Muse Wonder

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: Muse Wonder (meta/muse-wonder) on OpenRouter, served only by Meta (no fallbacks), reasoning medium, output limit 32,768 tokens
• Benchmark: Large Barren Desert construction, version 1.7.3 (the series records commit e0e0eb4, 1.7.3 relocked with a compaction-retry fix that leaves play and scoring unchanged; the version was first recorded at 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 the armory count toward net worth at the rules' prices, as since 1.6.0.
• Run c2abaf1c, series 20261018T173206-aadf0ce7, 2026-10-18: Muse Wonder's weapons-counted game of the 1.7.3 batch on this map, a fresh series with no memory of any other game. Its first attempt, on 2026-10-17, failed on an OpenRouter key limit. Its no-arms game was still playing when this was written and is not in the tables.

Result

A full-budget score: the run used all 2,000 game seconds. Net worth grew by 1,715 over leaving the game alone, 35.8% of the person's 4,792. By the project website's formula (80% net worth, 10% each population and popularity, net-worth share clipped to −1..2) the score is 37.5: 28.6 from net worth, 3.4 from population and 5.5 from popularity. This game counts on the website's leaderboard. The 20 crossbows in the armory are 600 of the net worth and 10.0 of the points; with weapons counted for nothing the score would be 27.5. Its three 1.5.6 games (no armory on offer) averaged 17.0, so this one is 20.5 above their mean and 13.3 below the best of them.

The stored goods are 340 stone (2,380), 102 iron (2,346), 20 crossbows (600), 13 ale (130), 32 wood (32) and 21 food (84). Stone and iron are 68% of net worth, gold 19%. The town ended with 24 idle peasants and 27 empty places in its hovels, high taxes (86 gold a month), popularity steady at 55 (food +3, tax −6, religion +1, inn +2) and 21 food for 87 people. Against the whole starting package, about 6,500 by the rules, it ended about 400 higher; without the crossbows, about 200 lower.

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; a build call keeps it running for 33 to 84 seconds (median 66).

Opening, 0 to 4 minutes. Five replies at 0:01 read before acting (map_overview: stone 83 to 106 tiles west of the keep, iron ore 57 to 69 tiles east, no farmland, oil or trees; status; seven building_info; four find_sites; a plan). One build_structure call then placed the marketplace, a hovel, three iron mines, two quarries and a tether (eight placements, the reply limit; 84 s). At 1:30 stone had no room (four piles full); three stockpiles at 1:31 made 16 piles and the rest of the starting package arrived by 2:03. From 3:16 it bought food and 100 planks (1,120 gold). From 4:52 24 peasants stood idle.

Quarries, crossbows and taxes, 4 to 14 minutes. Three quarries, two tethers and three hovels at 4:54; the fourth iron mine, the armory and three fletcher's workshops at 6:09 (see Weapons). At 9:19 it set high taxes (54 gold a month, popularity −6 a month); popularity went from 100 to 99 at 9:31, 89 at 10:35, 73 at 12:26 and 61 at 13:42, the last three each reported by a warning. Four quarries at 11:10; 160 food from 12:27 and extra rations at 13:34 (+4), which held popularity at 61.

The last sites, 14 to 24 minutes. Three quarries (one came back "unverified" and was not standing) at 13:43; four tethers and two hovels at 14:56, its last hovels (13). Searches for more quarry and iron sites then came back empty. At 17:52 it built a church (500 gold) and an inn (100 gold, 20 wood). It tried mean taxes from 18:31 to 19:04, bought its first bread at 18:43 and returned to full rations at 18:59. Four tethers at 22:41 were its last buildings; population rose from 83 to 87.

Feeding and waiting, 23 to 33 minutes. Waits of 150 s at 23:55 and 27:39, and 150 food units bought at 26:25. Warnings that food was low ended waits at 26:25 (21 for 87 people), 30:56 (30) and 33:15 (24). The context was compacted at 30:10, with 3 min 9 s left. At 31:48 it left taxes alone and waited out the rest.

