Gemini 4 Argon

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: Gemini 4 Argon (google/gemini-4-argon) on OpenRouter, provider Google AI Studio only, reasoning medium, output limit 32,768 tokens
• Benchmark: The Sinkhole construction (no arms), version 1.7.3 (commit e0e0eb4, the relock after a compaction-retry fix that left play and scoring unchanged), from the save the human reference game on this map started from; 45 min of game time at speed 40, the length of the person's game (44 min 58 s); no playbook; waits played fast. Weapons and armour in store count nothing; sold at a marketplace, they bring their gold.
• Run a96fdff0, series 20261019T125812-d8d72e82, 2026-10-19, host on the game machine: Gemini's no-arms game on this map, a fresh series with no memory of its others. Its weapons-counted pair is its 1.7.1 game (run 7a88d5fe, series 20261015T204651-fca746fe, commit 674e7ba, host on a Mac), so the pair differs in version (1.7.2 limited where a blocked placement is retried and kept room beside stockpiles; 1.7.3 fixed a compaction retry) and host as well as in the rule. Its Sinkhole game from an earlier round is run 8a8a6161 (1.6.2). This game counts on the website's leaderboard.

Result

A full-budget score: the run used all 2,700 game seconds. Net worth grew by 17,909 over leaving the game alone, 45.4% of the person's 39,436, against 53.2% in the 1.7.1 game. By the website's formula (80% net worth, 10% each population and popularity; shares from leaving the game alone, 2,195 and 4 people, to the person, 41,631 and 506, the net-worth share clipped to −1..2) the score is 47.1: 36.33 points from net worth, 3.53 from 181 people and 7.20 from popularity 72 (the 1.7.1 game's 52.4 was 42.59, 4.20 and 5.60). Gold is 81.1% of the net worth. The town ended with 23 idle peasants, 29 empty places in its hovels, "downright cruel" taxes (289 gold a month) and full rations.

How the game went

Times are the game clock when a call began, read from the recording (the run clock quoted in observations reads a few seconds later). The game is paused while the model thinks, so game time passed only inside its tool calls.

Mines, quarries and a food gap, 0 to 11 minutes. Two replies of reading tools (map_overview, 15 find_sites) came first. The first build call (0:00, 72 s) placed a marketplace, two hovels and five woodcutters; planks were bought at 1:15 and 3:19. At 1:58 it placed the three quarry sites find_sites offered, with four ox tethers; by 5:36 it had orchards, wheat farms, hovels and five iron mines. It bought no food: the 55 meat was down to 2 by 7:14, rations went to none at 7:16 and popularity fell from 89 to 59 by 8:45. Half rations and two bribes followed; the granary was empty at 10:12 and held 28 bread at 11:18.

Bread, inns and a stockpile hunt, 11 to 28 minutes. Bakeries, hovels, a hops farm, breweries and an inn followed on five woodcutters. From 15:01 eight expand_storage tries for a stockpile each returned "no free ground touches it on any side"; between them it demolished seven buildings: five hovels (18:00 to 26:54), the marketplace (19:24) and a bakery (24:07). The marketplace found no room at its first target when rebuilt (20:01) and went up at the spot the reply named, 9 tiles away, at 20:53. At 27:20 two granaries went down by expand_storage and it dropped the stockpile. The first compaction came at 20:51.

Sales, taxes and religion, 28 to 40 minutes. Extra rations and mean taxes (28:16, 28:22); popularity went from 85 to 55 by 35:09. With the stockpile full at 33:13 it sold iron, stone, flour and iron (31:44 to 34:02): gold went from 3,779 to 10,997. At 35:16 it placed a church, two chapels, two wheat farms, a mill and a brewery (123 s, its longest call), at 38:09 a cathedral (13 tiles from its target) and three wheat farms.

