comply with a constraint condition for the optimization problem. The operations can further include generating a population of constraint compliant candidate solutions for a computer-based simulation that implements a population-based optimization algorithm for the optimization problem. The candidate solutions use a subset of the constraint compliant values such that each of the candidate solutions comply with the constraint condition. Further, while running the computer-based simulation with the candidate solutions, determining that a child candidate solution created from two of the candidate solutions fails to comply with the constraint condition; and modifying the child candidate solution to use at least one value randomly selected from the compliant values such that the child candidate solution complies with the constraint condition.