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; crossbows, ale and pitch are left out, so it reads low (with the 17 crossbows and 14 ale the 30-minute figure is near 6,200).

Where the gold went.

5,000 − 6,600 − 1,600 − 300 − 600 + 4,185 + 1,250 = 1,335 (the rises in the gold reading give about 4,100 for taxes). About 245 wood came with the start (the rules) and 400 were bought; buildings took 553 (placement costs, the marketplace's 5 from building_info) and the crossbows 60, 613 against 645 with 32 left. The mines delivered 87 iron on top of the start's 15 and the quarries about 440 stone on top of 50 (340 held, 150 sold). The stone sale at 21:15 asked for 50: the reply said 40 units and 280 gold, the recording shows 70 and 490 (stock 202 to 132, gold 1,220 to 1,710) because of the 1.7.3 market_trade fault (the game sells 50 a click from 200 in stock and the tool expected 20), so it sold 20 more than asked, and the sales in this table are the recorded ones.

Weapons

It built one armory and three fletcher's workshops, and no blacksmith's, armorer's or poleturner's workshop. Its opening plan listed an armory and weapon workshops as its fourth step; at 4:54 it read building_info for the blacksmith's and fletcher's workshops and the armory. At 6:09 it placed the armory (5 wood) and the three workshops (20 wood and 100 gold each); the call returned at 7:09. set_workshop moved all three from bows to crossbows by tile at 7:15, 7:26 and 7:38 (about 10 s each).

Output was slow. At 9:11 inspect_building found a workshop working with no missing input, and none had delivered; the first crossbow was in the armory by 10:35. The readouts then show 0.1 to 0.3 a workshop a minute: 20 in all, about 0.26 a minute each from 7:09, filling 20 of the armory's 50 places. At the rules' price of 30 they are 600, 8.7% of net worth.

Against their cost: by the mechanics table the buildings took 300 gold and 65 wood and the crossbows 60 wood (3 each). With wood at its sell price of 1 that is 425 of net worth for 600 back, 175 ahead (2.9 points); the buildings' 365 were covered by the 14th crossbow, at about 25 minutes (27 each net of the wood). The town bought 400 of its 645 wood at 4, which makes the 125 wood worth 500 gold and the wing 200 behind in gold. Held, the 300 gold would have counted 300.

What else it might have done: the four mines delivered 87 iron and none was used. The handoff (30:10) priced swords at +7 over the iron and found no payback; by the rules' prices (30 against 23) a blacksmith's workshop (200 gold, 20 wood) repays itself after 32 swords. A further fletcher's workshop at the rate seen here earns about 7 of net worth a minute for about 120 to build, so each of the three added about 60 by the end (about 1 point), and the 24 idle peasants could have staffed more. Its reasoning summaries at 13:43 and 17:29 name "rate uncertainty" and "unknown production rates" in weighing workshops, and it built none after 6:09. This is arithmetic on this game's rates, not a result.

Beside its other games and the other models

(Mined is stone and iron held plus sold, less the start's 50 and 15.) In all four games the population is close to the jobs (from building_info: 3 a quarry, 2 a mine, 1 a tether, workshop or inn) plus the 24 idle: 62 + 24 = 86 here for 87 people, 81 to 89 + 24 there for 106 to 112. This game has 16 to 27 fewer tethers, so 19 to 25 fewer people. Its purchases lost the least of the four. The best 1.5.6 game (50.8) mined 148 more stone with 13 quarries and 33 tethers and sold nearly everything, which leaves net worth unchanged. Its three 1.5.6 games spread 73.5 points, so the crossbows' 10.0 points are small beside one model's own spread, and one game cannot say whether weapons or the version moved the score.

