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: Large Barren Desert 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 15f95969, series 20261017T142805-482f85c6, 2026-10-17: Haiku's weapons-counted game of the 1.7.3 desert batch, a fresh series with no memory of any other game. Its other 1.7.3 game, "Large Barren Desert construction (no arms)" (run 45c5de42, series 20261017T144844-41ded8e2), was played next; its older desert games are run e6c76e0e (1.5.6, 2026-10-12) and a37e8611 (1.6.3, 2026-10-14). This game counts on the website's leaderboard.
Result
| This game | No-arms game (1.7.3) | 1.6.3 game | 1.5.6 game | The person | Left alone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth | 5,669 | 5,617 | 5,721 | 6,412 | 9,984 | 5,192 |
| Gold | 2,409 | 2,093 | 2,097 | 3,428 | 8,574 | |
| Stored goods, at the sell price | 3,260 | 3,524 | 3,624 | 2,984 | 1,410 | |
| of which weapons and armour | 1,055 | none built | 785 | none built | ||
| Population / housing | 26 / 26 | 46 / 50 | 34 / 34 | 32 / 42 | 250 / 250 | |
| Popularity | 100 (+1 next month) | 68 (+1) | 100 (+3) | 51 (−7) | 100 | |
| Idle peasants | 15 | 24 | 16 | 24 | ||
| Score | 18.9 | 15.6 | 20.1 | 26.6 | 100 |
A full-budget score: the run used all 2,000 game seconds. Net worth grew by 477 over leaving the game
alone, 10.0% of the person's 4,792, against 425 (8.9%) in the no-arms game. By the project website's
formula (80% net-worth share, 10% each population and popularity, the net-worth share clipped to −1..2)
the score is 18.9: 7.96 points from net worth, 0.89 from 26 people and 10.00 from popularity 100, more
than half of it from popularity. The stored goods are 59 iron (1,357), 12 swords (360), 50 stone (350), 9
metal armour (270), 15 bows (225), 20 ale (200), 20 pitch (200), 20 spears (200), 70 wood (70) and 7 meat
(28). Iron is 24% of net worth, weapons and armour (1,055) 19%. Without those 1,055 the town would have
ended at 4,614, 578 below leaving the game alone, and the score would be about 1.2. The 5,192 of leaving
the game alone leaves out the part of the starting package that waits for storage room (about 1,150 at
the sell price, per docs/benchmark.md), which this game took in by 1:21; against a town that only freed
storage (about 6,340) it ended about 670 lower.
How the game went
Times are the game clock when a call began, read from the recording; the run clock quoted in the observations reads a few seconds later.
The opening, 0 to 3 minutes. The save starts with 2 people and 10 housing. The woodcutter search at
0:00 found no tree within 12 tiles, and the reasoning at 0:10 began "There are no trees on the map". It
placed the marketplace and two hovels by tile at 0:10 (housing 26), two stockpiles at 0:30 (the starting
wood had filled the first) and average taxes at 0:41. map_overview at 0:49 listed iron 57 to 69 tiles
east, stone 83 to 106 tiles west, and no farmland, trees or oil. It put up two iron mines at once, two
more stockpiles at 1:21 (20 piles in all), a fletcher's workshop and an armory at 1:50 (reasoning: 12
idle, bows sell well against wood) and a poleturner's workshop at 2:36. Population reached 26 at 3:00;
20 were idle at 3:10.
Waiting for output, 3 to 11 minutes. It inspected the workshops at 3:10 and 4:35, when nothing had come out; the poleturner reported missing inputs once and was working at the second look. It bought 50 meat at 3:27, 7:19 and 10:54. Popularity fell from 100 to 62 under average taxes and it set none at 4:51. A third iron mine followed at 5:25. The first spear was in store by 5:25 and the first bow by 6:18. At 8:31 a search near (562, 405) found no site, its reasoning took the ore to be used up, and it added a second fletcher's workshop. Context was compacted at 9:46.
The rest of the wing, 11 to 21 minutes. A blacksmith's workshop at 11:05 (first sword 13:45); average taxes again at 13:44, ended at 14:59 when a warning said popularity had fallen from 82 to 71; an armorer's workshop at 15:03 (first armour 19:07); 50 planks at 16:56; a second armory at 19:06; 50 meat at 21:19, its last action.
