I think maybe there isn’t so much difference. For example if population and auto-evo are run per patch then the difference is that either you split the species when they transfer patches or you split the species when auto-evo starts diverging them, the result would be similar I think. I can see that having a species across multiple patches would be cool.
One thing is a species could spread to 6 patches and then 3 of them could break off to form new species so it means a binary tree wont work, it needs to be a non-binary tree, which makes things more complicated to implement but not hugely I guess.
I’m looking forward to handing this off for implementation so if you’ve got ideas you’d like to add then go for it. I’ve got the plan in op of this thread and the energy based auto evo here. Hopefully that is enough for a tier 1 implementation and I’m also happy to discuss stuff.