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 the Anthropic API, reasoning medium, output limit 32,768 tokens - Benchmark: Large Barren Desert construction (no arms), version 1.7.3 (commit b967c65), 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. Weapons and armour in store count nothing toward net worth; sold at a marketplace, they bring their gold.
- Run 45c5de42, series 20261017T144844-41ded8e2, 2026-10-17: Haiku's no-arms game on this map, a fresh series with no memory of its others, played just after its weapons-counted game (run 15f95969, series 20261017T142805-482f85c6). Its earlier desert games are run e6c76e0e (1.5.6) and a37e8611 (1.6.3). This game counts on the website's leaderboard.
Result
| This game (1.7.3, no arms) | 1.7.3, weapons counted | 1.6.3 game | 1.5.6 game | The person | Left alone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth | 5,617 | 5,669 | 5,721 | 6,412 | 9,984 | 5,192 |
| Gold | 2,093 | 2,409 | 2,097 | 3,428 | 8,574 | |
| Stored goods, at the sell price | 3,524 | 3,260 | 3,624 | 2,984 | 1,410 | |
| of which weapons and armour | 0 | 1,055 | 785 | 0 (not offered) | ||
| Population / housing | 46 / 50 | 26 / 26 | 34 / 34 | 32 / 42 | 250 / 250 | 4 |
| Popularity | 68 (+1 next month) | 100 | 100 | 51 | 100 | 0 |
| Score | 15.6 | 18.9 | 20.1 | 26.6 | 100 | 0 |
A full-budget score: the run used all 2,000 game seconds. Net worth grew by 425 over leaving the game
alone, 8.9% of the person's 4,792, against 477 (10.0%) in the weapons game. By the website's formula
(80% net worth share, 10% each population and popularity) the score is 15.6: 7.10 points from net
worth, 1.71 from 46 people and 6.80 from popularity 68, the lowest of the four desert games above. The
stored goods are 91 iron (2,093), 138 stone (966), 20 ale (200), 20 pitch (200), 45 wood and 5 meat
(20). The town ended with 24 idle peasants, 4 free places in its hovels and 5 food. The 5,192 of leaving
the game alone leaves out about 1,150 of the starting package, which waits for storage room
(docs/benchmark.md); this game took it in (stone, iron, pitch and ale were in the stockpile by 1:17),
so against the whole package it ended about 725 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 is read after the call and any wait that follows it, so it reads later by that much.
The opening, 0 to 5 minutes. Its first call (0:00) asked find_sites for woodcutter spots and was
told there were no trees within 12 tiles. Three hovels followed at 0:08, the marketplace at 0:19 and two
stockpile piles at 0:33. map_overview, first called at 0:50, listed stone 83 to 106 tiles west, iron
57 to 69 tiles east, and no trees or farmland. It put two iron mines on find_sites tiles at once
(0:50), then a quarry (1:27) and an ox tether (1:50) on the western stone, high taxes (2:10) and a
second quarry (2:35). At 4:02 it added a third iron mine and two more quarries, and a second tether at
4:46. High taxes took popularity from 100 to 65 by 4:42; low taxes followed at 4:43.
Stone that did not come, 5 to 9 minutes. Two hovels at 5:10 made housing 50. From 7:16 there were 24
idle peasants and no open job, and the population stood at 46 from 8:27. No stone reached the
stockpile until 8:33, seven minutes after the first quarry. Its two inspect_building calls at the
tether's tile (6:50, 7:27) returned the quarry's panel with the tool's warning that it was the building
drawn in front. The compaction hand-off (about 7:26) called the cause unresolved ("Do not add more
quarries until this works"); at 7:59 it wrote "Stone is stuck, so I'll stop adding quarries" and built
a fourth iron mine, its last building.
