GLM 5.3 Flash

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: GLM 5.3 Flash (z-ai/glm-5.3-flash) on OpenRouter, served by Z.ai at fp8 (providers pinned to z-ai/fp8, no fallbacks; all 46 gameplay requests were billed to Z.AI; the 1.6.3 game also allowed siliconflow/fp8), reasoning medium, output limit 32,768 tokens
• Benchmark: Large Barren Desert construction, weapons and armour in the armory counted toward net worth, 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
• Run 33891fcb, series 20261017T174026-83cd8a79, 2026-10-17: the first of GLM's two 1.7.3 games on this map, a fresh series with no memory of any other. Its "(no arms)" game has not been played successfully yet (an OpenRouter key limit stopped the attempt) and is to come, so it has no column here. Its desert games from earlier rounds played 1.5.6 (series 20261012T101643-b291d04d) and 1.6.3 (series 20261014T070917-3e36f777). This game counts on the website's leaderboard.

Result

A full-budget score: the run used all 2,000 game seconds. Net worth ended 1,076 below leaving the game alone, −22.5% of the person's growth of 4,792. The project website's formula (80% net-worth share, 10% population share, 10% popularity; shares run from doing nothing, 5,192 and 4 people, to the person, 9,984 and 250, the net-worth share clipped to −1..2) gives −17.96 from net worth, +2.11 from population and +6.00 from popularity: −9.85, shown as −9.8. The stored goods are 52 iron (1,196), 17 swords (510), 14 crossbows (420), 17 bows (255), 26 stone (182), 9 ale (90), 22 meat (88) and 27 wood (27); the weapons are 1,185, 28.8% of net worth.

Why it ended below leaving the game alone. The 5,192 leaves out the part of the starting package that waits for storage room (about 1,150 at the sell price, docs/benchmark.md). This town made room at 0:51 and took it in, so at 1:41 its net worth was 6,446 (the rules put the package at about 6,500), and it ended 2,330 below that: gold down 3,652, stored goods up 1,322. 8,300 gold went out: 4,000 on meat, 1,900 on planks, 2,400 on 18 weapon workshops and an inn. The meat was eaten and the planks became buildings and bows (22 meat and 27 wood are left). Against that the town took about 2,500 in taxes, mined about 75 iron and 96 stone (2,397 at the sell price) and made 101 weapons worth 2,295, 1,281 more than the iron and wood they used.

How the game went

Times are the recording's game clock when a call began; the run clock in the observations reads a few seconds later. The game is paused while the model replies and runs during a build, buy or wait call.

Reading and the first build, 0 to 2 minutes. Its preparation reply planned iron mines, quarries and weapon workshops "so weapons become stored value". At 0:00 it read status, map_overview (no trees, no oasis grass; iron 57 to 69 tiles east, stone 83 to 106 tiles west) and four find_sites, and chose no woodcutters. One build_structure call placed 4 hovels, the marketplace and 2 iron mines in 45 game seconds. The 0:50 reading showed no empty stockpile pile, so at 0:51 it added three, which let the rest of the package in. Then a quarry with two ox tethers (1:14), average taxes (1:33, 12 gold a month, popularity −4), an armory (1:42), two fletcher's workshops (1:52, three asked) and no room for a blacksmith's (2:04).

Food, the inn and the first workshops, 3 to 11 minutes. By 4:33 the first iron (2) and bow (1) had arrived, with 24 idle peasants. At 5:19 a warning said 11 food for 35 people: 50 meat at 5:20, half rations at 5:32, no taxes at 5:35. From 5:43 to 6:16 it looked for the two fletchers placed at 1:52 (a flat view, two set_workshop clicks that opened the keep, a zoom key) and did not find them. At 6:16 it placed a fletcher, an inn and a blacksmith by tile. Full rations at 7:01 and the inn (on the start's 20 ale, +6 at 7:41, +4 from 8:39) took popularity from 53 at 7:00 to 100 at 11:03. At 7:42: two iron mines (a third found no spot), a fletcher, a blacksmith; at 10:11: three hovels, two fletchers, a blacksmith. The first stone, 16, was in by 10:10.

More workshops, 11 to 25 minutes. High taxes at 11:04 (46 gold a month, −6) took popularity from 100 to 60 by 19:50; average taxes then held it at 60 to the end (tax −4, inn +4). Fletchers: two to crossbows at 13:31 and 13:40, two more at 13:53, 17:20 and 23:39, one at 25:00; blacksmiths: two at 20:20; a second armory at 14:04. Meat or planks were bought every two to four minutes between waits of 45 to 150 s; three waits ended early on warnings (popularity 85 to 74 at 16:44, 71 to 60 at 19:50, food 15 at 27:11). The context was compacted at 23:37 (28 s).

Waiting, 25 to 33 minutes. Nothing was built after 25:00. The replies were purchases and waits: meat at 27:11, 29:49 and 31:53, waits of 120, 110 and 60 s; the last two (33:06, 33:15) called no tools. Counting every good at its sell price from the observations' stats, net worth was 6,446 at 1:41, 6,278 at 4:33, a low of 3,241 at 24:36 and 4,116 at the end, about +100 a minute over the last nine.

