Dark Forest Axelrod’s tournament shape, Hobbesian physics. Civilizations hide, leak, shout, survey, and strike across light-delay. Score is ticks survived — not kills, not PD points.
Play Experiments Theory Write a strategy
Novel-mode Sparse-mode Traceable strikes No explosions METI pollution Peer-only detection Independent channels
Anonymous cheap-ish strikes, medium density, tech explosions on. Closest to Liu’s darkest coherent universe.
Replicates Civs N Ticks T Seed
Roster AlwaysSilent SILENT forever. Baseline prey. AlwaysLeak Earth: LEAK forever, weak survey, never strike. METI BEACON often. Tries to say hello. TitForTatForest Silent until greeted or struck. Handshake back, retaliate, forgive. DarkForestHunter SILENT. Survey. Strike solid locks unless witnesses or a cripple tax make first strike stupid. YoungQuiet SILENT until tech exceeds a threshold, then optional leak/survey. Berserker Grow, strike every lock, tolerate leak. LuoJi SILENT. Dead-man on first lock. No first strike — a warning beam would give them a lock. PeerContact Local diplomacy. Ignores distant leaks. Treats beacons as the danger. Random Random actions. Calibration prey. Mirror Copy nearest lock's emission. Cooperate with hiders, shout at shouters. ParanoidBroadcast On any lock, broadcast their coords and let the forest work. CrippledHermit Grow briefly, then pay to cap energy and go radio-quiet. Costly, not cheap talk. MonistHunter Survey like a hunter, but the first living technosignature is an existence update: refuse first strike. Run tournament Run experiments