Cooperation and competition

An economic toyworld: neighbouring cells exist on a plane. These cells need to consume resources to survive and grow. Resources exist on areas occupied by cells. Each cell competes for the resources it needs with its neighbours marked as "adversary", and shares the resources it needs with the neighbours marked as "ally". The decision that each cell makes to mark a neighbour as "adversary" or "ally" is not known a priori, and the decision-making process itself is unknown.

When the cell accumulates a certain number of resources, it consumes them and grows. When the cell loses a certain number of resources to neighbouring cells, it dies.

This model leaves many questions unanswered. The most important one is: how does each cell decide to call a neighbour "ally" or "adversary"? For this decision will drive future access to resources, and thus the wanted survival and growth. Many details are intentionally left out, such as whether only one type of resource exists, or many types, each differently needed by different cells. Also the effect of growth on the neighbours is not specified. Similarly the side-effects of actions such as "sharing", "competing", and "consuming" are not specified. These details are left out to keep the model both simple and flexible enough to accommodate several explorations.