[life] Tweaking the rules

[kwzh-home@gnu.org (Karl Heuer)]

I'm still on the life list, though apparently I did unsubscribe from
the main gamerz list a while ago.  I have my own "Lifewar" game that
I wrote many years ago; I imagine a lot of people have explored this
concept.

Scott writes,
>The idea behind these puzzles is you have one "intelligent" cell

Neat -- I think I like that rule set better!  I'm not sure how to best
adapt it to N-player, though.  If you run a generation after each player
moves, then your key cell has to be able to survive N generations, which
makes it a lot harder.  If you only compute a new generation after *all*
players have moved, then there's an asymmetry.  (Hm, what if after any
player moves his key cell, there's a probability of 1/N that the engine
will compute the new generation?)

Richard writes,
>(in 2 player, there will always be a majority.   what about 3+ players?
>don't know... good question)

The usual escape is to add a neutral color to handle this case, but
if you have *exactly* four players, then an alternative is to use
the color that's *not* represented: The child of ABC is D.  In this
variant, extinction isn't always permanent.  (Hm, it might also be
interesting to use a minority rule for the other case, so that the
child of AAB is B rather than A.  This would make it easier to "infect"
an existing configuration.)

Douglas writes,
>He only got to place one single cell on his first move and then he died
>out before his second move.  I think we need to correct this somehow.

Yeah, it looks like those rules weren't very well thought out.  In my
Lifewar game, the board starts out with a non-empty configuration of
cells -- I was limiting the scope to two-handed play, so I used a 2x2
block of alternating colors (which happens to make it look the same as
the initial configuration for Othello).  Another choice would be to
give each player a solid 2x2 block (or 3x1 blinker) that's separated
from everybody else's.

It's been a while since I've tried playing it, but I seem to recall
that it's too easy for everybody to stay alive, which is why my variant
has the game go through FREQ generations each turn, with FREQ increasing
by BUMP (a constant, normally 1) after each turn, so that the age of the
universe grows quadratically with the number of turns.

I have notes on some additional ideas for the game, allowing for the
possibility of a player's turn being used for arbitrary combinations
of cell creation, deletion, or motion.