dojo_cate/agents/plans/2026-09-25-dojo-board-and-sim.md

Il Labirinto del Dojo — board format, rules engine, simulator

Goal and scope

A small tabletop game (1–2 h, target 4 players, playable 3–8), gifted to a friend. Logic and balance first; graphics and cosmetics are out of scope for now.

Deliverables:

1. RULES.md — the rulebook (English while iterating; Italian final edition produced separately).
2. A text-based board format, with parser, full-board generator and validator.
3. A first playable board.
4. A rules engine + bots + Monte Carlo simulator to validate balance and pacing, and in particular to choose between rule variants A and B (B dropped, D28; now the Final Exam options, D29).

Decisions log

#	Decision	Why
D1	Kumite loser loses 1 belt (−3), never below 0	Developer requirement.
D2	"Punching up": belts change only on equal-belt fights or upsets	Prevents leader farming weak players; built-in catch-up.
D3	Kumite: 1d6 each, higher belt +1 per belt of gap, capped at +2	Uncapped d6 bonus made fights predetermined (gap 5 = 100%).
D4	Senshu rule: ties go to the attacker	WKF-inspired, one rule without exceptions, makes attacking slightly favourable so fights happen.
D5	Kumite triggers on crossing (entering an occupied square), always forced; winning attacker continues moving; chains allowed	Developer requirement; route choice gives the agency.
D6	Kumite loser is sent to own Start (corner Safe Room)	Developer requirement.
D7	Corner Safe Rooms: 3×3, 2 exits, no Kumite/effects/targeting, stacking allowed	Prevents spawn camping / spawn lock.
D8	Movement 2d6, exact count, orthogonal, no re-entering a square in the same move	Developer requirement + clarity.
D9	Most squares carry an effect from a small vocabulary (7 codes); ~30–40% Tatami	Developer requirement; limits reading load and analysis paralysis.
D10	Effects trigger only when stopping on a square (except Fatica since D36)	Avoids multiple triggers per move.
D11	Nebbia works like Monopoly Chance: the square stays active	Developer requirement.
D12	Progress track 0–17, 3 stripes per belt; squares ±1, Kumite ±3	Fine-grained board income without breaking pacing. Physical tracking method decided later.
D13	Nebbia deck is mostly movement/interaction/Tecniche, very few flat stripes	Prevents "stripe farming" that would make players avoid fights.
D14	Tecnica cards: hold max 1, played after dice, attacker first	Converts Nebbia luck into a reason to fight.
D15	Passo Falso returns to the start of the current move; skip-turn allowed only if rare (1 card)	Developer requirement.
D16	Tunnel: when stopping on it you may teleport; movement is over; occupied exit starts a Kumite	Developer confirmed.
D17	Meditazione: pass-through; ending on it forces one extra step	Developer rule.
D18	Central Dojo is one logical space, several entrances, Brown only, no exact count to enter	Avoids end-game "need exactly a 3" frustration.
D19	Final Exam: highest opponent defends; challenger wins → game; challenger loses → −3 and Start; defender gains nothing	Avoids the top-two flip-flop. Brown's extra stripes protect against the board, not the exam.
D20	Two rule variants to be decided by simulation: A (no Brown cap, higher-beats-lower 0) vs B (squares/cards cannot move 14→15, higher-beats-lower +1)	Neither is clearly better a priori. Superseded by D28.
D21	Board 16×16, 4×4 Dojo in the centre, authored as one 8×8 quadrant rotated 3× (C4 symmetry)	Fairness by construction. Small asymmetries may be wanted later (see Q2).
D22	Tooling in Python, environment managed with uv	Developer choice.
D23	Rules drafted in English; Italian final edition generated separately	Developer choice.
D24	Board format: see board/FORMAT.md. Tunnel pairing across quadrants via quadrant_offset in board/legend.toml (cell a in quadrant k ↔ cell b in quadrant k+o)	Every tunnel cell keeps exactly one partner under rotation.
D25	Only the Tunnel square is optional. Sfida (square and card), Irimi and Tunnel Segreto are mandatory; every Nebbia card must be resolved	Sfida prevents stalling; Nebbia cards are chances that can also turn out badly.
D26	Tecnica cards are secret: drawn face down, others only know whether you hold one, a replaced Tecnica is discarded face down, revealed only when played	Hidden information and bluffing. Bots must not see opponents' Tecnica identity (Phase 4).
D27	Edge rules (RULES.md v0.5, inline + FAQ): boxed-in → move as far as possible (safeguard; boards have no dead ends); Uke-saved attacker stops on its previous square, turn ends, no square effect; extra-step rule for ending on any unfightable pawn; tunnel exits with a meditating pawn unusable; meditating players cannot defend the Exam; Tecnica window after both dice, attacker first; relocations never fight or trigger squares; Tsugi-ashi has its own origin; becoming Brown mid-move opens the Dojo	Developer confirmed all ten.
