Imagine a world with only 2 kind of creatures: doves and hawks. Doves are very peaceful. When 2 doves meet they help each other and share their food. Not so with the hawks. They are very agressive. When a dove meets a hawk the dove hands over its food to the hawk as it doesn't want to fight. So it loses a little energy while the hawk wins some energy. However when a hawk meets a hawk a fight breaks out. You decide if the losing hawk lives on and how much energy he loses and how much energy the winning hawk receives. If enough energy is there a new animal is born and if an animal's energy level gets too low it dies. Play around with different values and see which animal wins as a species.
Of course in the real world no animal is as peaceful or as aggressive as the dove and hawk in this example. Each individual is a bit different and of course there are many other aspects e.g. availability of food, illnesses etc. that have a strong influence of the real outcome which is not in the model at all. Still I found it to be fascinating stuff to play around with the simulation as I got many results that were totally unexpected to me.
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