Files
TheLadder/test/fixtures/strategies.js
T
JesseMarkowitzandClaude Opus 5 4cab9fc41e Add promotion to Dispatch, and measure how repetitive a run is
The mailroom is no longer the whole game. Around turn 50, a player who has
built standing and either Marlene's goodwill or the nerve to ask gets offered
the Dispatch post — and can take it, take it and put Trevor up for the mailroom,
or turn it down, which is a real strategy rather than a mistake and comes back
after a cooldown.

Dispatch is eleven events of its own. The money problem is largely solved up
there and replaced by other people's days depending on yours, including the
mailroom's — which you used to be. Trevor branches on whether you recommended
him: he either runs the mailroom and has opinions about how it used to be run,
or he stays put and starts addressing you by your full title, kindly, in front
of people.

None of this is a promotion mechanic in the engine. It is
`{ path: 'stage', op: 'set', value: 'dispatch' }` on an option, since `stage`
was already how events are filtered. The reserved-write rule now allows it
narrowly — `set` only, and only to a stage that has events, both checked by the
validator, so a typo cannot strand the player in an empty pool. Wages differ by
rank through two upkeep entries gated on `stage`. The hard-times events dropped
their stage entirely: rent is due wherever you work.

The second half of this is the thing the last playtest asked for. A 183-turn
session, and no way to see how much of it was new ground.

`npm run analyze <exported-log.json>` now reports turns against distinct
situations, how often each recurred, which options were most used, which locked
gates players kept meeting, and anything they typed. The retrospective shows the
player-facing version.

It found a regression in this very change on its first run. Dispatch started
with eight events against the mailroom's nineteen, so its two floor events were
46% of every promoted run — one every three turns. Promotion was moving the
player into *thinner* content. Three more events and a weight rebalance took the
top two to 24.5%, and the heaviest recurrence from every ~3 turns to every ~5.
A test now holds that line.

Also corrected: the coverage test was asking whether an archetype ever *took* an
option, which is a property of the bot, not the pack. It had flagged
`rent_bounced.ask_trevor` as dead content when it had been offered, unlocked,
419 times across a sweep and simply never chosen. Options are now checked on
availability; events are still checked on firing.

114 tests. Reasoning in docs/DECISIONS.md §22-24.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VMSFHyVPitUoosW5wyEADj
2026-09-10 05:05:01 -04:00

95 lines
3.8 KiB
JavaScript

// Player archetypes for content probing.
//
// "Is this content reachable?" is not the same question as "does random play
// reach it?" — a random player is not a plausible player, and several things
// in a pack exist precisely for a player pursuing something. Coverage is
// therefore the union across archetypes, and each one is a rough caricature of
// a way somebody actually plays.
//
// NOTE: seed the chooser differently from the game. Both draw one number per
// turn from the same generator, so a shared seed correlates the choice with
// the event draw and silently makes combinations unreachable.
import { startGame, currentTurn, takeTurn } from '../../src/engine/game.js';
import { createRng } from '../../src/engine/rng.js';
const moneyGain = (resolved) => (resolved.option.effects ?? [])
.filter((e) => e.path === 'money' && e.op === 'add')
.reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
const relationshipGain = (resolved) => (resolved.option.effects ?? [])
.filter((e) => e.path.startsWith('relationships.'))
.reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
const best = (options, score) => [...options].sort((a, b) => score(b) - score(a))[0];
export const strategies = {
/** No plan at all. */
random: (options, rng) => rng.pick(options),
/** Takes the money every time. */
thrifty: (options) => best(options, moneyGain),
/** Spends it every time. */
spendthrift: (options) => best(options, (o) => -moneyGain(o)),
/** Chases standing with people. */
sociable: (options) => best(options, relationshipGain),
/**
* Broke but well-liked — the state the "ask a friend for money" options were
* written for, and one no single-axis strategy ever reaches.
*/
desperate: (options, rng) => (rng.next() < 0.25
? rng.pick(options)
: best(options, (o) => relationshipGain(o) - moneyGain(o) / 40)),
};
/** Play one run to `turns`, calling `visit` before each choice. */
export function play(pack, { strategy = 'random', seed = 'run', turns = 200, visit } = {}) {
const choose = strategies[strategy];
const rng = createRng(`chooser-${strategy}-${seed}`);
let state = startGame(pack, { seed: `game-${strategy}-${seed}` });
for (let t = 0; t < turns; t++) {
const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
const available = turn.options.filter((o) => o.available);
if (available.length === 0) throw new Error(`no available option on "${turn.event.id}"`);
const chosen = choose(available, rng);
visit?.({ turn, state, chosen });
state = takeTurn(pack, state, chosen.option.id).state;
}
return state;
}
/** Play every archetype across several seeds, reporting what was reached. */
export function sweep(pack, { seeds = 12, turns = 200 } = {}) {
const firedEvents = new Set();
const takenOptions = new Set();
// What a player *could* have picked. This, not what a bot happened to pick,
// is what "is this content reachable" means — a real player chooses freely,
// and an archetype's preferences are an artefact of the harness.
const offeredOptions = new Set();
const byStrategy = {};
for (const strategy of Object.keys(strategies)) {
const finals = [];
for (let seed = 0; seed < seeds; seed++) {
const state = play(pack, {
strategy,
seed,
turns,
visit: ({ turn, chosen }) => {
firedEvents.add(turn.event.id);
takenOptions.add(`${turn.event.id}.${chosen.option.id}`);
for (const resolved of turn.options) {
if (resolved.available) offeredOptions.add(`${turn.event.id}.${resolved.option.id}`);
}
},
});
finals.push(state);
}
byStrategy[strategy] = finals;
}
return { firedEvents, takenOptions, offeredOptions, byStrategy };
}
export const median = (values) =>
[...values].sort((a, b) => a - b)[Math.floor(values.length / 2)];