D28	Variant B dropped (developer, after the Phase 5 baseline): no Brown cap; a higher belt beating a lower one gains nothing. Removed from engine, bots, simulator, RULES.md (v0.6)	B made games shorter (13 vs 18 rounds) instead of adding an endgame challenge; the cap barely bit and the +1 applied to every such win. Too complex for what it gave.
D29	Final Exam options under test: a ties go to the defender; c the defender fights as a Black belt (defender +1 vs a Brown challenger); d best of 3. Combinable (--exam ac). Option b (no belt bonus in the Exam) not pursued. Developer favours c	Baseline pass rate ~80%: the defender is usually 1–2 belts below the Brown challenger, who also gets Senshu.
D30	Simulator reporting: income per source as gains and losses separately (Kumite is zero-sum, so its net hid the flow); standings sampled at the end of every turn; ten one-sidedness measures (see 5.4)	Developer request after the Phase 5 baseline.
D31	Final Exam rule: the defender fights as a Black belt (option c; RULES.md v0.7). Options a (ties to the defender) and d (best of 3) stay as simulator switches only; --exam lists the options in force and defaults to c	c gave a 44% pass rate, more distinct challengers (1.58/game) and closer endings; d alone raised the pass rate to 91%.
D32	Phase 6 targets confirmed by the developer as a starting point (table in Phase 6)	Q5.
D33	Fatica fix: test option 2 first — a chance square (stop on it, roll 1d6: 1–2 lose a stripe, 3–6 gain one) replacing Fatica and some Allenamento; then option 1 must also be tested — Fatica costs a stripe when walked through as well as when stopped on (breaks D10 for that square only). Options 3 (fewer paths: board rework) and 4 (fewer / once-per-room Allenamento) kept in reserve. The casual bot (6.0.1) is built regardless	Q6. Any on-stop penalty is avoidable when a move reaches ~24 end squares; the chance outcome cannot be dodged. Developer likes 1 and 2.
D34	The "games finished within 200 rounds: 100%" target does not apply to the random lineup (it is a floor, not a player: 94% finished, 115 rounds on average)	6.1 review.
D35	No Kumite in round 1: opponents are treated like meditating pawns (pass through, extra step if the move would end on one, no Tunnel exit onto them, Sfida has no target; Irimi still works). RulesConfig.first_kumite_round = 2. RULES.md v0.8	6.1 review, finding 3: later seats find opponents already outside their Safe Rooms and early equal-belt Kumite are nearly free.
D36	Fatica on crossing is the baseline: every Fatica square stepped onto while walking costs 1 stripe (last step and Meditazione extra step included, before any Kumite on it); stopping adds nothing; teleports and relocations cost nothing. RulesConfig.fatica_on_crossing = True. Supersedes the order in D33 (the chance square, option 2, remains a candidate). Paths to the same end square are offered separately when they cross Fatica differently. RULES.md v0.8	6.1 review, finding 4.
D37	Out of contention = more than 3 belts (9 stripes) behind the leader (metrics.CONTENTION_BELTS); the targets (≤ 20% of player-turns, worst player ≤ 35%) now apply to this threshold	6.1 review, finding 1: one Kumite swings two players 6 stripes apart, so 2 belts was too strict.
D38	Catch-up: only candidate A (Allenamento gives +2 instead of +1 to a player 2+ belts behind the leader) is to be simulated. Rejected: bounty on the leader, belt bonus capped at +1, more Sensei Osserva	6.1 review, finding 1.
D39	Game length is tuned last; target stays a mean of 60–90 minutes at 4 players	6.1 review, finding 2.
D40	Bots stay as they are for Phase 6 (casual included, although much weaker than the heuristic bots)	Q7.
D41	Phase 6 order: board and Fatica (6.4 with 6.5) → seat order (6.2) → catch-up (6.9) → style dynamics (6.3) → Kiai (6.6), player counts (6.7), length → consolidation (6.8). Structural fixes before tuning	6.1 review.
D42	Board draft 2 adopted as board/quadrant.txt (board/board.txt regenerated; draft 1 is in git history, commit 4998931)	6.4.0 results.
D43	6.2 seat order suspended: measuring it needs 4,000+ games per scenario for an effect of a few points; D35 (no Kumite in round 1) stays in the rules. Seat rates are still reported by every run and watched in 6.8	Developer, after the 4,000-game runs were started.

Phases

Phase 0 — Rules consolidation

• 0.1 Write RULES.md v0.4 with variants A/B marked.
• 0.2 RULES.md v0.5: mandatory effects, Tecnica secrecy, edge rules and FAQ (D25–D27).

