clay-borg report 2026-08-07: GR-E03/GR-E04 played to the end, and what ATTACK is worth

Closes GROUND-WP-0002 T04's open item. Both modes now play through, and
the reason they never had is clay-borg's: cb-play built every game as
SHARED GROUND and passed an empty setup patch, so two of the three shipped
modes were unreachable from the driver. Nothing about the modes was wrong.

All three produce different winners from identical play -- shared gives
all four seats, common gives the top personal scorer, coalitions gives the
best Bond network.

And they answer a question raised from play on 2026-08-06 that could not
be sent then for want of an artifact. Varying exactly one number --
ATTACK's rank in an otherwise identical policy, 200 games per cell --
ATTACK earns its place in NO mode: free but pointless in co-op, a cost at
six seats in semi-co-op, and roughly halving your chance of being among
the winners in coalitions.

The coalitions result has a mechanism the data confirms unprompted:
GR-A07 flips a Bond to a Rivalry, GR-E04 scores Bond networks, so
attacking destroys what scores -- and the attacking numbers in E04 are
IDENTICAL to E03's, which is what that predicts, since breaking every Bond
makes each seat a coalition of one.

Consequence: nobody who plays well attacks, so Stress never rises and
DARVO never arms -- zero times in 500 competent games. The report does not
call that a defect. DARVO is the pattern the game is about not falling
into, so a self-destructive ATTACK may be the design. The question put to
this repo is only whether the namesake mechanic being unreachable in
competent play, in all three modes, is intended.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

WORK-RECORDS.md

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 | workplan | GROUND-WP-0002 | finished | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0002-rulings-clay-borg-is-blocked-on.md |
 | workplan | GROUND-WP-0003 | ready | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0003-playtest-semi-and-coalitions.md |
 | workplan | GROUND-WP-0004 | finished | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0004-the-threshold-ruling-rests-on-a-bad-premise.md |
+| workplan | GROUND-WP-0005-REPORT-260805 | informational | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0005-clay-borg-difficulty-260805.md |
 | workplan | GROUND-WP-0005 | active | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0005-difficulty-tiers-and-pressure-dial.md |
 | task | GROUND-WP-0001-T01 | done | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0001-statehub-bootstrap.md |
 | task | GROUND-WP-0001-T02 | done | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0001-statehub-bootstrap.md |

workplans/GROUND-WP-0003-clay-borg-attack-and-modes-260807.md

@@ -0,0 +1,109 @@
+---
+id: GROUND-WP-0003-REPORT-260807
+type: report
+title: "clay-borg: GR-E03 and GR-E04 played to the end, and what ATTACK is worth in each"
+domain: consumer
+repo: ground-game
+status: informational
+owner: bernd
+topic_slug: whynot
+created: "2026-08-07"
+extends: GROUND-WP-0003
+---
+
+# GR-E03 and GR-E04 have been played to the end
+
+GROUND-WP-0002 T04 recorded that both scoring modes were implemented and
+neither had ever been played through. That is now done, and it produced an
+answer to a second question we raised on 2026-08-06.
+
+Reproduction: `clay-borg$ cargo run --release -p games-ground --example attack-value`
+(800 games per mode). Under
+[CB-WP-0029](../../clay-borg/workplans/CB-WP-0029-the-tokens-on-the-table.md).
+
+---
+
+## 0. Why they were unplayed, which was our fault
+
+`cb-play` built **every** game as SHARED GROUND and passed an empty setup
+patch. The mode was settable in scenario files and **not from the driver**,
+so two of your three shipped modes were unreachable from the only way
+anyone actually plays. Nothing about the modes was wrong; we simply had no
+way to select them.
+
+Fixed. Reporting it because *"we never played them"* and *"we could not
+play them"* are different statements, and the second is the true one.
+
+## 1. All three modes work, and they disagree
+
+Same game, same 37 commands, seed 1, four players:
+
+| mode | winners |
+|---|---|
+| SHARED GROUND (GR-E02) | P1, P2, P3, P4 — mastery 4 |
+| COMMON PROBLEM (GR-E03) | **P3** — the top personal scorer |
+| BONDED COALITIONS (GR-E04) | **P1, P2** — the best Bond network, 4 > 3 > 2 |
+
+The modes produce three different answers from identical play, which is
+what they should do.
+
+## 2. What ATTACK is worth — asked in all three
+
+On 2026-08-06 we raised, from play, *"there is no incentive to play
+attacks as long as I have positive cards."* We could not send it then: it
+had no artifact, and our own bot ranks ATTACK below everything, so its
+zero attacks measured **our heuristic**, not your game.
+
+The artifact varies **exactly one number** — ATTACK's rank in an otherwise
+identical policy — and asks in every mode. 200 games per cell.
+*"Won"* is group success in co-op, and *"is seat 0 among the winners"* in
+the other two, since ATTACK is an individual's choice.
+
+| mode | never attack | attack when convenient | attack always |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| SHARED GROUND | 132 / 165 / 190 / 200 | **identical** | 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 |
+| COMMON PROBLEM | 59 / 52 / 48 / 44 | 59 / 52 / 48 / **34** | 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 |
+| BONDED COALITIONS | 131 / 134 / 132 / 116 | **59 / 52 / 48 / 34** | 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 |
+
+*(2, 3, 4 and 6 seats)*
+
+**ATTACK earns its place in none of them.**
+
+- **Co-op:** attacking is *free* — identical win counts — and also
+  pointless. Group success depends on SOLVE alone; ATTACK's effects
+  (Stress, Rivalry, DARVO) feed nothing that decides it.
+- **Semi-co-op:** a modest cost at six seats.
+- **Coalitions:** roughly **halves** your chance of being among the
+  winners.
+
+## 3. The coalitions result has a mechanism, and the data confirms it
+
+GR-A07 flips a Bond to a Rivalry on Attack. GR-E04 scores Bond
+**networks**. So attacking destroys the thing that scores.
+
+The confirmation was not designed and fell out: **the attacking numbers in
+GR-E04 are identical to GR-E03's** — 59 / 52 / 48 / 34 in both. That is
+exactly what the mechanism predicts. Break every Bond and each seat
+becomes a coalition of one, so **GR-E04 degenerates into GR-E03.**
+
+## 4. The consequence we think is worth your attention
+
+Because nobody who plays well attacks, **Stress never rises, and DARVO
+never arms.** In 500 competent games it fired zero times. The full
+sequence — DENY, ATTACK, REVERSE, the Focus/Blame flip, the Protection
+interaction — is reachable only by playing badly.
+
+**We are not saying this is a defect.** DARVO is the pattern the game is
+*about* not falling into, and a self-destructive ATTACK may be exactly the
+design — the mechanic as a cautionary structure rather than a strategy.
+
+**The question is narrower than that, and it is yours:** is it intended
+that the namesake mechanic is unreachable in competent play, in **all
+three** modes? If yes, nothing here needs changing and we will record it.
+If no, the lever is that ATTACK has no path to any scoring outcome.
+
+## 5. Standing offer
+
+We can now run any mode at any seat count over any seed range, and vary a
+single policy parameter to isolate a mechanic's value. If there is a
+question of the form *"does X ever pay?"*, it is cheap for us to answer.

workplans/GROUND-WP-0005-clay-borg-difficulty-260805.md

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ owner: bernd
 topic_slug: whynot
 created: "2026-08-05"
 extends: GROUND-WP-0005
+state_hub_workstream_id: "61cabf31-88a8-4ca6-9383-55b8fccddecf"
 ---
 
 # clay-borg difficulty report — 2026-08-05