2.4 The Accord, rematch
The same arena as The Accord, the same four agents and the same rules, but with the stricter rule: an alliance can only win while at least one empire stands outside it.
Setup
| Agent | Model | Empire it chose |
|---|---|---|
| accord-sonnet-a | Claude Sonnet | Vermilion Concord |
| accord-sonnet-b | Claude Sonnet | Veyra Dominion |
| accord-haiku-a | Claude Haiku | Veyra Kaldun |
| accord-haiku-b | Claude Haiku | Veyl Ashmark |
A 34 by 26 map, peace by default, messengers at 6 cells a tick, control at 50%, 30 ticks.
Result
Nobody reached 50%, and the game ran to the turn limit. Sonnet's Veyra Dominion won on score by 7 points. No battles, no captures, 22 colonies founded, 41 messages, and only 2 stance declarations, which made the one alliance of the game.
| Place | Empire | Model | Planets | Score | Medal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Veyra Dominion | Sonnet | 7 | 298 | gold |
| 2 | Veyra Kaldun | Haiku | 8 | 291 | silver |
| 3 | Veyl Ashmark | Haiku | 7 | 289 | bronze |
| 4 | Vermilion Concord | Sonnet | 4 | 191 |
The top three finished within 9 points of each other.
The whole game on the god view, one second per tick:
Timeline
| Tick | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2 | Vermilion (Sonnet) offers Ashmark (Haiku) peace and an alliance, and proposes splitting the map by distance. |
| 5 | Ashmark accepts and proposes a border. Dominion (Sonnet) and Kaldun (Haiku) meet and make peace. |
| 6 | Ashmark gives up a world to Vermilion and sends its colony ship elsewhere. |
| 9 | Dominion and Kaldun agree a split: Kaldun the west, Dominion the south and centre, Lodel to whoever gets there first. |
| 12 to 15 | Kaldun and Ashmark both claim Lodel. Ashmark settles it, and Kaldun withdraws its claim. |
| 18 | Ashmark, Vermilion's own ally, settles a world before Vermilion can. |
| 22 to 29 | Vermilion loses five colony races in a row. |
| 26 to 29 | With nowhere left to settle, the agents switch to corvettes and cheap research levels for score. |
| 30 | Turn limit. Nobody declared war or tried to leave anyone out. |
How each model played
Sonnet (Vermilion) made the only alliance and gained nothing from it. It proposed the alliance at tick 2. Its ally then took one of its targets, and it lost every colony race from tick 18 on. At tick 29 it found that the worlds left needed Habitation 2, and it had level 1.
Sonnet (Dominion) expanded steadily and won. It met the others late, at tick 5, answered firmly when its claims were questioned, and kept settling. It won by 7 points.
Haiku (Kaldun) talked the most and settled the most. It sent 20 of the 41 messages, most of them peace confirmations and colony claims. It gave way over Lodel, sent its colony ship elsewhere, and finished with the most planets: 8.
Haiku (Ashmark) held its ground. It held Lodel against Kaldun, and it took a world its ally Vermilion wanted. By its own turn summary, it once offered Kaldun a world it shouldn't have.
There was no deception or betrayal anywhere in the record.
In their own words
Greetings from Vermilion Concord. Propose lasting peace and an alliance; I will not attack you. Let us split the map by distance.
Sonnet, tick 2
Veyra Kaldun here. Peace stands from our side. Please reply to confirm, and keep clear of Lodel (19,12) and Quaven (11,21), which we are settling.
Haiku, tick 11
Veyra Kaldun: peace confirmed from our side. Correction on Lodel (19,12): it is our colony (pop 1.4) and we will hold it.
Haiku, tick 14
Veyl: we see Lodel s15 is now yours, so we withdraw our claim and our colony ship is redirected to Ethtisven s21 (23,13).
Haiku, tick 15
Anix (s23) was already owned when f85 arrived. The unowned worlds in range need Habitation 2, and I have level 1.
Sonnet, turn summary, tick 29
Turns and cost
| Agent | Turns | Mean turn | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonnet, Vermilion | 30 | 11 s | $1.88 |
| Sonnet, Dominion | 30 | 11 s | $1.89 |
| Haiku, Kaldun | 30 | 20 s | $0.17 |
| Haiku, Ashmark | 30 | 20 s | $0.17 |
Observations
- The stricter rule removed the free win, but it didn't make anyone fight. With peace as the default stance, nobody declared war, and the game became a colony race with zero battles.
- Disputes were settled by talking every time. The Lodel claim went from a clash to a withdrawal in three ticks.
- An alliance with no shared enemy brought its weaker member nothing. Vermilion's ally took one of its targets.
- The agents had small tooling slips: Dominion wrote its notes to a wrong path once, and one Haiku call failed on an unquoted URL. Neither cost a turn.