Phase 1 — Project scaffold and board format

• 1.1 uv init project (package dojo), Python version pinned via uv; dev deps: pytest, ruff. No runtime deps (legend in TOML, parsed with stdlib tomllib).
• 1.2 board/FORMAT.md — the format specification:
  • ASCII grid: + corners, | vertical walls, --- horizontal walls, 3-char cells with a centred code.
  • Cell codes: S safe room, D dojo, . A F ? P K (Allenamento/Fatica were +/-, changed so no code looks like a wall), digits = tunnel pair ids.
  • Outer border must be fully walled.
  • Dojo entrance = open edge between a D cell and a non-D cell.
  • Cross-quadrant tunnel links declared in board/legend.toml.
• 1.3 Parser: quadrant.txt → cell grid + wall set.
• 1.4 Generator: rotate the quadrant 90°/180°/270° around the board centre → full 16×16 model; write board/board.txt (generated, never hand-edited).
• 1.5 Graph model: cells as nodes, open edges as links. The Dojo is handled as one cell set (impassable, entrances = open D/non-D edges); treating it as a single space for movement lands in the rules engine (3.3).
• 1.6 Validator:
  • every non-Dojo square reachable from every Safe Room;
  • each Safe Room has exactly 2 exits, on different sides;
  • no Safe Room lies on a shortest path between two other points (not a shortcut);
  • every tunnel id has exactly one partner;
  • Dojo has ≥1 entrance per quadrant;
  • report: square-type mix and Tatami %, shortest distance from each start to the Dojo.
• 1.7 CLI: uv run dojo board validate, uv run dojo board render.
• 1.8 Unit tests for parser, rotation, validator.

Phase 2 — First board

• 2.1 Draft the first quadrant (board/quadrant.txt), following D7, D9, D18.
• 2.2 Validate and iterate until clean.
• 2.3 Developer review of the layout (approved as draft 1).

Phase 3 — Rules engine

• 3.1 Game state: pawns, track positions, hands, deck/discard, meditation status, turn order.
• 3.2 Rule configuration object: variant A/B, Kiai value, stripes per belt, starting position, player count.
• 3.3 Movement enumeration: all legal exact-length self-avoiding walks, with Kumite on crossing, chain continuation, Dojo entry with ≥1 step left, Meditazione extra step.
• 3.4 Kumite resolution: gap bonus cap, Senshu, Tecnica timing, consequences table per variant, Uke placement.
• 3.5 Square effects and Nebbia cards (all 13 card types).
• 3.6 Final Exam.
• 3.7 Unit tests covering every edge rule in RULES.md (tests/test_engine.py, tests/test_movement.py; mutation-checked: breaking Senshu, bonus cap, chain continuation, Meditazione step, variant B cap, Safe Room or meditator immunity each fails tests).
• Code: src/dojo/rules.py (config, variants, deck), movement.py (walks), engine.py (Game, Agent protocol, Randomness), events.py (event log for metrics).

Phase 4 — Bots

• 4.0 Hidden information: agents receive a GameView snapshot (Game.view(player)), never the Game: opponents' Tecnica shows only as holds_tecnica; the event log (which records CardDrawn) is not visible to agents (D26).
• 4.1 Random bot (baseline): RandomAgent(rng) in src/dojo/bots.py.
• 4.2 Heuristic bot: HeuristicAgent(profile). Value = track position; once Brown, plus DOJO_PULL (0.3) per step closer to the Dojo. Scores each offered path as the expected value change over the chain of Kumite (exact 1d6-vs-1d6 odds with belt bonus and Senshu, ±0.1 per Tecnica held), then the stop square's effect (Nebbia worth 0.2, Sfida = best target, Tunnel = better of staying/exit). Exam = 100 × pass chance. Tecnica played only when losing (Kiai only if it turns the fight). Known simplifications: Meditazione extra step, Passo Falso origin after a chain, opponents' replies.
• 4.3 Profiles (PROFILES): losses weighted by risk, opponents' value changes by rivalry, Tecnica keep order. balanced (1.0, 0.5, Kiai>Kaeshi>Uke), farmer (2.5, 0.2, Uke first), aggressive (0.5, 1.0).
• Smoke run (60 seeds, real board, 1 heuristic vs 3 random): heuristic wins 58–60/60 for every profile and both variants; ~20–22 rounds; ~1,300–1,450 turns/s. Four heuristic bots: ~18.7 rounds. Finding to check in Phase 5/6: attacking a higher belt risks nothing for a non-Brown player (losing costs 0 stripes; Start is no worse than elsewhere), so every profile attacks upward.

Phase 5 — Simulator and metrics

• 5.1 Monte Carlo runner over a config matrix; seeded and reproducible. src/dojo/sim.py: Scenario (variant × players × Kiai bonus × start position × lineup), matrix, run(files, scenarios, games, seed, jobs). Game i uses seed base + i in every scenario (same dice across scenarios); the lineup rotates one seat per game; process pool, results independent of jobs.