Waiting and meat, 9 to 33 minutes. 17 replies and no building: nine meat purchases, six tax changes and waits of 45 to 150 seconds. At 15:16 it read that idle peasants capped the population, searched for iron sites around (560, 370), found none within 25 tiles and went back to waiting. The wait begun at 31:35 ended early with "Food is low: 14 in the granaries for 46 people on full rations"; it waited out the last 31 seconds and the game ended with 5 food.
| Game minute | 0 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 24 | 27 | 30 | End |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth | 4,576 | 6,016 | 5,877 | 5,751 | 5,595 | 5,558 | 5,546 | 5,477 | 5,317 | 5,261 | 5,151 | 5,617 |
| Gold | 4,350 | 5,023 | 4,813 | 4,497 | 4,084 | 3,764 | 3,512 | 3,239 | 2,839 | 2,407 | 2,093 | 2,093 |
| Iron | 0 | 15 | 19 | 25 | 32 | 41 | 49 | 57 | 65 | 73 | 81 | 91 |
| Stone | 0 | 50 | 50 | 58 | 66 | 82 | 90 | 98 | 106 | 122 | 130 | 138 |
| Food | 39 | 39 | 53 | 57 | 67 | 58 | 58 | 49 | 49 | 69 | 60 | 5 |
| Population | 2 | 28 | 38 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 46 |
| Popularity | 100 | 89 | 60 | 57 | 57 | 63 | 52 | 55 | 62 | 54 | 60 | 68 |
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; ale and pitch (400) are left out, so it reads low. The last column is the true net worth.
Where the starting package went. No building cost gold and nothing was sold, so taxes are the remainder of the gold: 5,000 + 693 − 3,600 = 2,093.
| Net worth | |
|---|---|
| Starting package at the sell price (5,000 gold, 55 meat, about 245 wood, 50 stone, 15 iron, 20 pitch, 20 ale) | 6,560 |
| Iron mined: 76 (15 to 91) | +1,748 |
| Stone quarried: 88 (50 to 138) | +616 |
| Taxes | +693 |
| Food eaten: 500 units (450 bought for 3,600 gold, 50 of the starting 55 meat at 4) | −3,800 |
| Wood used in buildings (about 245 to 45) | −200 |
| Final | 5,617 |
Weapons
It left them alone. It built no armory and no fletcher's, poleturner's, blacksmith's or armorer's workshop, sold nothing, and held no weapon or armour at the end. None of its 78 tool calls touched them: all 11 trades were meat purchases. A search of the reasoning and text of its 40 replies, its preparation reply, its tool arguments and its compaction hand-off for weapon, armory, armour, workshop and the weapon names finds nothing, so the rule that sold weapons bring their gold never came into play. Its weapons-counted game built five workshops and two armories between 1:50 and 19:06.
Beside its other games and the other models
| No arms (this) | 1.7.3, weapons | 1.6.3 | 1.5.6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth without weapons | 5,617 | 4,614 | 4,936 | 6,412 |
| Weapon workshops / armories | 0 / 0 | 5 / 2 | 3 / 1 | not offered |
| Iron mines / quarries / ox tethers | 4 / 4 / 2 | 3 / 0 / 0 | 3 / 2 / 2 | 4 / 0 / 0 |
| Stone / iron in store | 138 / 91 | 50 / 59 | 138 / 63 | 50 / 91 |
| Meat bought, units / gold | 450 / 3,600 | 250 / 2,000 | 325 / 2,600 | 250 / 2,000 |
| Last building called | 7:59 | 19:06 | 7:08 | 7:16 |
| Score | 15.6 | 18.9 | 20.1 | 26.6 |
Leaving weapons out of the count did not lift this model's score. The 1.7.3 pair is a net-worth tie
(5,669 and 5,617); the weapons game's 1,055 of arms (swords 360, armour 270, bows 225, spears 200) is
the difference. Without them it stands at 4,614, and this game's extra 1,003 is 32 more iron (736) and
88 more stone (616), less 316 gold, 25 wood and 8 meat. By the costs and inputs in
prompt/game-mechanics.md, that wing cost 600 gold and about 100 wood and used about 21 iron and 50
wood, 1,233 in all, to make 1,055, about 180 below building none. The weapons game still scored 3.3
more: popularity 100 against 68 (+3.2) and net worth (+0.9), less 26 people against 46 (−0.8). Across
the four desert games the score fell 26.6, 20.1, 18.9, 15.6 and the last has no weapons counted, so in
these games weapons do not explain the fall. The meat bought follows the people fed (32, 34, 26 and 46
people; 250, 325, 250 and 450 meat), and this game fed the most.