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 the 29:49 reading the armory held 810 of weapons and the stockpile 100 of ale, which puts the 30-minute figure near 3,670.

Where the starting gold went. The 5,000 gold was in by 0:50.

5,000 − 4,000 − 1,900 − 2,300 − 100 + 2,150 + 2,498 = 1,348. By the stocks the mines delivered about 75 iron (15 held, 52 left, 38 into swords) and the quarry about 96 stone.

Weapons

Weapons counted, and it built the chain. Armory at 1:42 (5 wood), a second at 14:04 (100 places; 48 held at the end). Fletcher's workshops: 13, at 1:52 (two), 6:16, 7:42, 10:11 (two), 13:53 (two), 17:20 (two), 23:39 (two) and 25:00. Blacksmith's workshops: 5, at 6:16, 7:42, 10:11 and 20:20 (two). No poleturner's, armorer's or tanner's workshop. Only 3 of the 13 fletchers were set to crossbows (6:35, 13:31, 13:40); the other 10 made bows. The readings gave usually 0.2 to 0.3 pieces a minute for a fletcher and 0.3 to 0.5 for a blacksmith.

Costs are from prompt/game-mechanics.md; the build calls reported the same. Of the 101 pieces, 48 were in the armory at the end (1,185) and 53 had been sold for 1,110 (32 bows, 21 swords). At the sell price they gained 1,281 over the wood and iron they used (bows and crossbows 1,015, swords 266), against 2,670 of gold and wood to build the workshops and armories: 1,389 short, 23 points of score. The wood is counted at 1; the town was buying wood at 4. The 1,185 held are 19.8 points; counted as the no-arms rules do, the same final town would stand at 2,931.

What else the town could have done with it. Over the last readings (27:11, 29:49, 33:15) the four iron mines, which cost 80 wood and no gold, delivered about 2.8 iron a minute (64 at the sell price); the 18 workshops, which cost 2,300 gold, added about 70 a minute over their inputs; one quarry with two tethers (30 wood) brought about 4.4 stone a minute (31). It asked find_sites for four iron sites, once (0:00), and placed all four; its fifth try, at (562,408), found no spot, and it did not search again. Kept as gold, the 2,300 would have counted in full.

Beside its other games and the other models

The 1.5.6 game, with no armory on offer, put its work into 7 quarries and 17 tethers and kept 4,560 gold. This game is 2,539 below it. Three differences show in the logs: raw output (96 stone and 75 iron, 2,397 at the sell price, against about 290 stone and 80 iron, about 3,900, in that game's analysis), the workshops (1,389 short of their cost) and food and wood bought (3,425 lost against 2,890). They add to more than the gap, so other gains, taxes among them, offset about 890; those were not traced. Whether the rules or the harness version moved GLM's desert score cannot be told until its no-arms game is played. On Oasis by the Sea the day before it scored 18.9 with weapons counted and 23.3 without.

Beside the other models. The batch's weapons-counted desert games so far:

This is the lowest score of the batch's nine desert games so far (Haiku 18.9 / 15.6, Sonnet 27.6 / 28.7, Opus 19.1 / 67.1, Fable 1.3 / 11.6, weapons / no arms) and below every game of the 1.6.3 round (lowest Luna −3.4); among the earlier rounds' desert games only Muse Wonder's −22.7 on 1.5.6 is lower. The best of the five weapons games built no workshop and no armory (Sonnet: four iron mines, five hovels) and ended 2,332 above this one. GLM and Fable, the two lowest, built 18 and 17 workshops and one quarry between them. Opus built 16 workshops and seven quarries and ended 1,749 above GLM: 1,862 in stone against 182, 2,461 in iron against 1,196, and 1,301 less gold.

What held it back

• Food bought at twice its worth: 4,000 gold. Three warnings (5:19, 24:00, 27:11) each got a purchase in the same reply. At the end 56 people ate about 9 meat a game month (62 to 22 in 121 s from 27:48), 70 gold at 8, against 44 gold of taxes a month.
• Workshops that did not repay (above). The three fletchers placed at 23:39 and 25:00 cost 300 gold and had 8 to 10 minutes at 0.2 to 0.3 pieces a minute; at 17:35 the model had written "Fletcher output still low (0.1-0.3/building/min)".
• Little raw output: 4 mines and 1 quarry. 75 iron and 96 stone in 33 minutes. The handoff after compaction called the quarry "slow" and planned no more; the readings gave it 0 to 5.3 stone a minute, 4.4 on average over the last nine.
• 24 idle peasants from 4:33, with jobs bought at 100 to 200 gold. open_jobs read 0 in every reading. Its reasoning at 8:39, 16:44, 23:39 and 25:00 says new jobs let more peasants arrive, and it built workshops at 10:11, 17:20, 23:39 and 25:00; the population rose from 35 to 56. A peasant is worth 0.04 of a point in the formula, 100 gold 1.7.
• Crossbows on 3 of 13 fletchers. Bows count 15, crossbows 30. Six fletchers came from place_near, which returns pixels, not tiles (two never found); four placed by tile were not set.
• Popularity from taxes, rations and one inn. No chapel; 60 is 6.0 points.

