[Cthulhu_]

And yet, isn't having the strongest species the goal of an evolutionary algorithm? Having multiple players do multiple runs (parallelization) and ending up with the same / a similar species sounds like a goal to me.

Perhaps you'd like to see more varied species get comparable end-results, but I think you'll need a more varied obstacle course / 'goals' in that case.

[coderzach]

The issue is that you'll hit a local optimum, and all progress will halt.