Of the four no-arms desert games played so far, Haiku is third by score:
| Haiku (this) | Sonnet 5.5 | Opus 5.5 | Fable 5.1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net worth / score | 5,617 / 15.6 | 6,407 / 28.7 | 8,808 / 67.1 | 5,337 / 11.6 |
| Quarries / ox tethers | 4 / 2 | 11 / 12 | 11 / 35 | 3 / 8 |
| Stone at the end | 138 | 466 | 760 | 194 |
| Wood bought | 0 | 160 | 450 | 505 |
| Population / popularity | 46 / 68 | 75 / 55 | 99 / 29 | 58 / 70 |
Haiku bought no wood and had the fewest oxen per quarry. Opus and Fable built weapon workshops anyway and sold goods (Opus 1,070 in pikes, armour and stone; Fable 2,925 in bows, spears, swords and armour); Sonnet built none.
What held it back
- Jobs, then nothing built. Four mines, four quarries and two tethers gave 22 jobs for 46 people; 24
stood idle from 7:16. It named the cap at 4:02 ("jobs are the real bottleneck") and at 15:16, yet
called no building after 7:59: the last 25 minutes passed with 45 wood and gold falling from 4,657
to 2,093. Its hand-off called wood "the binding resource" and noted "Buying wood costs 4 each", and
the rules offer buying wood; every trade was meat. Its one iron search after 7:59 was around
(560, 370);
map_overviewhad listed ore at (561, 380) and (562, 408), andfind_sitesat 4:02 had returned quarry spots it did not use. Each mine delivered about 0.7 iron a minute (16 gold). - Food bought at a loss. 450 meat cost 3,600 gold, 72% of the starting 5,000, and was worth 1,800. On full rations (never changed) the 46 people ate about 17 a minute (35 on hand at 31:30, 6 at 33:15). At 29:24 its reasoning said "10 lots" to cover about 80 units and the call was 8 lots (40); 5 food, about 18 seconds' worth, was left.
- Stone: seven minutes to the first delivery, then two oxen for four quarries. Stone arrived in lots of 8, one or two a 3-minute window: 88 in 25 minutes (616). After it flowed (9:47: "Stone and iron are both flowing now") it added no quarry or tether.
- Nothing for popularity but taxes. One food, no inn or chapel. Low taxes took popularity to 54, 54, 50 and 54, each time answered by no taxes (7:17, 10:51, 18:32, 26:41). It ended at 68; the weapons game ended at 100.
What worked
- Iron first, by tile. Two mines at 0:50 from
map_overviewandfind_siteswith no screenshot, four by 7:59; the one it inspected was staffed 2/2. First iron at 4:11; 76 mined, 1,748 of net worth (31%). - Taxes. 693 gold, more than the 425 of growth: without it net worth would have ended at 4,924, below leaving the game alone. Popularity never went under 50 and the population never fell after 8:27.
- Placements and warnings. 18 of 18 placed and all are in the final count; no call was refused. The popularity warning on the wait begun at 4:33 ("fell from 76 to 65") was answered at 4:43 by lower taxes.
Market
450 meat bought in 11 calls, 30 to 50 at a time from 3:01 to 29:24, for 3,600 gold at 8 each; nothing sold. The purchases lost 1,800 of net worth against the sell price (4). These are units at the market's fixed prices. The 90 clicks took 113 game seconds.