What worked

• A first build by tile. 28 of 29 build_structure placements went through, 39 buildings in all, and none of the 87 tool calls errored or was refused.
• Room made at 0:51, before the full stockpile held back the rest of the package.
• The inn and rations. Popularity went from 53 to 100 in four minutes and held +4 from the inn to the end.
• Warnings answered at once; lowest food 10 (5:23), lowest popularity 52 (7:02), and the population never fell.

Market

500 meat (eleven purchases, 5:20 to 31:53) and 475 planks (six, 4:52 to 24:18) were bought for 5,900 gold, and 20 pitch, 120 stone, 32 bows and 21 swords sold for 2,150. The purchases lost 3,425 net worth against the sell price (meat 8 for 4, planks 4 for 1); selling leaves net worth unchanged. Three sales asked for more than the stock held (23:50, 24:36, 27:29) and the tool stopped at the stock. These are units at the market's fixed prices. The 26 calls were 235 clicks and took 338 game seconds, 16.9% of the budget, 1.4 s a click (20 lots in 21 to 23 s).

Cost and speed

46 turns, 87 tool calls (26 market_trade, 13 find_sites, 11 waits, 8 build_structure, 6 place_near, 5 set_workshop, 4 set_tax, 14 others), 2.17 million tokens and $0.083 billed by OpenRouter (preparation $0.003, play $0.077, compaction $0.003). The interview cost $0.002 more, with 34,176 of its 36,032 tokens read from the cache. The agent run took 30.3 real minutes, 10.6 of them waiting for the model; the context was compacted once (28 s). All 46 gameplay requests read the prompt cache, 96.7% of the input tokens. All 11 waits ran fast-forwarded (1,119 game seconds in 402 real seconds).

Of the 2,000 game seconds, waits took 1,128 (56%), market_trade 338, build_structure 199 over 8 calls, place_near 62, set_workshop 41, expand_storage 28, inspect_building 25, set_tax and set_rations 22; the remaining ~150 s fit the host's short holds after acting replies (5 s by default). build_structure placed 28 buildings in 199 game seconds, 7.1 s each (39 placements across it, place_near and expand_storage in 289 s, 7.4 s each). The host ran on the game machine for this game; neither earlier desert game (1.5.6, 1.6.3) did.

The interview

GLM called its result an underperformance and put the gap in gold and population. It said it never found a value-adding loop ("mine iron → make swords → sit on them"), sat at the 24-idle cap, never used fear buildings or religion, and missed the person's wheat, flour and bread chain. Playing again it would build a conversion loop first, hovels and jobs early, gallows and stocks, religion and inns before taxing harder. It found the tools strong (stats, build_structure by tile, find_sites, map_overview) and asked for the market as a profit engine and worker_efficiency_percent to be pushed in the rules.

Claims checked against the run:

• Match: the net worth, gold, population and stored-goods figures (2,768 against 1,410); 24 idle at 66 housing; iron at 23 and a sword at 30; mines at about 0.7 iron a minute each (readings 0.4 to 0.8) and 2.7 overall (2.3 to 3.3); no chapel; efficiency 100% in every reading; one compaction.
• "~40 gold a minute": 40 to 44 is gold a month. A month is about 27 game seconds, so about 100 a game minute.
• "A warehouse full of swords": swords were 510 (12% of net worth); iron, 1,196 (29%), was the larger store.
• "Never acted on the idle cap": it did, with workshops (above), the costly way. A mine costs 20 wood and gives 2 jobs.
• "Nothing in the reference material" on fear: the system prompt lists only "good and bad things" as buildings, but the rules table behind building_info says bad things improve worker productivity at the expense of popularity, at 40 to 50 gold. It never looked them up.
• "Timid level 5": it ran level 6 from 11:04 to 19:50; popularity fell 100 to 60 and it went back to 5.
• "Bakeries need only workers and gold": the person's 95 bakeries had 12 mills and bought wheat. Its "buy wheat (23/unit)" is not from this run, which never traded wheat, flour or bread (rules: wheat 8, flour 10, bread 4).
• "Compaction cost me details": the handoff said 11 hovels; 7 stood.
• Not testable here: the person's income per minute and what a bread chain would have paid.

For the harness

• place_near returns pixels, not tiles. build_structure's results carry the tile; place_near's list gives only x, y on screen, while set_workshop and inspect_building take a tile. Six fletchers placed this way could not be reached except from a screenshot showing them; the two from 1:52 never were (pixel clicks at 5:51 and 6:00 opened the keep, and the remedy was named).
• place_near ran out of room flush against the keep and granary (1:52, 2:04, 19:54); the remedies named find_sites, which worked.
• The compaction handoff listed 11 hovels; 7 stood. The next replies built workshops, not hovels.
• map_overview was right: "Tree groves (woodcutters): none on this map", and GLM built no woodcutter.
• The wait warnings (food, popularity) arrived as designed. The game saved correctly at the end ("glm 5-3 flash 1-7-3 33891f").