A laden clockwork delivers before it avenges

Game five's automaton stood four steps from a winning drop and instead
warped across the board to chase the bot carrying its other treasure —
two compounding brain faults. First, the thief-chase rung outranked
delivery even while carrying; a carrier now never chases. Second, the
pathing ladder fell back to "march on any enemy with a clean corridor"
before trying the true objective through hazards, so one thornbush on
the road to the thief rerouted the whole campaign toward a bystander.
The objective now exhausts its hazard-waded route before any generic
enemy march. Replayed the FRP3 moment: the brain marches E,N,E straight
home instead of W through the warp. Brains ship ungated; ledgers
verified.

The duel skill gains game-five scars: the captured-treasures
elimination clock, FEAR as a self-cast aura, key-cutters without keys,
and Kestrel's two-players-per-card table play.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015RCWSTnb1KYTPyL4GmhGnF

.claude/skills/wizwar-duel/SKILL.md

@@ -113,6 +113,38 @@ probing legality is free, so when unsure, try it and read the error.
 - Grab-turn-one openings feel great and prove nothing: deliveries are
   the only score. He banked quietly both times while I showboated.
 
+## Game-five scars (eliminated by a rule I implemented myself)
+
+- **THE ELIMINATION CLOCK**: the moment BOTH treasures you protect sit
+  on living opponents' home bases, you are OUT — points, life, and
+  position notwithstanding. In multiplayer this clock starts ticking
+  the instant your second chest is picked up by anyone. From then on,
+  every turn must either recover a chest or end the game first. I spent
+  three turns optimizing deliveries while two bots quietly carried my
+  death certificate.
+- **FEAR IS A SELF-CAST AURA** — read the card, not your assumptions:
+  "no player or monster will move to within 3 spaces of you," walls
+  irrelevant, and anyone already within 3 MUST flee on their turn. It
+  is armor for carriers and a hearth-denial tool: a feared wizard
+  standing 2 from your home makes delivery impossible. I invented an
+  elaborate theory about enemy goalkeeping instead of reading my own
+  engine's card text. Check `data/cards.json` when a rule surprises —
+  it is one grep away and it is verbatim.
+- In four-player, Kestrel plays the TABLE, not the duel: his SWAP
+  yanked a bot off its own doorstep mid-delivery and parked himself by
+  unclaimed treasures — one card, two tempo hits. Expect every card he
+  plays to hurt two players at once, and ask which two before deciding
+  it wasn't aimed at you.
+- CREATE WALL can sever your announced return route the turn after you
+  telegraph it. If your road home is unique, either don't stand at the
+  far end of it, or carry the picks/doors to re-open it. And CREATE
+  DOOR makes LOCKED doors — it is a key-cutter, worthless without picks.
+- Bot threat model: archmage automatons DO deliver, but their brains
+  can dither inexplicably (one toured the map for two rounds carrying
+  my elimination). Never count on bot incompetence — count turns to
+  their delivery square as if they play perfectly, and treat every
+  reprieve as a gift, not a pattern.
+
 ## Playing well
 
 - Kestrel (Eric) is EXCELLENT: he baited my thief, saved anti-anti for

packages/engine/src/automaton.ts

@@ -1541,7 +1541,10 @@ export function automatonCommand(
     // ends the march); otherwise the gold has its legs for the turn.
     const strikeLive = !view.turn.attackUsed && !view.turn.attackForbidden &&
       !view.turn.actionsEnded && view.yourHand.some((c) => ATTACKS[c.cardId] != null);
-    const chasing = thief !== null && strikeLive;
+    // A carrier never chases: the delivery in hand outranks the gold in
+    // someone else's. Chasing while laden once marched a bot across the
+    // whole board, four steps from a winning drop.
+    const chasing = thief !== null && strikeLive && !self.carriedTreasureId;
     // BANK GUARD: enemy gold delivered to my home is my scoreboard, and
     // anyone may snatch it off the floor. A raider nearer my bank than I
     // am, with the bank stocked, outranks the next grab — run home.
@@ -1565,10 +1568,13 @@ export function automatonCommand(
     const path =
       pathToward(view, self.position, objectives, { avoidNearEnemies: style === "worrier" && !chasing, canUnlock }) ??
       pathToward(view, self.position, objectives, { canUnlock }) ??
+      // The true objective, hazards waded, comes before any generic march
+      // on enemies: one thornbush on the road must not reroute the whole
+      // campaign toward whoever happens to have a clean corridor.
+      pathToward(view, self.position, objectives, { canUnlock, throughHazards: true }) ??
       pathToward(view, self.position, enemyCells, { canUnlock }) ??
       // No clean road to anything: grit the teeth and wade the hazards,
       // as any wizard would rather than stand in a pocket forever.
-      pathToward(view, self.position, objectives, { canUnlock, throughHazards: true }) ??
       pathToward(view, self.position, enemyCells, { canUnlock, throughHazards: true });
     // A shimmering illusion on the best crossing costs nothing to doubt:
     // roll the free test before spending any card on that wall.