Board game Evolution. Natural Selection (Evolution. Survival of the Fittest). Evolution. Natural Selection - Board Game - Boomstarter

Fundraising campaign for the publication of the Russian version Evolution has just finished, the game is still being printed and will be sent out in September, but it has already appeared online FAQ on it, which contains about three dozen questions.

Part 1: Property Maps

1. Explain what the colors of property cards mean?

Green: associated with obtaining food.

Red: helps predators attack other species.

White: helps defend against predators.

Yellow: that which does not fit into the main three colors (Fertility).

Cards Climbing And Intelligence two-color, because fall into two categories at once.

2. Which works first, Fat reserve or Fertility?

Fat reserve reads: "At the beginning of the feeding phase." Fertility: “Before opening the food cards, this occurs during the feeding phase.

Accordingly, you first move the food tokens from Fat reserve on the species tablet, and only then, if there was plant food left at the Watering Place, does the population grow due to the card Fertility.

3. Is it possible to simply discard an ability card?

Yes. You can simply discard an ability card and not replace it. Including, this is how you can reset Predator.

4. Is it possible to replace the property map with the same one?

Yes. For example, a good tactic is to discard a Predator card and put another Predator card (facedown) in its place. Other players will decide that your species will no longer be predatory. You will give them a “pleasant” surprise.

5. Animal #1 has properties Fat reserve And Cooperation. At the beginning of the food phase, food tokens are moved from the map Fat reserve on the tablet of this animal. Will animal No. 2, located to the right of it, receive food due to the property Cooperation?

No. Moving food from the map Fat reserve

6. In animal No. 1 - Cooperation. In animal No. 2 - Voracity, Fat reserve And Cooperation, and its population = 1. Animal No. 3 has no properties, and its population = 2. Everyone is hungry. Animal #1 eats. What happens in animals No. 2 and No. 3? (From left to right the animals lie like No. 1=>No. 2=>No. 3)

Animal #1 has eaten.

Animal #2 gets food thanks to Cooperation. These are two food tokens instead of one, because... triggered Voracity. One food token goes to feed the population of animal No. 2. The second token is stored for Fat reserve.

Animal #3 receives one food token thanks to Cooperation. But not two, because property Voracity is not considered the act of receiving food.

Let's continue our example.

On the next turn, animal #1 ate again.

Animal #2 again receives 2 food tokens and stores food on the card if it can. Fat reserve(and if it can’t, then it resets).

Animal #3 again receives one food token. It had finally eaten its fill.

7. Does the Carrion property work if the attack is carried out by an “alien” Predator?

8. How do Scavenger and Cooperation interact?

Animal #1: Cooperation, Scavenger. Animal #2: Cooperation, Scavenger. Animal #3: Scavenger. From left to right, the animals lie like No. 1 => No. 2 => No. 3.

There was an attack Predator. If the population allows, then animal No. 1 will receive one meat food, animal No. 2 - two, animal No. 3 - three.

Now in detail:

Animal No. 1: one food, like Scavenger.

Animal No. 2: one food, like Scavenger, and the second, because animal #1 is endowed Cooperation.

Animal No. 3: one food, like Scavenger, second, because animals No. 1 and No. 2 are endowed Cooperation, and a third meal, because Animal No. 2 ate thanks to the property Scavenger and the second time his property worked Cooperation. It sounds more complicated than it actually is.

9. How do Scavenger, Cooperation and Predator interact?

Animal #1 (left): Cooperation, Scavenger. Animal #2 (right): Predator, Scavenger.

Animal #2 chewed someone.

Animal #1 receives one meat food token, because it - Scavenger. But animal No. 2 ate... well, no more than its population level, of course. It receives some food by attacking its property Predator+ one meal because Scavenger+ one meal thanks Cooperation with animal No. 1.

10. Can Intelligence cancel Danger Signal or Carrion?

Yes. And then Danger signal will no longer save anyone from teething Predators in this round, and To the scavengers, you may have to live an honest life.

11. If you discard a Fat Reserve card that contains food tokens, what happens to them?

Place them in your bag.

The game has an immutable principle: all food eaten earns victory points.

Part 2. Species Tablets

12. Is it possible to increase body size or population by 2 or more divisions in one round?

Certainly. The main thing is not to forget to discard a card every time.

13. During the feeding phase, how many plant food tokens can I take at a time?

One + on the properties of the cards.