Waiting, 21 to 33 minutes. Waits of 120, 150, 180 and 250 s and one of 8 s. The host's notes at 26:02 (4 minutes of waiting and reading in a row) and 29:03 (7) did not change this; the reasoning at 26:02 was to "let things ride until the end". The 250 s wait ended 2 s early, 8 s before the end, on a food warning (8 in the granary for 26 people) and a third note (11 minutes). Food fell from 47 at 29:04 to 7.
| Game minute | 0 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 24 | 27 | 30 | End |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth | 4,531 | 5,867 | 5,722 | 5,401 | 5,047 | 5,107 | 4,627 | 4,596 | 4,349 | 4,323 | 4,275 | 5,669 |
| Gold | 4,320 | 4,855 | 4,554 | 4,054 | 3,454 | 3,494 | 2,809 | 2,809 | 2,409 | 2,409 | 2,409 | 2,409 |
| Iron | 0 | 15 | 19 | 24 | 32 | 38 | 42 | 46 | 49 | 53 | 56 | 59 |
| Stone | 0 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| Food | 36 | 40 | 62 | 84 | 106 | 78 | 100 | 72 | 94 | 66 | 38 | 7 |
| Population | 2 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 |
| Popularity | 100 | 79 | 65 | 71 | 78 | 71 | 78 | 85 | 91 | 98 | 100 | 100 |
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, ale and pitch are left out, so it reads low. At 29:04 the armory held 830 of weapons and armour, which with the ale and pitch (400) puts the 30-minute figure near 5,500, not 4,275.
Where the starting gold went. The 5,000 gold had arrived by 0:31.
| Gold | What it became | |
|---|---|---|
| 250 meat (five lots of 50) | 2,000 | worth 1,000 at the sell price; all but 7 eaten |
| 50 planks | 200 | 50 wood; 70 wood were left at the end |
| 2 fletcher's, a poleturner's, a blacksmith's and an armorer's workshop | 600 | 56 pieces worth 1,055 |
| Taxes | +209 | 154 from the first average-tax stretch (0:41 to 4:51), 55 from the second (13:44 to 15:10) |
| Left at the end | 2,409 |
5,000 − 2,000 − 200 − 600 + 209 = 2,409; nothing was sold.
Weapons
The opening reply planned the chain ("since their output counts as stored value"). All five workshops
stayed on their default products (bows, spears, swords, metal armour): it never called set_workshop, so
no crossbows (30) or pikes (18) were made. The armory held 56 of its 100 places. Costs are from
prompt/game-mechanics.md; "net" is value less inputs (wood 1, iron 23), gold and wood.
| Built | Placed | Gold + wood | Made | Value | Inputs | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 fletcher's | 1:50, 8:31 | 200 + 40 | 15 bows | 225 | 30 wood | −45 |
| Poleturner's | 2:36 | 100 + 10 | 20 spears | 200 | 20 wood | +70 |
| Blacksmith's | 11:05 | 200 + 20 | 12 swords | 360 | 12 iron (276) | −136 |
| Armorer's | 15:03 | 100 + 20 | 9 metal armour | 270 | 9 iron (207) | −57 |
| 2 armories | 1:50, 19:06 | 0 + 10 | −10 | |||
| Total | 600 + 100 | 56 pieces | 1,055 | 533 | −178 |
The wing cost 700 in gold and wood and turned stock worth 533 into pieces worth 1,055: 178 less than it cost, and 328 less with the 150 of net worth lost on its planks. Stored value was 270 at 16:44, 450 at 21:19, 705 at 26:03 and 830 at 29:04, so it passed the 700 spent on the buildings at about 26 minutes. The wooden workshops about paid for themselves (+25); the two metal ones turned 21 iron worth 483 into pieces worth 630 for 340 of gold and wood. The planks (200 gold at 16:56, because wood was "falling and will run out soon") were not needed: wood never fell below 55 and ended at 70.