The last five minutes. Double rations (40:52) and extortionate taxes (40:58): popularity, 71 at 41:00, read 86 at 42:39. It sold stone and iron (41:06, 41:25), set "downright cruel" taxes at 42:31, placed five bakeries and, on the far south ore, two mines (42:37) and waited 35 s at 43:50. Food fell from 106 at 42:28 to 28 at 44:26. At 44:27, 33 s from the end, it set rations back to full and ordered four breweries; the deadline stopped that call at 44:58 after one (by the final count of six). Popularity went from 84 at 44:20 to 72.

Each column is the last reading at or before that minute; mines and bakeries count when the placing call returned (one bakery was later demolished). The net worth row counts gold, wood, stone, iron and food (at 4) as the recording logs them; flour, wheat, ale and hops are left out (flour alone was worth 1,050 at 33:13), so it reads low, and the last column is the final reading.

Weapons

It left them alone: no armory, no weapon workshop, no weapon made or sold, no set_workshop call. Its preparation reply stated the rule correctly (weapons and armour in an armory count as 0 until sold for gold). The only weapon-related calls are two read-only find_sites at 28:16, for an Armory and a Blacksmith's Workshop; it built neither. Its reasoning is not readable (29 of its 31 reasoning blocks are empty; the two readable ones, both at 44:27, are about food), and its handoffs, plan and interview answers never mention weapons or armour.

In the 1.7.1 game it built an armory, two fletcher's, three armourer's and two poleturner's workshops (24:07 and 25:37; 700 gold and 125 wood by the placement costs), sold 20 suits of metal armour for 600 gold (41:13) and held 44 pieces at the end (8 crossbows, 21 spears, 7 pikes, 2 bows, 6 suits), worth 786, 3.4% of that game's 23,189; with them at nothing it would be 22,403 (50.8). At sell values the wing returned about 1,390 for about 1,490 put in. This game put 2,300 gold into inns and religion, its iron into selling and holding (24 mines against 19; 393 iron mined against 365, 26 of which that game made into armour) and its 1,573 wood into 150 buildings, none of them a wing.

Beside its other games and the other models

Its three Sinkhole games score 69.4 (1.6.2, 56 bakeries), 52.4 (1.7.1, 57) and 47.1 (31).

Level at 35 minutes, apart after. The full net worth was about 13,400 here at 35:00 and about 13,100 in the 1.7.1 game (600 of it weapons). From there this game added about 6,700, that game about 10,100. Both made about 4,500 in goods in the ten minutes (the change in stock plus what each sold), so the gap of about 3,400 is gold: 2,000 on the church, chapels and cathedral (nothing built for gold there), 1,145 less in taxes (4,440 against 5,585; 145 to 181 people against about 173 to 215, and average taxes for 3.7 of the minutes where that game stayed at mean) and 300 for planks.

What else differs. Both placed 30 hovels; this game demolished five, the whole 40-place gap in housing (210 against 250). Both made 28 build calls, but this one placed 150 buildings (149 reported, one inferred) against 188: its eight-action replies also held 52 non-build actions against 30, most of the 33 fewer placements requested (162 against 195). It had 5 woodcutters until 16:49 (that game 6, then 11 at 20 minutes) and 27 bakeries placed by 40 minutes to that game's 54. Blocked placements were few in both: 7 of 149 went 4 to 13 tiles from their target (a cathedral 13) and 9 were not made (five for no room, four for missing wood), against 11 of 188 moved 1 to 11 tiles and 7 not made. The files do not separate the rule from the version, the host and chance: the weapons are 786 of the 3,085, 1.6 of the 5.3 points.

No-arms games on The Sinkhole in this batch so far:

It is second of eight, 9 net worth behind Sol; the 2.1 points are Sol's popularity of 100 against 72 (2.8) less its smaller population (0.7). The batch differs from the 1.7.1 round in version, rule and host, so the lists do not rank together; there Gemini's 52.4 was first. On the batch's other maps its no-arms games scored 86.2 (Oasis by the Sea; 67.4 weapons counted) and 77.0 (Large Barren Desert; 63.5), so this is its lowest and the only one under its weapons-counted game.