In other words, if your view doesn't have a type property Gluttony, you take one food token, place it on the view board and pass the turn to the next player in a clockwise direction. When the turn returns to you, you can make the next feeding (of the same species, if possible, or a different one).

14. Do I need to finish feeding one animal before starting to feed another?

It doesn't matter.

You can feed Animal No. 1, then Animal No. 2 (when it’s your turn again), then Animal No. 1 again, and so on.

15. I had three types. View No. 2 lay between views No. 1 and No. 3. Then something terrible happened: species No. 2 became extinct. Having mourned him, will I be able to put him down later? new look in his place, so that he, too, ends up between species No. 1 and No. 3?

Once species #2 is extinct, you must move the species #1 and #3 boards towards each other. You can only add a new species to the right or left of the row made up of your animals.

16. What happens to the food tokens that were on the extinct species board?

What is eaten is eaten.

The species dies, but the food tokens it chewed are moved to your bag. Moreover, if the species had food tokens on the Fat Reserve card at the time of extinction, they also go into your bag.

17. When an animal dies, at what point does its owner receive ability cards from the deck?

Thus, if during feeding the animal was destroyed Predator, the owner of the dead animal will immediately receive new property cards to replace the discarded ones and, for example, will be able to use them on his turn to activate the property Intelligence from another animal.

Part 3. Predators

18. What is the main difference between plant and meat foods?

Predators cannot consume plant foods. At the same time, everyone can eat meat food.

19. How does the Cooperation card work when Predators are involved in the food chain?

The card text reads: "...your species to the right of it gains one additional food token from the same source." Accordingly, if it is herbivorous food, then Predator it will not be possible to feed it, and the chain on it will be broken. If it is meat food, then it will be possible to feed both herbivores and Predators.

As a special case: on the table from left to right there are herbivores with Cooperation=> Predator With Cooperation=> herbivore. The herbivore on the left received plant food. Cooperation it worked, but Predator cannot consume plant foods. Accordingly, the herbivore on the right will also remain hungry. But if the herbivore on the left had managed to get some meat for itself, then the whole trio would have feasted.

20. Can a Predator attack other Predators?

21. Can a Predator attack animals belonging to the same player as himself?

22. Can a Predator eat itself to feed itself?

A predator cannot eat itself, since its body size must be larger than that of the prey. Property Hunting Pack Cannibalism is not allowed.

23. Can a Predator attack the same species twice during a round?

Maybe he's still hungry. But one attack at a time. (Attack and pass; when it’s your turn again, you can attack the same species again.)

24. How much different types Can a predator attack in a round?

As much as you want, as long as you remain hungry. But one attack at a time (see above).

25. Can a Predator continue to attack if it has eaten as much food as its population?

As soon as Predator fed his population, he must stop the attacks. Just like in nature. Except for one single case. If you Predator there is a property Fat reserve, he can continue attacking until that card is also full.

Thus, if you have, for example, Predator with body size 5 and population 4, having the property Fat reserve, then you can play a fierce tyrannosaurus. To the maximum, like this Predator can devour, for example, 9 small species with body size 1.

26. Does the Vluttony card work on the Predator?

No. After all, she brings plant food.

27. A Predator with Body Size 1 and Population 2 uses the Hunting Pack ability to attack a Horned Animal with Body Size 2. What happens?

Once the attack has begun, it is successful. Yes, the predator loses population, but this happens after the attack is announced.

28. Predator with population 1 attacks an animal with Horns whose population = 2. What happens?

Opponents rarely can do anything.

Firstly, to attack you need a predator with a body mass of 2, and this is -2 cards out of three available in the hand in the first round, and only if you are lucky. It is not always the case that a predator gets caught during a distribution, but there is an opportunity to exchange cards for tablets regardless of the distribution.

Secondly, even if someone makes a predator on 2 cards, then I lose only 1 animal and at the end of the second round I have 3x, and the player with the predator and the rest have only 2. My gaming advantage is +1 card in the next hand.

Thirdly, for the opponents to start actively doing something, it is necessary for such a player to go first and everyone to see it.

Bottom line: opponents need a fair amount of luck to resist, and they lag behind in development.