In this batch's nine weapons-counted desert games it is third by score and by net worth: GPT-6.1 Sol 75.6 (9,169), Gemini 4 Argon 63.5 (8,369), Muse Wonder 37.5 (6,907), Claude Sonnet 5.5 27.6, Claude Opus 5.5 19.1, Claude Haiku 5.5 18.9, GPT-6 Luna 5.7, Claude Fable 5.1 1.3 and GLM 5.3 Flash −9.8 (each run's own result). The two above it ran bread chains on bought wheat (Sol 12 bakeries and 2 mills on 150 wheat; Gemini 22 bakeries and 4 mills on 115 wheat and 25 flour); Wonder built none. Weapon workshops built: GLM 18, Fable 17, Opus 16, Luna 14, Haiku 5, Sol 5, Gemini 4, Wonder 3, Sonnet none; the four with 14 or more scored 19.1 or less. Weapons in store: Fable 1,540, Gemini 1,230, GLM 1,185, Opus 1,095, Haiku 1,055, Wonder 600, Luna 525, Sol 510, Sonnet none, so its 600 is sixth of nine.

What held it back

• Food and planks bought, then eaten or built. 8,200 gold bought goods worth 3,700 at the sell price, a loss of 4,500, 2.6 times the town's growth over leaving the game alone. Besides the starting 5,000 and 1,250 of sales, taxes of about 4,200 paid for it. At the end the 87 people paid 86 gold a month in taxes and ate about 13.7 food a month (133 at 27:37 to 55 at 30:10, no purchase between), 109 gold at the buying price of 8.
• 24 idle peasants and no more jobs. Population was the jobs plus 24 from 4:52. Six searches for iron sites found four in the first and one more later, and six for quarry sites found none in the last two (14:56). After 23:13 it built nothing, with gold between 740 and 1,680, 27 free places and 24 idle; the four tethers at 22:41 had added four people. The fourth iron mine, left out of the first reply's eight placements though its site was in the first search, waited until 6:09.
• Stone came slowly. About 8 a minute from 4:52 to 19:13 and about 23 after (stock plus sales), the rise coming between 19:13 and 21:15. The handoff put it down to the tethers (13 by 15:56, 17 by 23:13); the logs show the rise, not its cause.
• Popularity by taxes. High taxes took it from 100 to 61 in four minutes; extra rations held it for 5.4 minutes at the cost of food, until the church and inn (looked up at 10:36, built at 17:52) gave +3.
• No bread chain. Its 13 building_info lookups did not include a mill, bakery or wheat farm, and it never traded wheat, though the rules list wheat at 8 and flour at 10.

What worked

• A tile-based opening. map_overview and find_sites without a screenshot; 52 of 53 placements went through, none refused, and set_workshop by tile worked 3 of 3.
• Storage before it filled. Three stockpiles at 1:31; at the end 2 of 16 piles were empty.
• Stone and iron. 440 and 87 delivered, 68% of net worth at the end.
• Food held. Never below 21; four kinds eaten at the end. The first two food warnings led to purchases.
• Church and inn. With full rations the monthly change was 0 with four kinds of food in store (−2 at 21:15 with two kinds, −1 at 26:25 with three); popularity went from 62 at 18:30 to 55.

Market

29 buys and 4 sells: 235 meat, 235 apples, 240 cheese, 115 bread and 400 planks bought for 8,200 gold, 20 pitch and 150 stone sold for 1,250. The purchases lost 4,500 net worth against the sell price (food at 8, worth 4: 3,300; planks at 4, worth 1: 1,200); selling leaves net worth unchanged. All traded in full but one stone sale at 21:15 (50 asked, 70 sold). The 33 calls were 255 clicks and 615 game seconds, 2.4 s a click; 100 planks took 34 to 42 s. These are units at the market's fixed prices.

Cost and speed

42 turns, 105 tool calls (33 market_trade, 27 find_sites, 13 building_info, 9 build_structure, 8 waits, 15 others), 2.14 million tokens and $1.280 billed by OpenRouter, every request to Meta (preparation $0.105, play $1.124, compaction $0.051). The interview cost $0.055 more, with 31,092 of its 34,213 tokens read from the cache. The run took 33.2 real minutes, 9.1 of them waiting for the model (13.1 s a reply, longest 29.9 s) and 28.5 s on the compaction; seven fast waits saved 224 s. All 42 requests read the prompt cache, 96.9% of the input tokens (1.96 million read, 63,000 uncached, none written).

