ContextLab / ContextLab/risk-analysis
Add a game simulator for generating synthetic games
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 1
- Forks
- 0
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Deferred from the initial scoping of #1, which is analysis-only. Filing so we don't lose it.
## Idea
Implement a D12-rules game engine that can play games start to finish with configurable agents,
producing logs in the same schema the scraper emits. Since the rules are the same whether a human
or a bot plays, board-dynamics findings from simulated games transfer to real ones.
## Why it's worth doing
- **Null models.** Most of the interesting claims in #1 are comparative: is this map unbalanced,
is this position-strength trajectory unusual, do these games cluster more than chance? Each of
those needs a generative null to compare against, and a simulator is the principled way to get
one.
- **Counterfactuals.** Replay a real game from turn *k* with a different move and measure the
swing in position strength. Turns descriptive metrics into causal ones.
- **Metric validation.** A position-strength metric should predict wins in simulation. If it
doesn't, it's wrong, and we'd rather learn that from cheap simulated games than from the paper.
- **Coverage.** Real data will be thin for rare configurations (unusual maps, player counts,
drop-out patterns). Simulation fills gaps.
## Scope sketch
- Rules engine: territory placement, reinforcement/bonus calculation, attack resolution, fortify,
card sets, elimination, turn order
- Agent interface with a few baselines (random-legal, greedy-expansion, bonus-completion,
border-minimizing), plus a hook for learned agents
- Emits logs conforming to the same schema as scraped games, so the whole analysis stack runs on
simulated and real games interchangeably
- Validation: agent strength ordering is stable, games terminate, distributions are sane
## Explicitly out of scope here
Negotiation between agents. LLM agents talking to each other is a different project answering a
different question — see the companion issue on external conversation corpora. Board play only.
## Depends on
#1 — needs the log schema, map/graph representation, and position-strength metrics to exist first,
since the whole point is to plug into them.
Contributor guide
No contributing guide indexed for this repository
Research direction
Start with issue #1 to understand the log schema, map/graph representation, and position-strength metrics this simulator must consume. Define completion against the listed validation goals: games terminate, agent strength ordering is stable, distributions are sane, and simulated logs work with the existing analysis stack.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- game-dev
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 30/100