You must have played some other version of the game...
As described above, everything in the game is normal with balance.
1. not necessary. All you need is the “pack attack” card and you’ll start growing the population. The probability of its appearance is the same as that of any other card. The same cannot be said about the Predator card - they are the majority in the deck.
2. A couple of times your animal will be eaten (not necessarily by one person) - and you will be completely left without cards and software. And predators - they will kill you safely.
3. Completely optional. Does the word “planning” mean something to you? A good player, seeing what is going on on the table, knows what cards and where to play. The opponent is gaining mass - we are trying to surpass him. If this is not possible, we look for other possibilities. Yes, no one has canceled chance - and a card successfully played by an opponent can ruin plans, but putting everything all-in... it’s still an idea. It doesn’t matter at all whether the cards are played one by one or simultaneously.

Bottom line: it’s not your game and you simply don’t know how to “cook” it. That is, as was said above, the problems are not of the game, but of the participants.

Tired of repeating yourself repeatedly, or you're not listening carefully. Everything described above applies to round 1-2!!! Even Radoslav wrote in black and white: “If at the very beginning of the game you massively lay out new animal boards...” What kind of “enough attack by a pack” are we talking about? Each player has 4 CARDS in their hands, and after discarding ONLY THREE! Take the deck in your hands, draw 4 cards from it at random, on which try will you end up with “predator + pack attack”? And you will get one predator in less than 50% of cases. You reason as if at the very beginning of the game you have some choice from all sorts of aggressive strategies, and any cards for every taste. And not everyone who receives it plays this card in the first round. Well, if they play, they will eat at most one. And it’s not a fact that you have.

I played with different players of different experience levels. +3 and +2 tablets at the very beginning give a very big advantage over the others, as in any computer strategy, where in the first minutes it is more important to get more resources. I probably need to learn how to “cook” somehow correctly in order to start losing, I’ll try.

But the statistics don’t agree with you at all. Play online and compare;) How many such attempts were there at the start to place 4-5 animals, and such players simply consistently take 3+ place. Maybe in a game for two, of course, everything is different, but 3+, there’s simply no chance. By the way, surprisingly, a strategy from one big beast can even work quite effectively, although not always. If they don’t eat you, they will starve you, but if you are prudent in terms of hunger (long neck + cooperation + nostalgia), then they will definitely eat you in the end)

Which demonstrated the potential of domestic game designers and began a victorious march around the world. Over time, the game fizzled out a little and before publication in America it needed new colors to attract spoiled board gamers. The new version was such a success that it received several prestigious awards abroad and a bunch of rave reviews. As a result, the circle is closed and now Natural selection comes out again in Russian :)

Your goal in the game is to create and reproduce various types of animals. On their turn, by discarding cards, participants can create a new species or increase the size or population of existing individuals. You can also lay out cards in front of you, giving your animals all kinds of beneficial properties from the shell and horns to the ability to become a predator and hunt their fellows. At the end of the round, you have to feed everyone you have tamed by throwing food into a special bag. The participant with the most voracious and numerous fauna wins.

A delightful game for the whole family

Here we have an excellent example of working on mistakes: the authors took into account all the minor complaints about the original game and produced as perfect a product as possible. Natural selection- this is one of the most atmospheric strategies about fauna, when you will be able to observe with your own eyes how your individuals gradually multiply and acquire more and more useful mutations. New Evolution will be an excellent choice for both a family evening and for hardcore board gamers.

A real candidate of biological sciences took part in the creation of the original game, which led to the creation of realistic gameplay. For registration new version the creators went even further and invited Katherine Hamilton, which specializes specifically in animal drawings. The result of this symbiosis are wonderful watercolor illustrations that show us what species could have existed if evolution had taken a different path.

In addition to the excellent design, we have a solid content of the box, which has grown significantly in size. Inside there was a place for a nice watering field, and for cardboard food tokens, and even for rag bags, where it is so convenient to store the eaten supplies. Concern for participants is evident in everything, right down to the double-sided view boards, which can be positioned horizontally or vertically depending on the amount of available space. There was also a pleasant surprise - the first player's token is made in the form of one of sixteen unique dinosaurs that are found at random.

The idea of comparing artificial and natural selection is that in nature the selection of the most “successful”, “best” organisms also occurs, but in this case the role of “evaluator” of the usefulness of properties is not a person, but the habitat. In addition, the material for both natural and artificial selection is small hereditary changes that accumulate from generation to generation.

Mechanism of natural selection

In the process of natural selection, mutations are fixed that increase the adaptability of organisms to their environment. Natural selection is often called a "self-evident" mechanism because it follows from such simple facts as:

Organisms produce more offspring than can survive;
There is heritable variation in the population of these organisms;
Organisms with different genetic traits have different survival rates and ability to reproduce.