What held it back

• 2,000 gold on religion at 35 to 38 minutes. Church (500, paid 35:34), two chapels (250 each) and cathedral (1,000, paid 38:29) are 4.1 points of the formula's net-worth share; the religion factor read +3 from 39:28, worth 0.3 points of popularity. Its 42:28 handoff said not to build gold-cost buildings with 2.5 minutes left; the cathedral call began at 38:09.
• The stockpile hunt: 189 game seconds (84 in eight failed expand_storage calls, 105 in nine demolish_building calls), 7% of the game and 17 action slots, with five hovels and the marketplace (none from 19:24 to 20:53). The stockpile still read no empty pile at 23:49 and 33:13; the next reply sold goods each time.
• Idle peasants. From 20:51 every reading had 18 to 24 idle and at most 3 open jobs; arrivals stop at 24, reached at 20:51, 23:49, 33:13, 42:28 and 44:26. Population gave 3.53 of 10 points; a filled hovel is worth 0.16.
• Wood. Four placements failed for missing wood (10:20, 18:21 twice, 20:53); the 530 planks bought lost 1,590 of net worth.
• Food and rations at both ends. Food was 8 or less in the readings from 5:34 to 10:12 with none bought. At the end double rations ate faster than 26 to 31 bakeries delivered (granary 148 at 40:51, 28 at 44:26), and popularity fell from 84 at 44:20 to 72, 1.2 points of score, as the double-ration bonus (+8) gave way to full rations with taxes at −16; the files do not show where the granary would have stopped.
• Swings. 12 set_tax and 8 set_rations calls; popularity between 52 and 86 from 20 minutes.

What worked

• Raw goods. 24 mines, 3 quarries and 8 tethers: 393 iron and 432 stone mined (9,039 and 3,024 at sell value, against 365 and 288 in the 1.7.1 game), about 12 iron and 13 stone a minute at the end.
• Selling surplus as the stockpile filled: 10,210 gold from sales, 6,300 of it in the 2:44 from 31:44.
• Reading before acting. 97 find_sites and 13 building_info calls cost no game time, and 149 of the 158 placements answered were placed; all are in the final count of buildings, less the seven demolished.
• Compaction. Both handoffs carried gold, goods, coordinates and open problems, and the next replies acted on them.

Market

Purchases: 530 planks in seven lots (1:15, 3:19, 11:35, 13:19, 22:20, 29:28, 37:34) for 2,120 gold, 1,590 of net worth lost against the sell price; the 11:35 and 29:28 lots stopped at 45 and 60 of 100 ("a purchase did not show in the reader within 5 seconds"). Sales, by the recording: 330 stone (24:28, 33:15, 41:06) for 2,310, 300 iron (31:44, 34:02, 41:25) for 6,900 and 100 flour (33:33) for 1,000: 10,210 gold, against 10,000 by the replies. Selling leaves net worth unchanged; no weapon was sold. The 14 calls took 432 game seconds, 291 of them on planks.

The known 1.7.3 fault (market_trade undercounts sales made with 200 or more in stock) showed once. At 24:28 stone stood at 204; the first click sold 50 (350 gold), and 130 left for 910 gold where the reply said 100 and 700, though its stock (74) and gold (2,260) were right. The other six sales were made from under 200 and match their replies. Net worth is not affected.

It made no game_action call. All 1,147 logged inputs fall inside harness tool calls except seven pause keys the host pressed, and every fall of gold in the recording is a plank purchase, an inn, a religious building or a bribe month, so it set no automatic trade.

Cost and speed

31 turns (30 replies, about 90 game seconds each; the 30th request failed with an Internal Server Error at 44:27 and was retried two seconds later, with the game paused) and 220 tool calls (97 find_sites, 28 build_structure, 26 observe, 14 market_trade, 13 building_info, 12 set_tax, 18 expand_storage and demolitions, 8 set_rations, 4 others): 7.3 calls a reply, against 3.7 in the 1.7.1 game's 59 replies (85 turns, 26 refused). It used 1.55 million tokens and $0.619 billed by OpenRouter (preparation $0.044, play $0.514, compaction $0.060), with 89.9% of input read from the cache; all 34 billed requests went to Google AI Studio. The interview cost $0.024 more. The 1.7.1 game cost $1.447. This run took 51.7 real minutes, 10.3 of them waiting for the model (mean 20.7 s a reply, longest 67.5 s), against 61.2 and 18.8.