• 5.2 Metrics (src/dojo/metrics.py, computed from the event log; Kumite counts exclude the Exam):

  • game length in rounds and estimated minutes (45 s per turn + 30 s per Kumite);
  • Kumite per round, upset rate, higher-beats-lower rate, longest chain per game (Kumite attacked by the active player in one turn);
  • win rate by seat and by bot profile (per seat occupied);
  • exam attempts per game, exam success rate;
  • turns started on 14, longest streak (variant B deadlock check);
  • net stripe income per turn: squares vs cards vs Kumite vs Exam; square income in the player's own quadrant vs elsewhere (home farming);
  • lead changes per game (strict leader), final spread.

• 5.3 Report output: uv run dojo sim prints a text summary per scenario; --csv writes one row per game (src/dojo/report.py). Commands in README.md.

• Baseline (1,000 games per variant, 4 players, lineup balanced/farmer/aggressive, seed 0), for Phase 6:

  Metric	A	B
  Rounds mean (p10–p90)	18.4 (14–23)	13.1 (9–17)
  Minutes mean (p10–p90)	66 (50–85)	46 (33–62)
  Kumite per round	1.25	1.16
  Upsets / higher beats lower	29% / 55%	27% / 52%
  Exam attempts per game, pass rate	1.26, 79%	1.22, 82%
  Turns on 14 per game, longest streak	1.26, 4	1.73, 7
  Income per turn: square (home / away), card, Kumite	+0.52 (0.38 / 0.14), 0.00, +0.04	+0.54 (0.39 / 0.14), 0.00, +0.22
  Lead changes, final spread	5.6, 9.3	3.5, 11.5
  Wins by seat	23–27%	23–27%

• 5.4 Follow-up to the baseline review (D28–D30):

  • remove variant B; --variant replaced by --exam (Exam options, RulesConfig.exam_ties_to_defender / exam_defender_black / exam_rounds); "turns on 14" metric removed with it;
  • income per source as gains / losses;
  • one-sidedness measures, sampled at turn ends: (1) gap 1st–2nd (mean per game) and winner margin over the best rival at the end; (2) share of turns the winner led; (3) halfway leader wins; (4) point of the game of the last lead change; (5) rivals within one belt of the winner at the end; (6) share of player-turns more than two belts behind the leader, and the worst player's share; (7) rank swaps between any two players; (8) Kumite lost by the leader; (9) distinct Exam challengers; (10) winner's own turns to reach Brown.

• After 5.4 (300 games per option, 4 players, lineup balanced/farmer/aggressive, seed 0):

  Metric	none	a	c	d
  Rounds mean (p10–p90)	18.5 (14–23)	19.3 (14–25)	21.9 (16–29)	18.0 (14–22)
  Minutes mean	67	70	80	66
  Exam pass rate, attempts per game	81%, 1.24	67%, 1.50	44%, 2.28	91%, 1.10
  Distinct challengers per game	1.13	1.24	1.58	1.06
  Winner margin at the end	4.7	4.6	3.9	4.8
  Halfway leader wins	40%	41%	40%	41%
  Rivals within one belt at the end	0.32	0.37	0.62	0.30
  Player-turns out of contention	22%	22%	21%	22%

  Also measured: Kumite moves +0.44 / −0.40 stripes per turn; heuristic bots almost never stop on Fatica (square losses 0.0002 per turn vs 0.08 for random bots): with 2d6 and many paths an Allenamento is nearly always reachable. Seat 3 (last in turn order) won 28–31% in every option.

Phase 6 — Balance experiments

Method (applies to every step):

• Runs use uv run dojo sim. Default 1,000 games per scenario (a 25% win rate is then known to about ±1.4 pp); 4,000 games where seat effects are measured (about ±0.7 pp).
• Compared scenarios share seeds (--seed 0), so differences come from the rules, not the dice.
• Every conclusion is checked on at least two lineups (mixed balanced,farmer,aggressive, and one same-style lineup), because results depend on bot quality.
• One change at a time. When a change is adopted, re-run the 6.1 baseline so later steps start from the current rules, and log the decision (D-number) here and in RULES.md.
• Results go in this file as a table per step (command line, scenario, key measures).

Next action: 6.9 catch-up candidate A, when the developer says to continue. 6.2 is suspended (D43); 6.4.1 (chance square) stays optional. Order of the steps: D41. Everything up to D43 and RULES.md v0.8 is committed; commit only when the developer asks. 6.0, 6.1, D35 and D36 are not committed yet; commit only when the developer asks.