Gold and wood did not run short (2,409 gold and 70 wood unspent), so the wing took the place of no other purchase. The no-arms game, with no wing, put wood alone into four quarries and two ox tethers (90 wood), which delivered 88 stone (616), and into three more hovels. It ended 52 lower (iron +736, stone +616, gold −316, weapons −1,055, wood and meat −33) and scored 3.3 lower, 3.2 of it from popularity (68 against 100). The weapons did not decide Haiku's pair.
Beside its other games and the other models
| This game | No arms (1.7.3) | 1.6.3 | 1.5.6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth without weapons and armour | 4,614 | 5,617 | 4,936 | 6,412 |
| Hovels / iron mines / quarries | 2 / 3 / 0 | 5 / 4 / 4 | 3 / 3 / 2 | 4 / 4 / 0 |
| Weapon workshops / armories | 5 / 2 | 0 / 0 | 3 / 1 | 0 / 0 |
| Meat bought (gold) | 250 (2,000) | 450 (3,600) | 325 (2,600) | 250 (1,975) |
With no weapons in either game, Haiku scored 26.6 on 1.5.6 and 15.6 in the 1.7.3 no-arms game, an 11-point fall that weapons do not explain: the no-arms game ended with the same 91 iron, 88 more stone and 1,335 less gold, after buying 200 more meat (1,625 gold) for 14 more people. Its weapons games scored 20.1 (785 of pieces) and 18.9 (1,055).
Weapons-counted games of this batch so far, by the same formula:
| Workshops / armories | Weapons and armour in store | Net worth | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonnet 5.5 | 0 / 0 | none | 6,448 | 27.6 |
| Opus 5.5 | 16 / 1 | 1,095 | 5,865 | 19.1 |
| Haiku 5.5 | 5 / 2 | 1,055 | 5,669 | 18.9 |
| Fable 5.1 | 17 / 5 | 1,540 | 4,689 | 1.3 |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | 18 / 2 | 1,185 | 4,116 | −9.8 |
Haiku is third of five, 0.2 below Opus, with the smallest wing of the four that built one. Of the four finished pairs (weapons counted / no arms) it is the only one whose weapons game scored higher: Haiku 18.9 / 15.6, Sonnet 27.6 / 28.7, Opus 19.1 / 67.1, Fable 1.3 / 11.6. In the 1.6.3 round its 20.1 was fifth of nine.
What held it back
- Housing for 26 from 3:00. Two hovels at 0:10 (6 wood each) took housing from 10 to 26 and it built no more. From 3:10 the idle count stayed at 15 to 20, below the 24 at which arrivals stop, so housing was the cap; at 4:03 it wrote "Housing isn't the bottleneck since 20 are idle" and at 14:59 that more hovels "wouldn't help since jobs are all filled". The no-arms game, with five hovels, had 46 people by 9 minutes but bought 200 more meat and scored lower, so the pair does not show that more people pay. This game's three mines and five workshops gave 11 jobs; 15 of the 26 stood idle at the end.
- Food at twice its worth. 250 meat for 2,000 gold, worth 1,000 at the sell price, eaten at about 9 a minute by 26 people; the unneeded planks cost 150 more.
- Three iron mines and no stone. The overview listed four iron deposits. It searched around the first, near (560, 395) and near the fourth (nothing within 25 tiles), and never around the third at (561, 380); the no-arms game's fourth mine, at (559, 368), came from a search around (558, 380). Its hand-off said the "ore patches appear exhausted" and judged a quarry "poor" at 85 to 105 tiles; it built none and ended with the 50 stone it started with.
- Nothing built after 19:06 and nothing done after 21:19, with 2,409 gold, 70 wood and 12 minutes left. The host's notes about waiting (26:02, 29:03) did not change it.
- Two tax trials. Average taxes (20 gold a month at 26 people, −4 popularity a month) brought 209 gold in all and took popularity to 62 and to 71.
What worked
- Iron. Three mines placed by tile from
map_overviewandfind_sitesdelivered about 65 iron (1,495 at the sell price) on 60 wood; the first arrived at 4:04. - Placements. All 17 placements went through and are in the final count; no call was refused.