The central concept of the concept of natural selection is the fitness of organisms. Fitness is defined as the ability of an organism to survive and reproduce in its existing environment. This determines the size of his genetic contribution to the next generation. However, the main thing in determining fitness is not the total number of descendants, but the number of descendants with a given genotype (relative fitness). For example, if the offspring of a successful and rapidly reproducing organism are weak and do not reproduce well, then the genetic contribution and therefore the fitness of that organism will be low.

Natural selection for traits that can vary over some range of values (such as the size of an organism) can be divided into three types:

Directional selection- changes in the average value of a trait over time, for example an increase in body size;
Disruptive selection- selection for extreme values of a trait and against average values, for example, large and small body sizes;
Stabilizing selection- selection against extreme values of a trait, which leads to a decrease in the variance of the trait.

A special case of natural selection is sexual selection, the substrate of which is any trait that increases the success of mating by increasing the attractiveness of the individual to potential partners. Traits that have evolved through sexual selection are especially noticeable in the males of some animal species. Characteristics such as large horns and bright coloring, on the one hand, can attract predators and reduce the survival rate of males, and on the other hand, this is balanced by the reproductive success of males with similar pronounced characteristics.

Selection can operate at various levels of organization - such as genes, cells, individual organisms, groups of organisms and species. Moreover, selection can act simultaneously at different levels. Selection at levels above the individual, for example, group selection, can lead to cooperation (see Evolution#Cooperation).

Forms of natural selection

There are different classifications of selection forms. A classification based on the nature of the influence of forms of selection on the variability of a trait in a population is widely used.

Driving selection

Driving selection- a form of natural selection that operates when directed changing environmental conditions. Described by Darwin and Wallace. In this case, individuals with traits that deviate in a certain direction from the average value receive advantages. In this case, other variations of the trait (its deviations in the opposite direction from the average value) are subject to negative selection. As a result, in the population from generation to generation there is a shift in the average value of the trait in a certain direction. In this case, the pressure of driving selection must correspond to the adaptive capabilities of the population and the rate of mutational changes (otherwise, environmental pressure can lead to extinction).

An example of the action of driving selection is “industrial melanism” in insects. “Industrial melanism” is a sharp increase in the proportion of melanistic (dark-colored) individuals in those populations of insects (for example, butterflies) that live in industrial areas. Due to industrial impact, the tree trunks darkened significantly, and light-colored lichens also died, which is why light-colored butterflies became better visible to birds, and dark-colored ones became less visible. In the 20th century, in a number of areas, the proportion of dark-colored butterflies in some well-studied moth populations in England reached 95%, while for the first time a dark-colored butterfly ( morpha carbonaria) was captured in 1848.

Driving selection occurs when there is a change environment or adaptation to new conditions when the range expands. It preserves hereditary changes in a certain direction, moving the reaction rate accordingly. For example, during the development of soil as a habitat, various unrelated groups of animals developed limbs that turned into burrowing limbs.

Stabilizing selection

Stabilizing selection- a form of natural selection in which its action is directed against individuals with extreme deviations from the average norm, in favor of individuals with an average expression of the trait. The concept of stabilizing selection was introduced into science and analyzed by I. I. Shmalgauzen.

Many examples of the action of stabilizing selection in nature have been described. For example, at first glance it seems that the greatest contribution to the gene pool of the next generation should be made by individuals with maximum fertility. However, observations of natural populations of birds and mammals show that this is not the case. The more chicks or cubs in the nest, the more difficult it is to feed them, the smaller and weaker each of them is. As a result, individuals with average fertility are the most fit.

Selection toward the mean has been found for a variety of traits. In mammals, very low-weight and very high-weight newborns are more likely to die at birth or in the first weeks of life than average-weight newborns. Taking into account the size of the wings of sparrows that died after a storm in the 50s near Leningrad showed that most of them had wings that were too small or too large. And in this case, the average individuals turned out to be the most adapted.

Disruptive selection

Disruptive selection- a form of natural selection in which conditions favor two or more extreme variants (directions) of variability, but do not favor the intermediate, average state of a trait. As a result, several new forms may appear from one original one. Darwin described the action of disruptive selection, believing that it underlies divergence, although he could not provide evidence for its existence in nature. Disruptive selection contributes to the emergence and maintenance of population polymorphism, and in some cases can cause speciation.

One of the possible situations in nature in which disruptive selection comes into play is when a polymorphic population occupies a heterogeneous habitat. At the same time, different forms adapt to different ecological niches or subniches.