Cost and speed
40 turns, 78 tool calls (29 waits, 11 market_trade, 9 find_sites, 9 set_tax, 7 build_structure,
4 inspect_building, 3 place_near, 6 others), 2.19 million tokens and $0.042 at the profile's
prices (preparation $0.004, play $0.036, compaction $0.002); the weapons game took 36 turns and $0.038.
The interview cost about $0.001 more, 60,928 of its 62,834 tokens read from the cache. The agent run
took 20.3 real minutes, 4.0 of them waiting for the model (longest reply 10 seconds); the context was
compacted once (17 seconds). All 40 requests read the prompt cache, 96.6% of the input tokens, with no
provider routing.
Waits took 1,628 of the 2,000 game seconds (81%) and acting calls 339 (17%): market_trade 113,
build_structure 91, inspect_building 48, set_tax 28, place_near 28, expand_storage 11.
build_structure ran 7 calls for 91 game seconds and placed 10 buildings, 9.1 seconds a building (7.2
counting the 8 more placed by place_near and expand_storage: 130 seconds for 18). The weapons game:
7.8 seconds (78 seconds, 10 buildings). Haiku's 1.6.3 and 1.5.6 games, hosted on the Mac, took 8.6 (112
seconds, 13) and 3.9 (16 seconds, 4). This game and its weapons game ran with the host on the game
machine; none of Haiku's earlier games did.
The interview
Haiku put the gap down to population and the economy under it, to having no wood source ("The map has
no trees, so I had only the 65 starting planks") and never buying wood, to two quarries that sat idle
for several minutes, and to meat bought at 8 and sold at 4. Playing again it would buy wheat and build a
mill and a bakery, put up a church and an inn early, then hovels, mines and quarries, buy wood on
purpose and avoid taxes above low while popularity is near 50. It found find_sites,
inspect_building and the production window useful, found oxen hard to see, and asked for plain notes
on maps with no trees or oasis grass.
Claims checked against the run:
- Match: 46 people in 50 housing at popularity 68; 24 idle with no open jobs; "about 425 above doing nothing"; meat at 8, sold at 4; wood never bought; 5 wood for 20 gold; waiting took 81% of the budget.
- "Only the 65 starting planks": 65 was the first reading, before the package arrived. Wood stood at 227 at 0:49 and the rules say about 245.
- "Two quarries", "only two quarries and four iron mines": four quarries (two called by 2:35, four by 4:02); stone arrived from 8:33.
- "Wood-limited mines": the last iron search (15:16) found no site, and 45 wood stood unspent from 8:52.
- "The instructions favoured woodcutters and oasis farms": holds for the system prompt's opening
playbook ("Wood first: two or three woodcutters", "Food on oasis grass") and its own opening plan.
The map rules say there is no oasis grass but not that there are no trees;
find_sites(0:00) andmap_overview(0:50) did. - Not testable here: the bread chain from bought wheat; this game never traded wheat.
For the harness
- No tether was ever inspected. Both
inspect_buildingcalls at the tether's tile (405, 366) returned the quarry's panel with the "drawn in front" warning, so no tether's panel was read. Stone took seven minutes to arrive and the logs do not show why. - The opening playbook is generic. It tells every map's model to build woodcutters first and farm oasis grass; here the game's first call was a woodcutter search with no trees to find, and the map rules are silent about trees.
- The map probe was current:
map_overviewsaid "Tree groves (woodcutters): none on this map" and listed cacti as "no wood". - The 1.7.0 wait warnings fired: popularity on the wait begun at 4:33, food and a reminder about three minutes of waiting on the wait begun at 31:35. The reply to the food warning did not buy.
- At about 7:00 the game's garbage collector stalled for 20 seconds and the reader forced a collection (the run's only one); no call failed.
- The game saved correctly at the end ("claude haiku 5-5 1-7-3 45c5de").