Targets (confirmed by the developer as a starting point, D32):

Measure	Target
Minutes, 4 players	mean 60–90, p90 ≤ 110
Exam pass rate	35–55%
Halfway leader wins (4 players)	35–55%
Player-turns out of contention	≤ 20%; worst player mean ≤ 35%
Rivals within one belt of the winner at the end	≥ 0.5
Win rate by seat, 4 players	each 25% ± 3 pp
Win rate by bot style (mixed lineup)	spread ≤ 6 pp
Games finished within 200 rounds	100%, every lineup

Steps:

• 6.0 Tooling needed by the experiments

  • 6.0.1 "Casual" bot: the heuristic bot scoring only a small random sample of the offered moves (sample size is a parameter, default 6), as a stand-in for a human who cannot compare ~24 end squares every move. Added to BOTS as casual. Done: CasualAgent(rng, profile=BALANCED, sample=CASUAL_SAMPLE) in bots.py; only choose_path is sampled, and the sample is blind (a path into the Dojo is taken only if drawn).
  • 6.0.2 --summary-csv PATH: one row per scenario with the summary measures, to compare scenarios side by side. Done: report.write_summary_csv; spreads become <name>_mean/_p10/_median/_p90, income <source>_gain/loss_per_turn, seats seat<i>_<stat>, bots win_rate_<bot>; columns missing in a scenario are empty.
  • 6.0.3 Seat breakdown in the summary: per seat, mean final track, Exam attempts, and share of games where that seat defended the Exam (for 6.2). Done: GameMetrics.final_track / exam_attempts_by_seat / exam_defences_by_seat (tuples, comma-joined in the games CSV), Summary.seats (SeatSummary), one Seat i line per seat in the text report.
  • 6.0.4 Square reachability measure: share of moves where an Allenamento / Fatica end square is reachable, and mean distinct end squares per move (the Phase 6 probe, made a metric; for 6.4). Done: the engine emits MoveOptions(player, ends) (square codes of the distinct end squares) before every path choice in _move (first choice, after a won Kumite, Tsugi Ashi; not the Meditazione extra step); report line Move options.

• 6.1 Baseline on rules v0.7 (Exam c): 4 players, 1,000 games, lineups mixed / balanced / casual / random. Record the table; check it against the targets.

  • Command: uv run dojo sim --games 1000 --seed 0 --lineup balanced,farmer,aggressive balanced casual random --summary-csv ... --csv ... (~2 min on all cores).

  Measure (target)	mixed	balanced	casual	random
  Finished within 200 rounds (100%)	100%	100%	100%	94%
  Rounds mean (p10–p90)	21.8 (15–29)	22.2 (15–30)	24.9 (17–34)	115 (67–179)
  Minutes mean (60–90), p90 (≤ 110)	79, 108	81, 110.5	83, 114	365, 569
  Kumite per round; upsets	1.24; 29%	1.26; 30%	0.66; 28%	0.36; 23%
  Exam attempts per game; pass rate (35–55%)	2.33; 43%	2.45; 41%	2.39; 42%	2.24; 42%
  Halfway leader wins (35–55%)	39%	38%	38%	29%
  Player-turns out of contention (≤ 20%)	21%	21%	17%	19%
  Worst player's share out, mean (≤ 35%)	44%	43%	40%	39%
  Rivals within one belt at the end (≥ 0.5)	0.60	0.57	1.22	1.46
  Winner margin; lead changes	4.0; 7.0	4.0; 7.4	2.4; 5.3	1.4; 13.2
  Win rate by seat 0–3 (25% ± 3 pp)	24 / 23 / 24 / 28	25 / 22 / 26 / 27	26 / 23 / 26 / 26	23 / 23 / 24 / 23
  Win rate by style (spread ≤ 6 pp)	aggr. 25, bal. 27, farmer 22 (5 pp)	—	—	—
  Income per turn: square, card, Kumite (gain / loss), Exam loss	+0.51/0, +0.01/0, +0.43/−0.40, −0.05	same ±0.01	+0.53/0, +0.01/−0.01, +0.24/−0.23, −0.04	+0.19/−0.08, +0.02/−0.01, +0.12/−0.12, −0.01
  Square income home / away	+0.38 / +0.14	+0.38 / +0.13	+0.36 / +0.17	+0.07 / +0.05
  End squares per move; can end on Allenamento / Fatica	23.9; 78% / 76%	23.9; 78% / 76%	24.5; 83% / 80%	24.0; 81% / 78%
  Seat 3: Exam attempts per game (others)	0.65 (0.55–0.57)	0.67 (0.58–0.61)	0.62 (0.56–0.63)	0.56 (0.53–0.60)

  Findings:

  • Met: pass rate, halfway leader, rivals within one belt, style spread, seats (mixed seat 3 at the edge, 28%).
  • Missed: the worst player's time out of contention (40–44%, target ≤ 35%) on every lineup; overall time out 21% for heuristic lineups; p90 minutes slightly over 110 for balanced and casual.
  • random does not finish 6% of games in 200 rounds (115 rounds on average): it is a floor, not a player; the "100% finished" target is read as applying to the other lineups.
  • Seat 3 makes more Exam attempts in the heuristic lineups (0.65–0.67 vs ≤ 0.61) and not with random: first lead for 6.2.
  • Fatica is reachable on 76% of moves but heuristic bots still avoid it (square losses ≈ 0), confirming Q6; the casual bot also avoids it, since 6 sampled moves nearly always include a better one.
  • The casual bot fights half as often (0.66 Kumite/round) and gives closer games (winner margin 2.4, 1.22 rivals within one belt).
  • Q7 follow-up (1,000 games, seed 0): casual,balanced → balanced 36%, casual 14% per seat; casual,casual,casual,balanced → balanced 46%, casual 18%. The blind sample of 6 is far weaker than the heuristic bot.
  • Seat probe (4,000 games, scratch script, not in the repo): Kumite attacked in rounds 1–2 per game by seat 0/1/2/3 = 0.25 / 0.40 / 0.54 / 0.67 (mixed lineup), 0.03–0.05 for every seat with random; mean track after round 3 = 2.04 / 2.04 / 2.35 / 2.50. Later seats find opponents already out of their Safe Rooms, and an early equal-belt Kumite is nearly free for the attacker (Senshu 58%, and a loss at track 0–2 costs at most what is there). Matches the developer's hypothesis; candidate fixes to be proposed in 6.2.
  • Developer review: D34–D41.
  • Re-baseline on rules v0.8 (D35, D36, 3-belt threshold D37), 1,000 games, seed 0, each rule alone against v0.7, after the Dojo-closing fix below (scratch script: Scenario configs with the two switches replaced; the CLI has no switch for them):

  Measure	v0.7	+ Fatica on crossing	+ no Kumite in round 1	v0.8 (both)
  Minutes mean / p90, mixed	79 / 108	83 / 114	78 / 107	83 / 114
  Minutes mean / p90, balanced	81 / 111	79 / 109	80 / 110	78 / 108
  Minutes mean / p90, casual	83 / 114	126 / 173	83 / 114	127 / 174
  Square gain / loss per turn: mixed; casual	+0.51 / 0.00; +0.53 / 0.00	+0.52 / −0.05; +0.45 / −0.12	= v0.7	+0.52 / −0.05; +0.45 / −0.12
  Kumite per round: mixed; casual	1.24; 0.66	1.03; 0.51	1.23; 0.65	1.02; 0.51
  Exam pass rate, mixed	43%	44%	44%	44%
  Out of contention (3 belts): share; worst player, mixed	5.1%; 15%	5.2%; 16%	5.1%; 15%	5.1%; 15%
  Win rate by seat 0–3, mixed	24 / 23 / 24 / 29	30 / 21 / 22 / 27	24 / 24 / 25 / 28	29 / 23 / 20 / 28
  Win rate by seat 0–3, balanced	25 / 22 / 26 / 27	24 / 23 / 24 / 30	24 / 24 / 26 / 26	25 / 24 / 23 / 29
  Win rate by seat 0–3, casual	26 / 23 / 26 / 26	25 / 25 / 24 / 26	26 / 23 / 26 / 24	25 / 25 / 24 / 26

  Fix found while planning Dojo tolls: a Brown player (15) walking a Fatica drops to 14 and must not enter the Dojo on that move (the belt changes at once, FAQ). _path_choices no longer offers such Dojo paths (_still_brown_at_dojo; a Kumite won on the way re-offers paths). The first run without the fix differed by ≤ 3 minutes and ≤ 2 pp per seat.

  Findings: (1) at 3 belts the contention targets are met with a wide margin (5% of player-turns, worst player 10–15%). (2) Fatica on crossing on the current board (5 F per quadrant, 20 in all, 10% of the squares) barely touches the heuristic bots (−0.03 to −0.05 per turn) but costs the casual bot −0.12 per turn and adds ~44 minutes (127 mean, p90 174): the board has too many Fatica on ordinary routes for players who do not plan around them. (3) No Kumite in round 1 alone moves seat 3 by about 1 pp (within the ±1.4 pp noise of 1,000 games); 6.2 measures it on 4,000 games. (4) Mixed v0.8 shows seat 0 at 30% and seat 2 at 20%: not seen in the same-bot lineups; to confirm in 6.2 before reading anything into it.

• 6.2 Seat order — suspended (D43); runs stopped before any result (monitor; developer concerned): 4,000 games, 4 players, lineups mixed and random; 2,000 games at 3 and 6 players. If a seat is outside 25% ± 3 pp, diagnose with the 6.0.3 breakdown (hypotheses: moving last means seeing everyone else move first; Exam defender selection; Sensei / Peso cards) and bring candidate fixes to the developer. No fix without agreement.

