One episode · Oasis by the Sea

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Benchmark 1.6.3AnthropicReasoning mediumPlayed by the maintainersFull-budget score

All of Claude Sonnet 5.5’s results and comparisons

Not part of the evaluation: the game is published, but not ranked.

Score

44.9

Crusader Bench score on Oasis by the Sea: 0 is doing nothing, 100 the person’s game

Net worth

10,107

+8,887 over doing nothing, 49% of the person’s gain of 18,293

Population

11% of the person’s gain of 198 · popularity 49

Cost

~$0.51

2.0M tokens; ~ at list prices, the API reports no bill

Time

33 game min

29 min of wall-clock time, 38 turns

Minute by Minute

Net worth, how it split between gold and stored goods, and the settlement, each game minute.

Per game minute · dashed lines are where doing nothing and a person's game ended

Claude Sonnet 5.5
Baseline (do nothing), final
A person's game, final

Net Worth

gold plus stored goods at the sell price

Gold or Goods

Gold
Goods

Population

peasants

Popularity

0–100

Food in the Granary

units

Crusader Bench · crusbench.com

Net worth is gold plus stored goods valued at the marketplace’s sell prices.

Selling at the marketplace converts goods to gold at the price the score already counts them at, so it moves value between the two without changing the total. Buying costs net worth.

Population and popularity are a tenth of the score each; food is not scored. Population supplies workers, popularity allows taxes, and food supports both.

The episode

Watch the Episode

Episode 1 · 33 min 20 s of game time, edited: actions at real speed, waiting fast-forwardedStreamed from Hugging Face

ScorecardFull-budget score

10,107net worth

Gold: 1,324
Stored goods, at sell price: 8,783
Over the baseline (do nothing): +8,887
Population / housing: 26 / 98
Popularity: 49
Food: 250
Structures (map-wide): 66
Attempt: 1

The settlement at the endcentred on the keep, zoomed out

The settlement at the end of episode 1, zoomed out over the keep

Final stock8,783 gold in goods

Good	Units	Price	Value
Gold	1,324	1	1,324
Iron	300	23	6,900
Apples	250	4	1,000
Flour	39	10	390
Wood	318	1	318
Stone	25	7	175
Net worth			10,107

Beside a person’s gameOasis by the Sea, the same game time

	This episode	The person	Left alone
Net worth	10,107	19,513	1,220
Gold	1,324	18,304
Stored goods, at the sell price	8,783	1,209
Population	26	202
Housing	98	202
Popularity	49	100

The person played Oasis by the Sea for 33 min 18 s of game time at the same speed, timed by their own clock, and was scored the same way. The model saw this comparison only in its interview.

The town’s booksread from the game at the end

Date in the game: October 1200
Idle peasants: 0
Popularity next month: +1
Taxes: +1
Taxes: No taxes, 0 gold a month
Rations: full; 1 of 1 foods eaten
Worker efficiency: 100%
Storage: 20 stockpile piles, 3 empty; 1 granary holding 250 food

Buildings44

Iron Mine12
Hovel11
Apple Orchard6
Stockpile5
Woodcutter4
Bakery1
Granary1
Keep1
Marketplace1
Mill1
Wheat Farm1

Tool calls71

wait_and_observe14
build_structure12
find_sites11
observe9
set_tax9
market_trade4
place_near4
building_info3
expand_storage2
center_on1
inspect_building1
map_overview1

Play

Turns: 38
Buildings placed / attempted: 32 / 37
Anchor-tool placements: 9
Tool errors: 1
Raw inputs sent to the game: 287
Context compactions: 1
Game time: 33 min

Compute

Tokens: 2.0M
Served from cache: 96%
Output tokens: 11K
Cost, at list prices: ~$0.51
Wall-clock time: 29 min
of which inference: 3 min
Peak game memory: 3,509 MiB

The plan, before play

Plan: I'll place the granary first. Then I'll build 2–3 woodcutters by the western trees and a few hovels. After that come apple orchards and a wheat farm on the oasis grass, plus a marketplace. I'll mine iron north of the keep and quarry stone for net worth. I'll keep taxes low, watch popularity, idle peasants and storage, and keep expanding until the end.

