Written by Claude (drafted by Sonnet 5.5, checked by 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 Haiku 5.5 (
claude-haiku-5-5) on Anthropic's API, reasoning medium, output limit 32,768 tokens - Benchmark: Oasis by the Sea construction, version 1.7.3 (commit b967c65), weapons and armour in the armory counted toward net worth; 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 8a665ad5, series 20261016T182545-4411a9c3, 2026-10-16: Haiku's weapons-counted game of the 1.7.3 batch, a fresh series with no memory of any other game. Its other 1.7.3 game, "Oasis by the Sea construction (no arms)" (run 8d8afa2d, series 20261016T185252-0fd727bc), was played next. This game counts on the website's leaderboard.
Result
| This game | Its no-arms game (1.7.3) | Its 1.6.3 game | Its 1.5.0 game | The person | Left alone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth | 4,163 | 5,160 | 4,281 | 5,113 | 19,513 | 1,220 |
| Gold | 615 | 1,347 | 710 | 1,482 | 18,304 | |
| Stored goods, at the sell price | 3,548 | 3,813 | 3,571 | 3,631 | 1,209 | |
| of which weapons and armour | 810 | none built | 550 | none built | ||
| Population / housing | 57 / 66 | 64 / 82 | 56 / 58 | 61 / 82 | 202 / 202 | |
| Popularity | 75 (+1 next month) | 66 (+2) | 58 (+1) | 67 (+4) | 100 | |
| Idle peasants | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | ||
| Score | 23.0 | 26.9 | 21.8 | 26.6 | 100 |
A full-budget score: the run used all 2,000 game seconds. Net worth grew by 2,943 over leaving the game alone, 16% of the person's 18,293, against 3,940 (22%) in the no-arms game. By the project website's formula (80% net-worth share, 10% population, 10% popularity, the net-worth share clipped to -1..2) the score is 23.0: 12.87 points from net worth, 2.68 from 57 people, 7.50 from popularity 75. This game counts on the website's leaderboard. The stored goods are 76 iron (1,748), 97 stone (679), 12 swords (360), 191 wood (191), 6 suits of metal armour (180), 10 bows (150), 30 apples (120) and 12 spears (120). Iron is 42% of net worth and weapons and armour (810) 19%. The town ended with 24 idle peasants, 9 empty places in its hovels and one kind of food.
How the game went
Call times are on the recording's game clock, about 3.5 seconds behind the budget clock the observations report; a reading quoted from an observation carries the observation's own clock. The game is paused while the model replies.
The opening, 0 to 9 minutes. After three find_sites calls it built two woodcutters, a hovel and an
apple orchard at 0:00, a second hovel at 1:10 and the marketplace at 1:59. At 2:38 came a woodcutter, an
orchard, a quarry (placed 6 tiles from its target) and an ox tether. Wood was down to 13, so it bought
50 planks at 3:56. An iron mine and a dairy farm followed at 4:31, two orchards at 5:55, two more
stockpiles at 6:57 when no pile was empty, and at 7:59 three hovels and a woodcutter. The population
stood at the 26 housing places in every observation from 3:58 to 8:00, with 12 to 17 peasants idle;
housing reached 50 at 8:23. The starting bread was gone by 11 minutes, leaving apples.
Weapons and iron, 9 to 24 minutes. At 9:19, with 21 idle and bread low, its reasoning turned to a
fletcher to turn wood into bows. place_near found no free spot beside the stockpile for the fletcher
(9:19) or an armory (9:29); both went up by tile at 10:05. A poleturner's workshop and a second iron mine
came at 11:21, a quarry at 13:06 (an orchard in the same call was rejected: not on oasis grass), the
last orchard at 14:19, a third mine at 15:03 and mines four and five at 16:37. A blacksmith's workshop
went up at 17:25, an armorer's at 20:19, a second armory at 21:44, and two hovels and a second
blacksmith at 23:26. The context was compacted at 16:09. Taxes went to mean at 16:13 (-8 popularity a
month, 58 gold a month); popularity fell from 100 to 67 in about two minutes and it set none at 18:20.
Average taxes (-4, 40 gold) from 22:03 took it from 72 to 49 in about three minutes, with a low of 48
and 18 game seconds under 50; it set none at 25:08, a large bribe at 25:17 and none again at 25:51.
