Occupation-Based Algos

[MaxDemmler]

Basic Idea:

Evaluate a position by assigning an occupier to each cell. An occupier is a player that can reach the cell fastest out of all players. A cell can be occupied by multiple players, meaning they could reach the cell within the same amount of steps.
The resulting occupation map would show regions that a player "occupies". This could be used for 1) state evaluation (e.g. a larger occupied region is preferable) and 2) decision making based on the occupation map (e.g. choose actions along occupation borders to preserve occupied regions).

I made this up but I guess there is already smth like that out there.