12:04 AM
Running a tournament of Medusa only long lived games (300,000 moves) to see if it shows up any disqualification potential (it won't actually result in exclusion if it does - just for curiosity). It took about 70,000 moves to join up with itself vertically. It grows a lot bigger without other players present...
Haven't seen any orthogonal or diagonal growth yet though - only that in between angle
I love Medusa's non deterministic ant mills. Rings where a worker will get caught in a loop running round and round until eventually its randomised path takes it to just the right place to escape. Really not efficient though...
In the first game, with 300,000 moves and no competitors, Medusa amassed 165 workers, and ... 2 food. No disqualification though
Long term as the gaps between the tendrils fill in, the environment around the queen becomes a hilly landscape with local minima just out of reach of the queen, which fill up with laden workers. Food still reaches the queen because there are enough workers to fill up these valleys preventing any more workers falling into them...