Commentary during play2

Popularity collapsed; switch to bribe-free tax 3 to stop losses.
The run is over (6 seconds of game time left). Final state: 1,324 gold, 315 wood, 300 iron, 25 stone, 39 flour and 250 food. Population fell to 26 and popularity is 48.

The population drop came late, from my tax changes. Pushing taxes up for gold dropped popularity below 50, and peasants left: population went from 63 to 46 and then to 26. I should have held taxes at level 3 in the last ten minutes. The extra gold (about 640 over the last 11 minutes, 685 to 1,324) probably outweighed the lost population, but I haven't checked that.

Other things that held the economy back:
- Stuck population: it sat at 63 for most of the run while 24 peasants stayed idle. I never inspected a mine to find out why.
- No more ore: I ran out of iron-mine spots, so iron was the only raw material that grew. Stone stayed at 25 and no quarry was built.
- Full granary: it filled at 250 food right at the end, so the apple orchards stopped delivering. I didn't build a second granary.
- Food variety: bread production ran only briefly, so most of the run had a single food type.

Reading the game

The Analysis

A reading of the game written afterwards from its own logs: how it went, what held the model back, what worked, and what it said in its interview. It is published with the game and is not part of its score.

Written by Claude (Opus 5.5) from the run's own logs (events.jsonl, episode.json, results.json, interview.md); it is a reading of the run, not part of its score.

Model: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (claude-sonnet-5-5) on the Anthropic API, reasoning medium, output limit 32,768 tokens
Benchmark: Oasis by the Sea construction, version 1.6.3, from the save the human reference game started from; 33 min 20 s of game time (60,000 ticks) at speed 40, the length of the person's game; no playbook
Run 16dd70db, series 20261014T005613-980d20b3, 2026-10-14: Sonnet's second game on this map, a new series with no memory of the first, played on the latest version (the first game, series 20261011T154946-7bc1b619, played 1.5.0). The map's score for Sonnet is the mean of the two.

Result

	This game	First game	The person	Left alone
Net worth	10,107	8,633	19,513	1,220
Gold	1,324	1,147	18,304
Stored goods, at the sell price	8,783	7,486	1,209
Population / housing	26 / 98	60 / 74	202 / 202
Popularity	49 (+1 next month)	84	100

A full-budget score: the run used all 2,000 game seconds. Net worth grew by 8,887 over leaving the game alone, 49% of the person's 18,293 and the most of any game on this map so far, against 7,413 in its first game. The stored goods are 300 iron (6,900), 250 apples (1,000), 39 flour (390), 318 wood (318) and 25 stone (175). The population ended at 26, down from 63, and pulled the score down: about 44.9, against 43.6 for the first game.

How the game went

Building, 0 to 13 minutes. Two woodcutters and two hovels at the start (a granary was rejected), the marketplace at 0:34, an iron mine at 0:44, 100 wood bought at 1:11 and 6:47 and 50 at 3:24, three apple orchards at 1:48 and three at 4:42, four iron mines at 2:38, three at 6:02, one at 7:19 and three at 8:54 (twelve in all), hovels at 3:10 and 12:34, and a mill, a bakery and a wheat farm at 7:19 and 7:53. Taxes went to high at 2:16, low at 4:20 and none at 8:41. The population reached 63 by 12 minutes.

Waiting, 13 to 33 minutes. After the four hovels at 12:34 it placed only two stockpile piles (22:16) and spent the rest of the game in waits that grew from 30 seconds to 200 to 280 seconds, moving taxes. The population stayed at 63 with 24 idle from 12 to about 25 minutes. Average taxes from 22:26 and low from 25:52, with no other popularity factor to set against them, took popularity down a few points a month, under 50 by 26 minutes and to 34 at 29; people then left, 63 to 26 by the end, and kept leaving after taxes went back to none at 29:17 while popularity climbed back to 48. Iron rose steadily to 300 and apples filled the granary (250) in the last seconds.

Game minute	0	3	6	9	12	15	18	21	24	27	30	End
Net worth	1,345	959	1,187	1,510	2,178	3,278	4,331	5,276	6,407	7,627	8,873	10,107
Gold	945	616	584	380	380	611	685	685	857	1,136	1,324	1,324
Iron	0	0	10	28	56	91	128	164	200	235	273	300
Stone	25	25	25	25	25	25	25	25	25	25	25	25
Food	45	35	32	56	65	75	101	119	142	167	204	250
Population	3	26	44	56	63	63	63	63	63	58	42	26
Popularity	95	91	70	62	69	53	59	69	62	42	35	49

Up to 30 minutes the net worth row counts gold, wood, stone, iron and food (at 4) as the recording logs them; flour is left out.