Waiting, 25 to 33 minutes. After 25:51 it called nothing but wait_and_observe (60, 120, 120 and 100
seconds): 7 min 29 s, ending with 615 gold and 191 wood and nothing placed since 23:26. At 27:12 its reasoning said
a new building would not pay back in the six minutes left. The host's notes on waiting came with the
observations at 29:25 (3 game minutes in a row) and 31:37 (5), and it went on. Its last call was
answered "Session deadline".
| Game minute | 0 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 24 | 27 | 30 | End |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth | 1,387 | 1,366 | 1,140 | 1,318 | 1,246 | 1,428 | 1,594 | 1,966 | 2,529 | 2,732 | 3,045 | 4,163 |
| Weapons and armour | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 65 | 130 | 255 | 320 | 550 | 810 |
| Gold | 967 | 1,000 | 800 | 800 | 600 | 600 | 584 | 586 | 743 | 615 | 615 | 615 |
| Iron | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 18 | 31 | 44 | 55 | 65 | 76 |
| Stone | 25 | 25 | 25 | 33 | 41 | 49 | 57 | 65 | 73 | 81 | 89 | 97 |
| Food | 50 | 37 | 24 | 36 | 39 | 37 | 41 | 36 | 39 | 39 | 38 | 30 |
| Population | 3 | 26 | 26 | 34 | 43 | 47 | 50 | 50 | 52 | 57 | 57 | 57 |
| Popularity | 95 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 71 | 70 | 58 | 58 | 66 | 75 |
Each column is the last reading at or before that minute. Up to 30 minutes the net worth row counts gold, wood, stone, iron and food (at 4) as the recording logs them; weapons are left out, so it reads low. The weapons row comes from the observations the model received (the last at or before the minute), valued at the rules' prices.
Weapons
It planned them from the start: step 7 of its preparation reply was "fletchers or blacksmiths feeding an armory, since stored weapons count as value". It built five workshops and two armories:
| Building | Called at | Cost | Made | Value | Inputs (recipes in prompt/game-mechanics.md) |
Value less inputs and cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fletcher's (bows) | 10:05 | 100 gold, 20 wood | 10 bows | 150 | 20 wood | +10 |
| Poleturner's (spears) | 11:21 | 100 gold, 10 wood | 12 spears | 120 | 12 wood | -2 |
| Blacksmith's, two (swords) | 17:25, 23:26 | 400 gold, 40 wood | 12 swords | 360 | 12 iron (276) | -356 |
| Armorer's (metal armour) | 20:19 | 100 gold, 20 wood | 6 suits | 180 | 6 iron (138) | -78 |
| Armories, two | 10:05, 21:44 | 10 wood | holds 40 | -10 | ||
| Total | 700 gold, 100 wood | 40 | 810 | 446 | -436 |
Inputs are valued at the sell price and counted from the recipes, not measured in the run. The weapons
were 19% of net worth; the CHANGELOG puts them at about 6% of net worth across Oasis's 1.6.3 games. Had it kept the 700
gold and 100 wood and left the 32 wood and 18 iron in store, net worth would be 436 higher and the
score 25.0 instead of 23.0. Scored as if weapons counted nothing, this game would be 19.5. The second
armory was not needed: the observation just before it said "stored":11,"room":39, and its reasoning
read 39 as the count; the two armories held 40 of 100 places at the end.
Output was slow. The readout at 31:37 gave 0.7 bows, 0.7 spears, 1.0 swords (two smiths) and 0.7 suits a minute, and from the first bow (13:08) the workshops added about 364 over their inputs in 20 minutes, 18 a minute. An iron mine costs 20 wood and no gold and delivered 1.0 to 1.1 iron a minute in the readouts at 21:46 and 31:37, 23 to 25 gold a minute at the sell price. Gold was not what limited the town: it held at least 543 from 3 minutes on, and what it did not build cost wood only (a hovel 6, a quarry or mine 20, a wheat farm, mill and bakery 45 together). The workshops employ five peasants; with housing full at 50 until 23:41, no more came for them, and idle stood at 24 again by 27:14.
Beside its other games and the other models
| This game | 1.7.3, no arms | 1.6.3 | 1.5.0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth | 4,163 | 5,160 | 4,281 | 5,113 |
| Weapon buildings | 5 workshops, 2 armories | none | 4 workshops, 1 armory | none |
| Iron mines / quarries / ox tethers | 5 / 2 / 1 | 5 / 5 / 2 | 2 / 2 / 1 | 2 / 5 / 3 |
| Hovels / woodcutters | 7 / 5 | 9 / 6 | 6 / 7 | 9 / 9 |
| Orchards / dairy farms | 5 / 1 | 5 / 2 | 4 / 1 | 4 / 1 |
| Bread chain or chapel | none | none | wheat farm, mill, bakery | chapel |
| Turns, cost | 41, $0.044 | 36, $0.040 | 47, $0.05 | 76, $0.08 |
The two games without weapons ended at 5,113 and 5,160 and the two with workshops at 4,281 and 4,163, across three versions, so for Haiku net worth sorts by whether it built workshops and not by version. That is four games from one model that also differ in quarries and housing, so it does not isolate the cause. Against the no-arms game this one ended 997 lower: 732 less gold, 784 less stone, 230 less iron, 60 less food and 1 less wood, against 810 of weapons. The gold gap is about the 700 spent on workshops; the stone gap is three quarries fewer (none was built here after 13:06). In this batch Sonnet's weapons game held 240 in weapons (7,832, score 36.5) and its no-arms game scored 31.4; Haiku's scored 23.0 and 26.9. Among the 1.6.3 round's second games this score would stand eighth of ten (Wonder 23.7 above, Kimi 20.9 below); Haiku's first-round 26.6 was the lowest of its round.