An example of disruptive selection is the formation of two races in the greater rattle in hay meadows. Under normal conditions, the flowering and seed ripening periods of this plant cover the entire summer. But in hay meadows, seeds are produced mainly by those plants that manage to bloom and ripen either before the mowing period, or bloom at the end of summer, after mowing. As a result, two races of rattle are formed - early and late flowering.

Disruptive selection was carried out artificially in experiments with Drosophila. The selection was carried out according to the number of bristles; only individuals with a small and large number of bristles were retained. As a result, from about the 30th generation, the two lines diverged very much, despite the fact that the flies continued to interbreed with each other, exchanging genes. In a number of other experiments (with plants), intensive crossing prevented the effective action of disruptive selection.

Sexual selection

Sexual selection- This is natural selection for reproductive success. The survival of organisms is an important, but not the only component of natural selection. Another important component is attractiveness to members of the opposite sex. Darwin called this phenomenon sexual selection. “This form of selection is determined not by the struggle for existence in the relations of organic beings among themselves or with external conditions, but by the competition between individuals of one sex, usually males, for the possession of individuals of the other sex.” Traits that reduce the viability of their hosts can emerge and spread if the advantages they provide for reproductive success are significantly greater than their disadvantages for survival.

Two hypotheses about the mechanisms of sexual selection are common.

According to the “good genes” hypothesis, the female “reasons” as follows: “If this male, despite the bright plumage and long tail, managed not to die in the clutches of a predator and survive to puberty, which means he has good genes that allowed him to do this. Therefore, he should be chosen as the father of his children: he will pass on his good genes to them.” By choosing colorful males, females are choosing good genes for their offspring.
According to the “attractive sons” hypothesis, the logic of female choice is somewhat different. If bright males, for whatever reason, are attractive to females, it is worth choosing a bright father for his future sons, because his sons will inherit the genes for bright colors and will be attractive to females in the next generation. Thus, a positive feedback occurs, which leads to the fact that from generation to generation the brightness of the plumage of males becomes more and more intense. The process continues to grow until it reaches the limit of viability.

When choosing males, females do not think about the reasons for their behavior. When an animal feels thirsty, it does not reason that it should drink water in order to restore the water-salt balance in the body - it goes to a watering hole because it feels thirsty. In the same way, females, when choosing bright males, follow their instincts - they like bright tails. Those for whom instinct suggested different behavior did not leave offspring. The logic of the struggle for existence and natural selection is the logic of a blind and automatic process, which, operating constantly from generation to generation, has formed the amazing variety of forms, colors and instincts that we observe in the world of living nature.

Selection methods: positive and negative selection

There are two forms of artificial selection: Positive And Cut-off (negative) selection.

Positive selection increases the number of individuals in a population that have useful traits that increase the viability of the species as a whole.

Eliminating selection eliminates from a population the vast majority of individuals that carry traits that sharply reduce viability under given environmental conditions. Using selection selection, highly deleterious alleles are removed from the population. Also, individuals with chromosomal rearrangements and a set of chromosomes that sharply disrupt the normal functioning of the genetic apparatus can be subjected to cutting selection.

The role of natural selection in evolution

In the example of the worker ant we have an insect extremely different from its parents, yet absolutely sterile and, therefore, unable to transmit from generation to generation acquired modifications of structure or instincts. A good question to ask is how reconcilable is this case with the theory of natural selection?
- Origin of Species (1859)

Darwin assumed that selection could apply not only to an individual organism, but also to a family. He also said that perhaps, to one degree or another, this could explain people's behavior. He was right, but it was only with the advent of genetics that it became possible to provide a more expanded view of the concept. The first sketch of the “theory of kin selection” was made by the English biologist William Hamilton in 1963, who was the first to propose considering natural selection not only at the level of an individual or an entire family, but also at the level of the gene.

Notes

, With. 43-47.
, p. 251-252.
Orr H. A. Fitness and its role in evolutionary genetics // Nature Reviews Genetics. - 2009. - Vol. 10, no. 8. - P. 531-539. - DOI:10.1038/nrg2603. - PMID 19546856.
Haldane J.B.S. The theory of natural selection today // Nature. - 1959. - Vol. 183, no. 4663. - P. 710-713. - PMID 13644170.
Lande R., Arnold S. J. The measurement of selection on correlated characters // Evolution. - 1983. - Vol. 37, no. 6. - P. 1210-1226. -