[edsheppa]

I could post the c# program if you'd like, but to summarize: the population is maintained within a range (+/- 50% of a "niche size" parameter); reproduction is asexual - individuals die or split with equal probability except to maintain the population in the range; "normal" individuals become "mutants" and "mutants" become "normal" with the same likelihood; parents pass their state to their offspring (which may then mutate/unmutate).

[maro]

That's very interesting, and I believe you got the results you got, since a few simple computations on paper lead to the same result. The simple answer is that as long as you're giving up x% of your "score" and getting x% of the other guy's "score," your score moves up until the two sides are at parity. I think for a 4 state game, equilibirum is reached when all four states are at 25%, and so on, so the long-term probability of a particular mutation existing in a population (assuming no selection) is close to the 1 over the number of possible states for that gene. Of course, for low probability mutations, the drift toward equilibrium is slow. Why don't you pop in a low initial probability into your model (say, 1 in a thousand) and see how long it takes to get to equilibrium?