From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier)
Subject: Re: Evolution games
Summary: Evolution
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 22:16:13 GMT
Organization: Data General Corporation, RTP, NC.

In article <BssHv6.72B@acsu.buffalo.edu> fly@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul D. Fly) writes:
>Sounds interesting, but there seems to be a major problem.  That is, evolution
>is not guided.  This is a problem with SimEarth too.  A fun "game", but all too
>often I find myself just sitting back and watching, rather than "playing".  
>While this is fine, I'm not sure how well this idea can be made into a
>competitive game between players.  I can see a game where players choose the
>traits of their species by hand, and then let evolution run its course and
>see who is left standing at the end.  But that is not much of a game...
>
>Paul Fly                      | "Thinking is more interesting than knowing,

Let me tell you about a board game called Evolution, published by
Carolina Biological Supply (!) and originally developed as an adjunct
to a class on evolution.  I hope it is still in print.  I haven't
played it enough to really say whether I like it, but that won't stop me
from describing how it works.  It is quite an original system.  This is
from memory, pardon any errors.  Note, I'm cross-posting to rec.games.board.

Each player plays a more-or-less abstract "species", defined entirely
by a set of six (?) gene cards.  There are separate decks for each type
of gene; you draw one each of: "litter size", "mobility", "predator type",
"prey defense", "native habitat", and "natural barrier avoidance".  The game
comes with four sets of 20 or so colored dice, but they are not rolled!
They are used as handy 1-6 markers which represent your population per hex.
The board is a highly irregular "blob" of hexes, representing 6 different
types of habitat, randomly dispersed.  The goal is to be the last surviving
species.  

Each player in turn spins a spinner (wow, how many nontrivial games do you
know that use a spinner?), which points to a list of *two* actions, to be
performed in order.  The possible actions are: "migrate", "compete/predate",
"population expansion", "place/move natural barrier", "change genes", and
(I think) "natural disaster" (or else there's some other way of generating
disasters that I forgot).

When you get a "change genes" action, you can discard any gene cards you're
not happy with and draw replacements.  This representation of evolution
potentially answers the objection that real evolution is not guided; here,
it is only partially under the player's control.  You can choose what to
change, but not when, nor to what.

Note that you do not automatically get to move (migrate) each turn.  Note,
also, that one of the disasters wipes out any "overpopulated" hexes, so you
do *not* necessarily want to have the largest litter size!  I lost one
game all at once when *all* of my hexes had become overpopulated (5 or 6
on the die in each hex).  Disasters include famines, floods, pollution,
pestilence, etc., with dire consequences for certain habitat types.  Thus
one wants to live in diverse habitats (not just native habitat).

Migrate: all your creatures (dice), combined, may move, through empty or
owned hexes up to your migration gene value.  May be zero!

Compete/predate: to compete, simply wipe out an adjacent enemy if you have
greater population.  To predate, you can wipe out any size adjacent enemy,
but only if your predator type is not included in his prey defenses.  (Genes
are generally kept secret.)

Population expansion: any population in native habitats is multiplied by
litter size, with new offspring appearing in or adjacent to anyone in
native habitat.  You may place new dice or increment existing ones.
Population expansion is mandatory!

Natural barriers: things like airports, cities, mountains.  You must have
the right barrier avoidance to cross.

Natural disasters, I think, are drawn from a disaster deck.

	Cheers,
	Charles Poirier