diff --git a/WORK-RECORDS.md b/WORK-RECORDS.md index 56a4b0d..083deb1 100644 --- a/WORK-RECORDS.md +++ b/WORK-RECORDS.md @@ -9,11 +9,10 @@ | Kind | ID | Status | Lane | Source | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | workplan | GROUND-WP-0001 | done | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0001-statehub-bootstrap.md | -| workplan | GROUND-WP-0002-REPORT-260805 | informational | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0002-clay-borg-report-260805.md | | 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 | active | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0005-difficulty-tiers-and-pressure-dial.md | +| workplan | GROUND-WP-0005 | backlog | — | 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 | | task | GROUND-WP-0001-T03 | done | — | workplans/GROUND-WP-0001-statehub-bootstrap.md | diff --git a/workplans/GROUND-WP-0002-clay-borg-report-260805.md b/workplans/GROUND-WP-0002-clay-borg-report-260805.md index ae80070..bd04d73 100644 --- a/workplans/GROUND-WP-0002-clay-borg-report-260805.md +++ b/workplans/GROUND-WP-0002-clay-borg-report-260805.md @@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ owner: bernd topic_slug: whynot created: "2026-08-05" extends: GROUND-WP-0002 -state_hub_workstream_id: "09350395-f628-4d8e-8c36-3cea330a8b6f" --- # clay-borg finding report — 2026-08-05 diff --git a/workplans/GROUND-WP-0005-clay-borg-difficulty-260805.md b/workplans/GROUND-WP-0005-clay-borg-difficulty-260805.md deleted file mode 100644 index 5788aac..0000000 --- a/workplans/GROUND-WP-0005-clay-borg-difficulty-260805.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,131 +0,0 @@ ---- -id: GROUND-WP-0005-REPORT-260805 -type: report -title: "clay-borg difficulty measurement, 2026-08-05 — and a retraction of what we nearly sent instead" -domain: consumer -repo: ground-game -status: informational -owner: bernd -topic_slug: whynot -created: "2026-08-05" -extends: GROUND-WP-0005 ---- - -# clay-borg difficulty report — 2026-08-05 - -GROUND-WP-0005 (*difficulty tiers and the Pressure dial*) has both tasks -in `wait`, blocked on a measured baseline. This is that baseline, with its -limits stated. - -Generated by `make difficulty` -(`games/ground/examples/difficulty.rs`), governed by -`clay-borg/specs/RetrospectiveAnalysis.md` §4, under -[CB-WP-0025](../../clay-borg/workplans/CB-WP-0025-could-we-have-won.md) T06. - ---- - -## 0. First, what we nearly sent you and did not - -**Earlier today this report was going to say: "a greedy bot wins 200 of -200 games at five and six seats — the game is too easy there."** - -It would have invited you to move thresholds. **It was wrong**, and an -adversarial review caught it before it left our repo. - -A `FirstLegal` policy — take the first legal command, no heuristic -whatsoever — scores **0%** at five and six seats on the identical deals -where `GreedyPolicy` scores **100%**. At two seats it *beats* greedy -(76.7% vs 60.0%). - -**Two unsophisticated agents span the entire range.** A single policy's -win rate is therefore a statement about the policy, not about GROUND, and -we have written that into our spec as a prohibition rather than a -preference. - -This is the fifth claim we would have sent you on a wrong premise. It is -the second stopped before sending. - -## 1. The measurement - -`make difficulty`, 60 seeds per cell: - -| seats | winnable | greedy | random | first-legal | spread | undecided | -|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:| -| 2 | **60%** | 60.0% | 5.0% | 76.7% | 71.7 | 0 | -| 3 | **93%** | 88.3% | 6.7% | 25.0% | 81.7 | 2 | -| 4 | **100%** | 93.3% | 6.7% | 30.0% | 86.7 | 4 | -| 5 | **100%** | 100.0% | 3.3% | 0.0% | 100.0 | 0 | -| 6 | **100%** | 100.0% | 3.3% | 0.0% | 100.0 | 0 | - -**`winnable`** is the column that is not about a bot. It is the fraction -of deals in which an **exhaustive search finds a winning line in the final -round**. The other three columns are what named policies actually achieve, -and **`spread`** is the range between them. - -## 2. How to read it, including what it is not - -**Read `spread` first.** It ranges from 71.7 to 100.0 percentage points. -Wherever it is large — everywhere — **no single policy's rate tells you -anything about the game.** That is the finding behind §0. - -**`winnable` is conditioned on greedy's play up to the final round.** It -is *"winnable from where greedy got to"*, not a property of the deal -alone. A genuinely policy-free figure would search from round 1, which we -measured as unaffordable: our search exceeded 2×10⁶ nodes at **two** seats -over two rounds. We are telling you this rather than presenting the number -as cleaner than it is. - -**It is a lower bound.** A one-round search cannot see a line that needed -an earlier round, so the true winnable fraction is **at least** these -figures. - -**`undecided` deals are excluded, not counted as losses.** Those are deals -whose search hit the node budget. Folding *"we stopped looking"* into -*"not winnable"* is the collapse our spec forbids. - -## 3. What we think this supports, offered as reading not as ruling - -**The rules are yours. This is what the numbers appear to say.** - -- **Two seats is the tight configuration.** 60% winnable in the final - round, and every policy struggles. If any seat count is under-tuned for - *difficulty*, the evidence does not point here. -- **Four seats and up: every deal we sampled was still winnable in the - final round.** 100% at 4, 5 and 6 seats. That is compatible with "too - generous at high seat counts" — but it is **not** the claim we withdrew - in §0, because it is a statement about deal winnability rather than - about a bot's success. -- **The 5–6 seat rows deserve the most suspicion.** `first-legal` scores - 0% there while `greedy` scores 100%, which is the widest spread in the - table. Something about those configurations makes play matter *more*, - not less — the opposite of "too easy" — and we do not yet understand it. - -**We are not proposing threshold changes.** The measurement's confound -(§2) is large enough that we would rather you saw it than acted on it. - -## 4. What would make this a better instrument - -- **Search from round 1** rather than the last round, which removes the - greedy confound entirely. Needs transposition or move-ordering; we have - neither. -- **A resolution figure** — the smallest threshold change the measurement - can distinguish, with its N. Our spec requires it and we cannot yet - supply it. -- **Your Pressure dial**, if it lands, gives a second axis to measure - against and would make the table two-dimensional. - -## 5. Reproduction - -Per GROUND-WP-0004 T02, arithmetic findings cite their reproduction by -path: - -``` -clay-borg$ make difficulty # the table above -clay-borg$ make self-tests # includes the difficulty controls -``` - -Controls, so the figure can fail rather than merely print: a witness must -replay to a win; an unwinnable position must be reported as **searched -out** rather than as a budget cut; a budget of one node must not claim -exhaustion; and the policy panel must actually disagree, or reporting -three policies would be ceremony.