In no particular order, some ideas zanier than others
- **Edit-added ** version 2 uses a liquid metaphor rather than salt crystals, and is called H2O. Version 3 uses a superfluid metaphor, is called H3.
Serious suggestions :
Time travel: every bot has a token where they can, only once in the game, roll the entire game back to a frame of their choice (i can imagine this one will be super fun / super infuriating)
Co-opting enemy bots to your control ie, an enemy, if taken over, diligently continues to convert cells to your control, via their algo. you never see their code but you do benefit from it. (this could also be super fun / super infuiriating)
Bots can save state between games, and thus learn
A better ranking algorithm than trueskill Please
Toroidal boundary conditions are used to ensure every player is exactly the same distance from every other player (topologists- will this limit the players to 4? i think we can do 6)
Fault-tolerance : bots might not do what you want them to do . Maybe some environment cells cause your bots to go random , like laughing gas.
Improvements to the environment and infrastructure : faster engine, players can query their own history of score and rank and also get a quick rundown of who they tend to win and lose against (i know these can be done, albeit laboriously. it would be super cool to have them in the default tools)
... your ideas here ...