• 6.3 Style dynamics: same-style lineups (farmer, aggressive, balanced, casual) and one-against-three (aggressive,farmer,farmer,farmer, farmer,aggressive,aggressive,aggressive, balanced,farmer,farmer,farmer). Watch: all-farmer stalling (length, games finished, Kumite per round), a dominant style, time out of contention.

• 6.4 Fatica and the square economy (D33; Fatica on crossing became the baseline, D36; board draft 2 adopted, D42). Each candidate is a board draft in board/drafts/ (new square codes need Square, board/FORMAT.md, validator stats and RULES.md entries) and/or a RulesConfig switch, compared with the 6.1 baseline on square gains / losses per turn, reachability (6.0.4), game length, style win rates, casual vs heuristic gap:

  • 6.4.0 Board draft 2 (drafted as board/drafts/quadrant-2.txt, now board/quadrant.txt), built for Fatica on crossing. Principles approved by the developer: Fatica as tolls on short routes, fewer Fatica, Allenamento away from the Safe Rooms (covers 6.5), validator / Tatami 30–40% / 11-step walk / tunnels kept; judged on casual minutes (≤ ~93, i.e. v0.7 casual + 10) and heuristic bots paying some tolls.

    • Method: walls of draft 1 kept (approved layout); only square codes changed. Route analysis showed every square on a shortest Safe Room → Dojo walk has a detour of at most 1 step, so "detour 2–4" is not reachable without wall changes; tolls were placed by measured traffic instead (bots' walks per square, home players vs visitors, on the board without Fatica). Home players load the row-3 corridor and the inner Dojo approach (5,5); visitors load the ring next to the Dojo.
    • Variants (1,000 games, seed 0, v0.8; scratch scripts routes.py, traffic.py, recode.py, rules_compare.py):

    Board	Fatica (per quadrant)	Minutes mean / p90: mixed; casual	Square gain / loss per turn: mixed; casual	Home share of square income: mixed; casual	Seats 0–3, mixed
    draft 1 (v0.7 rules, reference)	5, on stop	79 / 108; 83 / 114	+0.51 / 0; +0.53 / 0	74%; 69%	24 / 23 / 24 / 28
    draft 1	5	83 / 114; 127 / 174	+0.52 / −0.05; +0.45 / −0.12	74%; 76%	29 / 23 / 20 / 28
    2a	3: (3,4), (5,5), (7,4)	73 / 99; 110 / 152	+0.66 / −0.09; +0.55 / −0.16	68%; 69%	25 / 24 / 25 / 26
    2b	2: (3,4), (5,5)	72 / 98; 89 / 121	+0.62 / −0.05; +0.58 / −0.09	70%; 68%	23 / 28 / 24 / 25
    2c	1: (7,4); Allenamento 16	73 / 98; 82 / 112	+0.59 / −0.02; +0.60 / −0.06	68%; 65%	24 / 23 / 26 / 27
    2d = draft 2	2: (3,4), (5,5); A moved to the ring	72 / 95; 91 / 122	+0.64 / −0.05; +0.58 / −0.10	67%; 62%	23 / 27 / 27 / 23

    Current baseline (rules v0.8, board draft 2) = the draft 2 row above plus the balanced lineup: 68 / 92 minutes, +0.64 / −0.03, home 67%, seats 22 / 23 / 27 / 28. Square mix per quadrant: Tatami 20 (39%), Allenamento 14, Nebbia 8 (16%, up from 6), Fatica 2, Passo Falso 2, Sfida 1, Tunnel 4.

    • Reading: casual within the ~93-minute bound (91); heuristic bots pay tolls (−0.03 to −0.05); every lineup 68–72 minutes, inside 60–90. Home share down from 74% to 62–67%, not to 60%: players spend most turns crossing their own quadrant, so placement alone reaches its limit. Seat rates move by ±4 pp between variants at 1,000 games: noise, measured properly in 6.2. Adopted by the developer (D42); board/drafts/ removed.

  • 6.4.1 Option 2, chance square: new code (proposal C, name to choose with the developer, e.g. "Sorte" / "Randori") — on stop roll 1d6, 1–2 → −1 stripe, 3–6 → +1. Draft: replace every Fatica and some Allenamento with it (start: all F plus about a third of A, keep the square mix inside the validator's Tatami range). Bot: value = expected change (+1/3 stripe, risk-weighted: gain 2/3, loss 1/3). Try variations of the split (e.g. 1–3 / 4–6) if income is off.

  • 6.4.2 Option 1, Fatica on crossing: RulesConfig.fatica_on_crossing — each Fatica square entered during a move costs 1 stripe, 1 in total per square whether or not the move stops there (developer, D33); stopping on it adds nothing more. Engine: apply in _walk per square entered (not on teleports / relocations, which never walk). Bot: count Fatica crossed in _path_score. Likely needs fewer Fatica squares; test on the current board and on a draft with fewer F. Done as the baseline rule (D36): engine _step / _path_choices, bot _path_score, tests; measured on the current board in the 6.1 re-baseline.