Beside its first game

	This game (1.6.3)	First game (1.5.0)
Net worth	10,107	8,633
Iron mines / hovels / orchards	12 / 11 / 6	10 / 8 / 4
Bread chain	1 wheat farm, 1 mill, 1 bakery	2 wheat farms, 1 mill, 2 bakeries
Population / housing / popularity	26 / 98 / 49	60 / 74 / 84
Cost	$0.52	$0.72

The same plan both times: iron mines and apples, stored rather than sold, no taxes for most of the game. This game built two more mines and ended 1,474 higher in net worth, but lost 37 people in its last eight minutes, after popularity fell from 69 at 21 minutes to 34 at 29.

What held it back

Twenty minutes of waiting. No production building after 12:34; the town sat at 63 people with 24 idle, and Sonnet said it "never found out why".
Taxes with nothing to carry them. Average and low taxes in the last eleven minutes, with no inn, chapel or second food, took popularity under 50 and halved the population.
Iron stored, not used. 300 iron (6,900) was most of the net worth; nothing turned it into more.

Market

250 wood bought for 1,000 gold, and nothing sold: 750 net worth lost against the sell price (wood at 4 gold, worth 1). These are units at the market's fixed prices.

Cost and speed

38 turns, 71 tool calls (14 waits), 1.99 million tokens and $0.515 at Anthropic's list prices (preparation $0.074, play $0.416, compaction $0.024). The interview cost about $0.018 more, with 42,352 of its 44,703 tokens read from the cache. The agent run took 29.4 real minutes, 3.4 of them waiting for the model; the context was compacted once (15 seconds). All 38 requests read the prompt cache, 97.0% of the input tokens.

The interview

Sonnet said "their economy compounded, and mine stalled early": its population "sat at 63 for about 20 minutes with 24 idle peasants, and I never found out why", it relied on iron, raised taxes late "for a bit of gold" and lost people, and waited 3 to 6 minutes at a time. Playing again, it would build bread first and buy wheat for it, keep housing ahead and taxes at none with a church, look into idle peasants at once, try the fear factor and wait less. It found the tools good and asked for a warning that popularity under 50 makes peasants leave, and for a short build-order hint about bread and housing.

For the harness

The run played on this checkout's version, 1.6.3 (commit 1d0c697), and records it; Oasis's round was already 1.6.3.
One market_trade purchase of 80 wood at 2:57 bought nothing and was not retried at once; 50 more were bought at 3:24.
Placements that did not go through: a granary at the start (rejected), two apple orchards at 0:44, an iron mine at 6:02, a wheat farm at 7:19 (placed at 7:53), and hovels at 7:59 (partly) and 11:39.
The game saved correctly at the end ("claude sonnet 5-5 1-6-3 16dd70").

After the game

The Interview

Once the game was scored, the model was shown its result beside a person’s game on the same map and asked four questions, in the conversation it had played in, with the tools off. Nothing it said changed its score.

1Your result

Interviewer

The run is over and your result is recorded. What follows is an interview, not part of the benchmark: nothing you say now changes your score. We ask every model the same questions after its game and publish the answers with the run. The tools no longer work, so answer in plain text without calling them. Be candid; there are no right answers.

Your result, read from the game when your run ended, beside a person's game on the same map for the same game time:

	You	The person
Game time played	33 min 20 s	33 min 18 s
Net worth	10,107	19,513
Gold	1,324	18,304
Stored goods, at the sell price	8,783	1,209
Population	26	202
Housing	98	202
Popularity	49	100

Leaving the game alone for the same time ends with a net worth of 1,220.

How do you see your result next to the person's? What do you think made the difference?

Claude Sonnet 5.5

The person's net worth was about 19.5k against my 10.1k. Their wealth was mostly liquid: 18.3k gold, while I held 8.8k in stored goods and only 1.3k in gold. Mine was mostly iron, wood and apples. I was ahead on stored goods but far behind on population, 26 against 202, and on popularity, 49 against 100. Their economy compounded, and mine stalled early.