What held it back
- Housing, twice. The population stood at the housing cap from 3:58 to 8:00 and at 49 to 50 of 50 from 16:11 to 23:41. Hovels cost 6 wood and wood was 59 to 75 in the observations from 4:33 to 6:59. At 6:57 it noted 26 of 26 with 12 idle and judged "housing isn't the bottleneck". It built 7 hovels.
- No food beyond apples. Its handoff at 16:09 listed a wheat farm, mill and bakery as the first next step; none was built and it never searched for a wheat farm site. Its reasoning at 13:06, 14:19 and 15:03 put the chain off. The last food building was an orchard at 14:19.
- Two quarries, one tether. No quarry after 13:06: 97 stone (679) against 209 (1,463) in the no-arms game.
- Two iron sites unused. The 16:13 search returned four; it built two. Iron was 42% of net worth.
- Seven and a half minutes of waiting. Nothing placed after 23:26 and nothing changed after 25:51, with 615 gold and 191 wood unspent.
- Taxes against popularity. The two trials took popularity down 33 and 24 points for 58 and 40 gold a month. It ended at 75; the 25 points under 100 are 2.5 points of score.
What worked
- Iron. Five mines (the first at 4:31) gave about 94 iron: 76 in store and 18 turned into swords and armour. Iron was the largest part of net worth.
- The popularity warnings. They ended waits early three times; it cut taxes in its next call after the second (18:20) and third (25:08), and kept the rate after the first (17:25).
- Storage ahead of need. Stockpiles were added at 6:57 when no pile was empty; 3 of 12 piles were empty at the end.
- Placements. Every placement reported as placed is in the final count (7 hovels, 5 woodcutters, 5
orchards, 5 mines, 2 quarries, 1 tether, 1 dairy farm, 5 workshops, 2 armories and the marketplace;
the stockpile counts 3 with the start one). Three did not go through (the fletcher and armory by
place_near, and an orchard); no call was refused and no model request failed.
Market
One purchase: 50 planks (10 lots) for 200 gold at 3:56, 150 of net worth lost against the sell price (4 gold each, worth 1). Nothing was sold; at 29:24 its reasoning judged its wood not worth selling, which would have left net worth unchanged. The 10 clicks took 29 game seconds.
Cost and speed
41 turns, 78 tool calls (27 waits, 19 find_sites, 15 build_structure, 6 set_tax), 2.32 million
tokens and $0.044 at Anthropic's list prices (preparation $0.004, play $0.038, compaction $0.002); the
interview cost about $0.001 more. The agent run took 25.0 real minutes, 3.7 of them waiting for the
model; the context was compacted once (12 seconds). All 41 requests read the prompt cache, 96.2% of the
input tokens. By game time the waits took 1,218 of the 2,000 seconds, build_structure 465 (15
calls), set_tax 62 and find_sites 11.
The interview
Haiku put its result at 4,163 against 19,513 and said "the gap is mostly about planning": it had "never
built a food chain that makes money" and treated each step "as a standalone purchase". It named four
changes: build wheat, mill and bakery early and sell bread; build housing in volume matched with jobs;
build religion and fear buildings so taxes can run; spend gold early rather than hold about 600. It found
the stats readout the most useful part, but said find_sites often reported no oasis spots, that 33
minutes felt short and that checking after each step cost game time. Weapons appear once, as part of
its value ("raw stock ... and weapons"); it did not say whether building them was right.
Against the game, the 4,163, 615 gold, 3,548 goods, idle peasants, apples as the only food, no
religion, about 600 gold held and 191 wood all match, and the production readout it praised is in every
observation. Six statements do not. It was 2,943 above leaving the game alone, not "about 2,500". The
fall to "about 49" came from average taxes, not mean (mean reached 67); it joined the two trials. It had
"49 to 57 people for most of the game", but 49 or more only from 16:11, about half. It built its last
hovels "once popularity was low enough to be a risk", but its reasoning at 23:26 gave population, and
popularity was 64. It "bought wood at the start", but at 3:56, once. find_sites came back empty
once (orchard and dairy at 17:25) and with one site once (14:19), and it never asked for a wheat farm
site. The waits were the model's own choices, up to 120 seconds each: 1,218 game seconds against 11
for all find_sites calls.
For the harness
- Armory readout.
roommeans free places; the model read 39 as stored (above). - Placements.
place_nearfound no free spot beside the stockpile for a fletcher (9:19) and an armory (9:29); both were placed by tile. A quarry (2:38, 13:06) and the dairy farm (4:31) were placed 6, 6 and 11 tiles from their targets, each with themovednote. - Waiting notes did not stop the waiting. The host's notes came at 29:25 and 31:37; the model went on, as in other games.
- The game saved correctly at the end ("claude haiku 5-5 1-7-3 8a665a", in this folder).