Energy node placement now uses a tiered radius distribution: 30% in the
contested central zone (0.05-0.20 from center), 40% in the mid-zone
(0.20-0.40), and 30% in the home zone (0.40-0.60). Previously nodes were
placed uniformly at 0.20-0.70, letting bots farm their home quadrant
indefinitely without crossing the midline.
After cellular automata wall generation, a 3-wide corridor is carved from
each core straight to the map center, plus a 5x5 open arena at the center
tile. This creates lanes that funnel bots into contact — replicating the key
mechanic that drove frequent fights in the original AI Challenge Ants game,
where symmetric food spawning near the midfield forced both colonies to
expand outward and collide.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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