Quasi-randomly generated Stigmergy game.
Stigmergy is a drawless territory game for two players: Black and White. It is played on the spaces (cells) of an initially empty hexagonal grid of hexagons. Each player must have access to a sufficient number of stones of their own color.

Definitions

Two stones, or a stone and an empty cell, see each other if they lie on the same straight line of adjacent cells and there are no other stones between them along that line.

You control a cell if the number of stones of your color it sees is more than half the number of cells (empty or occupied) adjacent to it.

To flip a stone is to replace it with a stone of the opposite color.

Play

Black plays first, then turns alternate. On your turn, perform exactly one of the following actions:

• Pass, provided that there are no empty cells or every empty cell is controlled by some player.
• Place a stone of your color on an empty cell not controlled by your opponent.
• Flip an enemy stone on a cell you control.

The game ends when both players pass in succession. The player with the higher score in the final position wins. Your score is the number of stones of your color on the board, plus the number of empty cells you control, plus a komi in the case of White.

Komi

The komi is the even number of points which is added to White's score at the end of the game as a compensation for playing second. Before the game starts, the first player chooses the value of komi, and then the second player chooses sides. Alternatively, experienced players may agree on a standard value for all games.

Notes

Stigmergy can be played online, turn-based, at MindSports.

Stigmergy is a joint invention of Steven Metzger and myself, Luis Bolaños. It is based on Mike Zapawa's Tumbleweed.

In your simulation some stones flip when only one stone of the other color "sees" them. Is this an error in you simulation or in the rules as they are written above?

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

If that is true, it's an error in the simulation. Can you point out one of those flips? The script I used seems correct.

Maybe you wrongly interpreted "sees" as meaning "is adjacent to"?

You are correct that I misunderstood "sees". I did not realize the stones "see" at a distance as well. That does change things. Tracking what sees what all across the board seems quite challenging.

My immediate reaction is that your 12-cell hexagon may be too large (at least for humans!).

However, I also think it would be interesting to train a zero-bot to play this game. My reasoning is that we (at least those of us seeing it for the first time) have no preconceptions of what superior play would look like. It might then be very interesting to observe what sort of play bots would come up with.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Yes, I would love to see that. If you know someone that might be willing to do it, please let me know!

Stigmergy can now be played online, turn-based, at MindSports. Here's one of my ongoing games:

Thanks! What is Lentear?

I wish I could say yes, but I can't see the future.

In the meantime, one of my other games, Veletas, is in this year's Mind Sports Olympiad, in case you're interested.