Of the 2,000 game seconds, build_structure took 544 (9 calls, 52 buildings placed of 53 asked, 10.5 s a building, 60 s a call), market_trade 615, the waits 616, other acting calls 94, and the host's holds about 131 (21 acts without a screenshot request, 5 s each, and top-ups to the 8-second minimum turn). Its 1.5.6 games on this map came to 3.6, 4.0 and 4.7 s a building (host on the Mac, mostly four buildings a call) and its 1.7.3 Oasis game, also on the game machine, to 14.9; the difference mixes version and host.

The interview

Wonder called its result respectable against doing nothing but far behind the person's, and put the gap down to a missed bread chain (it took the lack of farmland to rule out food production and never considered buying wheat to mill and bake), a small town (13 hovels, 24 idle), money spent holding popularity with bought food, hoarded raw materials and no fear factor. Playing again it would build the wheat, flour and bread chain first and test its ratios early, grow housing with jobs, hold popularity with no rations plus inns, a church and a cathedral, use gallows and stocks, build more mines and quarries, sell continuously and drop the crossbow workshops. It praised the reader, find_sites and the atomic tools, asked for production ratios in building_info, a softer reading of "buying lowers net worth" and a find_sites that says why it finds nothing, and said compaction cost it continuity.

Against the game: the 13 hovels, 24 idle, 27 empty places, 4 mines, 3 crossbow workshops, no gallows (efficiency 100%), compaction at 30:10 with 3 min 9 s left, the 8-action limit and building_info without throughput all match, as do the missing ratios in the mechanics reference (mill and bakery are listed with costs and workers only). Four statements do not match, or only partly:

• "find_sites returned nothing from one spot": the iron searches were six, on centres around all four deposits, and the quarry searches six; whether more sites existed is not shown.
• "I kept full rations and bought four kinds of food": rations were extra from 13:34 to 18:59, and four kinds were eaten only from 18:43 (two at 21:15).
• "The framing discouraged the winning move": Sol and Gemini read the same text and bought wheat.
• "Respectable against doing nothing": 1,715 above 5,192, but about 400 above the whole starting package.

It also said it treated idle peasants "mostly as a warning sign"; its reasoning summaries at 17:29 and 22:41 weigh jobs for them, and the four tethers at 22:41 raised population by four. The wheat and bread economics are not testable here: this game traded no wheat.

For the harness

• Compaction. One, at 30:10: the first and only summary request succeeded (outcome stop, 28.5 s, $0.051, 74,228 of the 75,182 prompt tokens from the cache) and the estimate fell from 76,715 to 49,048 of the 120,000 budget. The text-only retry that e0e0eb4 resizes was not exercised. The handoff counted 13 ox tethers; 17 stood (the four placed at 22:41 were left out). Its other counts match.
• Automatic trade. The model made no game_action call at all, so it did not set the marketplace's automatic trade by clicks; all 661 logged clicks fall inside tool calls (market_trade 387, build_structure 234, five other tools 40). building_info says the Marketplace "sets automatic trade"; no tool does.
• market_trade undercounts a sale from 200 in stock. The game sells 50 a click there and the tool expects 20, so the 21:15 stone sale was replied as 40 units and 280 gold and was 70 and 490, and sold more than asked; the reply's stock and gold were right, and the other three sales were not affected.
• Warnings. Three popularity warnings (10:35, 12:26, 13:42) followed the tax rise, and extra rations came after the second. The 30:56 food warning also said it had only waited and read for 3 minutes.
• find_sites. Six of 27 searches came back empty, with the same "nothing fits within 25 tiles" whether the deposit was full or blocked, as the model said. get_inventory at 1:31 returned "unavailable". map_overview listed no tree groves, which is right for the map.
• The game saved correctly at the end ("muse wonder 1-7-3 c2abaf").