  • 6.4.3 If 6.4.1 is run: compare it with the v0.8 baseline on draft 2 (Fatica on crossing, D36) and bring the table to the developer for a decision (then RULES.md and D-number).

• 6.5 Home farming: covered by board draft 2 (6.4.0): Allenamento moved from the south training room onto the Dojo ring; own-quadrant share of square income 74% → 62–67%, short of the 60% aim (players cross their own quadrant for most of the game); draft 2 adopted as is (D42). Original step: after 6.4, if the own-quadrant share of square income is still above 60% (baseline: 71%), move Allenamento squares away from the Safe Rooms in a board draft (dojo sim --quadrant board/drafts/...) and compare. The board must still pass dojo board validate.

• 6.6 Kiai +2 vs +1: 1,000 games each on two lineups. Watch the Exam pass rate, upset rate and how often a Tecnica turns a fight.

• 6.7 Player counts: 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 players, start 0; plus start 3 at 6 and 8 players. Minutes per count; decide whether 6+ players start on Yellow.

• 6.9 Catch-up candidate A (D38), next in the order (D41; 6.2 suspended, D43): RulesConfig switch, Allenamento +2 for a player 2+ belts behind the leader (bot aware of it); compare on the contention, lead and length measures and on the style win rates.

• 6.8 Consolidation: the final configuration at 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 players with all lineups, 2,000 games each; every target checked; RULES.md v0.8 with the decisions; open items moved to Phase 7.

Phase 7 — Finalisation (later)

• 7.1 Freeze rules.
• 7.2 Italian edition.
• 7.3 Physical tracking method and components; printable board.
  • Tunnel pairs need unique labels on the printed board (the text format repeats each digit in all 4 quadrants).

Questions

Resolved

• Tie rule → Senshu (attacker wins).
• Several opponents on one square → impossible (loser is teleported); only exception handled by the Meditazione extra-step rule.
• Exam loss → −3 and Start; defender gains nothing.
• Tunnel → teleport optional on stop, movement over.
• Optional vs mandatory effects → D25.
• Engine edge rules → D27.
• Sfida squares → keep, balance via low count.
• Il Peso della Cintura → keep (1 card).
• Player count → focus 4, support 3–8.
• Tests → the agent runs the suite (uv run pytest), plus ruff check, ruff format --check, pyright.
• Minutes estimate → 45 s per turn, +30 s per Kumite.
• Q4 Target net income per turn → current pace is fine: A already runs ~66 min (p90 ~85); the winner's pace is measured instead of a table average.
• Variant A vs B → B dropped (D28).
• Final Exam → the defender fights as a Black belt (D31).
• Q5 Phase 6 targets → confirmed as a starting point (D32).
• Q6 Fatica avoidable (bots stop on it once in ~4,000 turns; ~24 distinct end squares per move; Allenamento reachable on 79% of moves, Fatica never forced) → test the chance square first, then Fatica on crossing (D33).
• Q7 Casual bot sample size → the blind sample of 6 is far weaker than the heuristic bot (14–18% vs 36–46% win rate per seat); bots stay as they are (D40).
• Safe Room placement → the owner places the pawn on any square of their room (setup and when sent to Start).

Open

• Q2 Board asymmetry: keep the quadrant as source of truth, or later switch to the full board as source of truth with a symmetry report (warnings) instead of generation? (Deferred by the developer.)

Risks

• Movement enumeration: self-avoiding walks of length up to 12 can explode in open rooms. Keep rooms small; prune by outcome (destination + ordered opponents crossed + Dojo entry).
• Engine speed ~1,400 turns/s (random and heuristic bots, real board). If Phase 5 needs more: precompute neighbour lists in Board.
• Simulation conclusions depend on bot quality; compare several profiles before trusting a result.
• Board draft 1 puts 4 Allenamento in each 3x3 room next to the Safe Room: possible "home farming" (see the Phase 2 review). Measured (Phase 5 baseline): square income is +0.38/turn in the own quadrant vs +0.14/turn elsewhere; 6.5 decides whether that is a problem. Board draft 2 (D42) moved them to the Dojo ring: 62–67%.

External documentation

• uv — https://docs.astral.sh/uv/ — project init, dependency and Python version management.
• Python tomllib — https://docs.python.org/3/library/tomllib.html — stdlib TOML parser for legend.toml.
• pytest — https://docs.pytest.org/ — unit tests.
• Ruff — https://docs.astral.sh/ruff/ — lint and format.
• WKF Kumite competition rules (wkf.net, "Rules") — source of the Senshu concept.