My reading of the rules is that the “m” reward is additional to the hunts, not instead of them.
The effect is to reduce the rate at which players on the way to starving get eliminated. If you are one of the leading players, you will want the weaker players to be eliminated as soon as possible and have an incentive to prevent the m reward from happening. If you are one of the losing players, you want the m reward, to get more time to recover.
ETA: But how do you tell where you rank, from the information your program is given? Every act of defection destroys 2 food—all else is transfers from one player to another, and m rewards. The amount of food gained from m rewards is large enough that you can always tell when it happens. So from everyone else’s reputation you can work out the number of defections, and so how much food there is left. Hence the average food per player, and how your food compares with that.
ETA2: Cf. providing humanitarian assistance in a war zone, whether impartially to both sides, or preferentially to where the suffering is greatest, i.e. to the losing side. Result: the war is prolonged, the suffering increased.
My reading of the rules is that the “m” reward is additional to the hunts, not instead of them.
The effect is to reduce the rate at which players on the way to starving get eliminated. If you are one of the leading players, you will want the weaker players to be eliminated as soon as possible and have an incentive to prevent the m reward from happening. If you are one of the losing players, you want the m reward, to get more time to recover.
ETA: But how do you tell where you rank, from the information your program is given? Every act of defection destroys 2 food—all else is transfers from one player to another, and m rewards. The amount of food gained from m rewards is large enough that you can always tell when it happens. So from everyone else’s reputation you can work out the number of defections, and so how much food there is left. Hence the average food per player, and how your food compares with that.
ETA2: Cf. providing humanitarian assistance in a war zone, whether impartially to both sides, or preferentially to where the suffering is greatest, i.e. to the losing side. Result: the war is prolonged, the suffering increased.