Its waits were 35 game seconds in one call at 43:50, fast-forwarded (1,050 ticks in 17.8 real seconds); the wait ordered in the last reply never ran, the build call before it having been stopped by the deadline. Everything else was action: of the 2,700 game seconds the 28 build calls took 1,821, the 14 market calls 432, demolitions 106, expand_storage 103, set_tax 80, set_rations 48, the 26 observations 42 and the wait 35 (34 fell between calls). The build calls placed 150 buildings: 12.1 game seconds each, 5.4 a call. The 1.7.1 game's 28 calls placed 188 in 1,934 s: 10.3 s each, 6.7 a call. That game ran with the host on a Mac and this one on the game machine, and 1.7.2 changed blocked placements, so the step from 10.3 to 12.1 mixes version, host and what each call carried.

The context was compacted twice (20:51 and 42:28, 57 and 55 s), each time on its first request: one billed request returned a text handoff (1,683 and 1,408 tokens) and wrote its checkpoint, so e0e0eb4's text-only retry did not run. The handoffs' figures matched the game (1,072 gold and 24 idle at 20:51; 14,650 gold and 171 of 210 people at 42:28).

The interview

Gemini put its gap to the person down to double and extra rations eating bread it could have sold (the person bought ale for inns and cut rations), a far smaller bread and mining engine (31 bakeries against 161, 24 mines against 38), no fear-factor buildings and hops farms where bought ale would do. Playing again it would put inns and bought ale before rations at none, fill every wheat, mill, bakery, quarry and mine site early, use fear buildings and never let idle peasants reach 24. It called the benchmark one of the best-designed it had met and asked for batches of 12 to 16 placements or a block-building tool. It never mentions weapons.

These match the game: the totals (20,104, 181 people, popularity 72), 31 bakeries, 5 mills, 11 wheat farms, 24 mines and 3 quarries at the end, extra and double rations at +4 and +8 against taxes at −12 and −16, worker efficiency 100%, idle peasants at 24, the 8-action cap. These do not. "~65–75 bread a minute eaten": 64 to 74 is the bakeries' delivery rate (73.7 at 42:28, 63.7 at 44:26); the granary fell 78 in the last 118 s with about 134 delivered, so over 100 a minute was eaten. "31 bakeries": 26 stood from 35:09 to 42:37. "3 quarries on a deposit that could hold 10": find_sites offered three sites at 0:00 and none at 3:19 or 25:35; the person's 10 show more fit than it listed. "24 mines where 38 fit": searches at 29:28 and 31:44 found none and one, and the far ore, listed with 2 sites at 19:24 and 4 at 35:09, got two mines at 42:37. Its ale chain, called functioning, delivered 0.3 to 2 ale a minute with 1 or 2 in store.

For the harness

• Storage boxed in. The remedy for expand_storage sends the model to demolish buildings beside the stockpile; seven demolitions (105 s) did not open a spot, and the files do not show what held it (the keep, the granary, terrain or its own buildings). The 1.7.2 guard for room beside the stockpile never moved a placement here (only one reply carries an access reason, no_open_side), and no stockpile expand_storage succeeded. The 1.7.1 game never tried one.
• market_trade undercounts sales from 200 in stock (the 24:28 stone sale above).
• Two demolish_building calls failed: at 22:09 pixels (580, 760) lay over the bottom panel, and at 27:11 the reply asked it to observe first.
• One provider error, no stalled replies, no forced garbage-collection watchdog collections. The game saved at the end ("gemini 4 argon 1-7-3 a96fdf").