The game

1. Four bots start on the four corners. Your corner is your home. Every other cell starts neutral.
2. Each turn all four bots pick NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST, STAY or RETREAT at the same time.
3. Moving through your own cells is free. Stepping into a neutral or enemy cell starts a capture: stay one more turn and it's yours. An enemy home takes two.
4. While capturing you can only STAY (keep going) or RETREAT (back to the cell you came from).
5. Stay connected to your home through your own cells. Land cut off from home turns neutral. If you get cut off, you're out. Lose your home and you're out. Out means all your land turns neutral.
6. You can hold 35 cells. A 36th releases one of your outer cells.
7. A cell with a bot on it is closed for that turn. Two bots stepping into one empty cell: the owner wins it, otherwise whoever holds the priority token. The token moves one seat per turn.
8. Last bot standing wins. After 300 turns, the living bot with the most cells wins; a tie is a draw.

Your code

One file with act(state) returning the move as a string. 2 s for the first turn, 200 ms after. Late, missing or illegal = STAY. Standard library only; print() goes to your log.

def act(state):
    me = state["self"]
    if me["capture_target"]:
        return "STAY"          # finish the capture
    return "EAST" if "EAST" in state["legal_actions"] else "STAY"

What you get each turn

turn, turns_remaining, width, height, cell_cap
owner[y][x]        -1 neutral, else the owner's id
self               id, position [x, y], home, capture_target,
                   dwell_remaining, owned_count
bots[4]            the same for everyone, plus alive
priority_seat      who wins a tie this turn
legal_actions      what you may do right now