- Popularity and food held. With nothing coming out at 3:10 and 4:35 it inspected the workshops, found them staffed and working, and waited. The popularity warning ended a wait at 14:59 and its next call cut taxes. Food stayed at 35 or more until 30:25.
Market
Five purchases of 50 meat (3:27, 7:19, 10:54, 16:44, 21:19; 400 gold each) and one of 50 planks (16:56; 200 gold): 2,200 gold, nothing sold. They lost 1,150 of net worth against the sell price (meat 8 for 4, planks 4 for 1; units at the market's fixed prices). The six calls were 60 clicks and took 68 game seconds.
Cost and speed
36 turns, 65 tool calls (24 waits, 9 find_sites, 6 each build_structure, inspect_building and
market_trade), 1.97 million tokens and $0.038 at the profile's prices (preparation $0.004, play $0.032,
compaction $0.002). The interview cost about $0.001, with 52,131 of its 54,159 tokens read from the cache.
The agent run took 18.6 real minutes, 3.4 of them waiting for the model; the context was compacted once
(11 s). All 36 requests read the prompt cache, 96.6% of the input tokens. Twenty-three waits ran fast and
saved 10.8 real minutes. The recording is 5,625 frames, 2.4 GB.
By game time the waits took 1,708 of the 2,000 seconds (85%) and the acting tools about 259:
build_structure 78 (6 calls), market_trade 68, inspect_building 37, expand_storage 32,
place_near 19. build_structure placed 10 buildings in 78 s, 7.8 s a building. The host ran on the game
machine, as it did for the no-arms game (10 buildings in 91 s, 9.1 s). The 1.6.3 game (13 in 112 s, 8.6
s) and the 1.5.6 game (4 in 16 s, 3.9 s) ran with the host on the Mac, so none of its earlier desert
games had the host on the game machine.
The interview
Haiku put its 5,669 at about 480 over leaving the game alone, against the person's 9,984, and called it "a weak result". It put the gap down to growth: housing never raised past 26, no food chain, no woodcutters or farms because it had judged there were no trees or oasis, and taxes at zero for most of the run with popularity "wasted headroom". Playing again it would build housing first, a bread chain on bought wheat, raise taxes once popularity passed 70, add fear and religion buildings sooner, and not make its iron and workshop chain the core. It found placement by tile and the stats readers reliable, said it had treated "no trees" and "no oasis" as closed doors, and asked for "a short mandatory check at the start" listing what the market can supply and what housing can be built. Its last answer said it waited in long blocks.
Claims checked against the run:
- Match: 5,669, 2,409 gold, 3,260 goods, 26 people in 26 housing; 477 over leaving the game alone; no woodcutters, farms or food chain (the map has no trees or oasis grass); taxes none for 84% of the game (average for 325 of 2,000 s), 209 gold from them; iron "2 to 3" a minute (2.0 to 2.7 in the readings from 9:46); waiting most of the game (85%); tools reliable (no failed placement, no refused call).
- "The starting 26" housing: it started at 10; 26 came from its own two hovels at 0:10 (the hand-off says three; two were built).
- "Used only the starting wood": it bought 50 planks at 16:56.
- Popularity "near 100 from mid-run on": 73 to 82 up to 13:45, 71 to 80 to 19:07, 90 or more from 23:32, 100 from 29:04.
- "A few bows or spears per minute": the readings show 0.3 to 0.7 bows and 0.7 to 1.0 spears.
- Waits of "four to eleven minutes": the longest wait was 250 s; 4, 7 and 11 are the host's notes on the streak since the last action.
- "The first hour": the game is 33 min 20 s.
For the harness
- The map probe is current.
map_overviewlisted no tree groves, unlike Haiku's 1.6.3 game on this map, which ran a stale probe. - Warnings. The popularity warning (14:59) ended a wait after 71 of 90 s and was followed at once. The waiting notes at 4 and 7 minutes were followed by more waiting; the 11-minute note came with 8 s left. The food warning fires below two game months of food, about 9 for 26 people on full rations; it came at 8, with 8 s to play, and the observation before it (29:04) showed 47.
- The save.
episode.jsonrecords the game saved at the end ("claude haiku 5-5 1-7-3 15f959", 3.5 MB), in this run folder.