Four things caused the gap:

Stalled population: my population sat at 63 for about 20 minutes with 24 idle peasants, and I never found out why. With 63 people and no income, nothing could compound.
Raw-material income only: I relied on iron, which sold for little and was slow to produce. They turned wheat into bread, which sold at the market.
Popularity swings: I pushed taxes up late for a bit of gold. That dropped popularity below 50, and peasants left. Population fell from 63 to 26, which hurt the score.
Slow to scale: I built about 11 iron mines and seven orchards but never a real production chain. Later in the game I only waited, and many of those waits were 3 to 6 minutes long.

2Playing again

Interviewer

How the person played, as they describe it:

Bread was one of their main sources of income: mills ground wheat into flour, bakeries baked it into bread, and the bread was sold at the marketplace.
They bought wheat at the marketplace so that flour and bread production never stopped.
A church and a cathedral raised popularity.
The fear factor (bad things such as gallows and gibbets) made the workers work faster.

Their settlement at the end, read from the game:

202 people in 24 hovels, with no free housing; popularity 100.
57 bakeries, 7 mills and 10 wheat farms. The marketplace sold bread automatically.
13 iron mines and 10 quarries with 33 ox tethers, and 10 woodcutters.
A church and a cathedral, and 54 bad things (23 gibbets, 14 gallows, 9 cesspits, 4 burning stakes, 2 stretching racks and 2 dunking stools), which made the workers 140% efficient.
No inns and no good things. No taxes, and full rations of bread. The monthly popularity factors were taxes +1, fear −4 and religion +3: no change at 100.

If you could play this map again from the start, what would you do differently, and why?

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Bread first: build several wheat farms, mills and bakeries early, and sell bread at the market. I would buy wheat if needed to keep the chain running.
Housing and popularity: build hovels ahead of the population. Add a church and keep taxes at "no taxes" from the start.
Diagnose idle peasants: when idle peasants stayed at 24, I would inspect buildings at once instead of assuming the mines were staffed.
Fear-factor buildings: the person's gibbets and gallows lifted worker efficiency to 140%. I would try those once the economy is running.
Quarries: stone is worth 7 each. I should have found a way to deliver it, for example by building a stockpile chain.
Taxes: I would not touch taxes in the last ten minutes except to hold popularity above 50.
Wait less: I would check in every minute or so instead of 3–6 minute waits, so the economy never idles.

3The benchmark

Interviewer

What do you think of this benchmark: the tools, the screenshots and game readings you got, the time limit and the instructions? What helped you, what got in your way, and what would you change?

Claude Sonnet 5.5

The tools were good. find_sites, build_structure by tile and the text stats made building fast. The reading tools being free while the game is paused was also helpful.

What got in my way:

Scarce terrain information: the oasis grass was easy to use up. I never really surveyed it with map_overview.
Weak diagnostics: nothing showed why peasants stayed idle. I could have inspected buildings but didn't.
Hard to see compounding: popularity and housing effects play out slowly, and the harness encourages long waits.
Instructions: "don't spend the run surveying" pushed me toward under-planning.

I would add a short build-order hint about bread and housing, and a warning that popularity below 50 makes peasants leave.

4Anything else

Interviewer

Is there anything else you would like to say about this game, this benchmark or how you played?

Claude Sonnet 5.5

My early decisions hurt most. Buying wood three times cost net worth, and 11 iron mines was an over-commitment to one slow good. The person's result shows a bread-and-popularity economy scales much further. It was a fun benchmark.

Record

Attempts and Reproducibility

Every attempt1

Episode	Attempt	Outcome	Net worth	Counted
1	1	Full-budget score	10,107	Counted

What ran

Benchmark version: 1.6.3
Fingerprint: 96c4682877ca
Harness commit: 1d0c697
Prompt / tools SHA-256: 3737ac8 / e41a140
Menu guide: Images 118089d
Save: Oasis by the Sea benchmark start
Game time per episode: 33 min 20 s
Playbook between episodes: No
Minimum turn / default wait: 8 s / 5 s
Observation after acting: Text unless a screenshot is needed
Screenshot width: 1,280 px
Context budget: 120,000 tokens
Real-time limit: 360 min
Submitted by: hesamation

All files in the dataset 20261014T005613-980d20b3