Difficulty without stupidity: apprentice, adept, archmage

Tiers degrade resources and repertoire, never judgment — the design
constraint was that no tier may ever look dumb. The APPRENTICE draws
one card a turn instead of two (a poorer wizard, not a worse one),
spends counters only on heavy hits (thrift, not blindness), and
carries a modest spellbook: damage, summons, stones, keys, and
treasure play, with no afflictions, amplifies, ambushes, guarding
tricks, or deja-vu. The ADEPT draws fully and knows everything except
ambushes and amplify. The ARCHMAGE is the full curriculum. Every card
any tier plays, it plays correctly.

The lobby workshop gains a tier picker beside the temperaments
(default adept); the tier persists with the seat, shows in roster and
scoresheet ("⚙ apprentice mystery"), and rides the drive loop.
Measured where it should matter: in berserker combat mirrors the
archmage beats the apprentice two to one, while pure treasure races
stay honest — the handicap lives in the card exchanges a human
actually feels, pinned deterministically in the tournament suite.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

packages/server/src/rooms.ts

@@ -21,7 +21,9 @@ import {
   automatonCommand,
   automatonFallback,
   AUTOMATON_STYLES,
+  AUTOMATON_TIERS,
   type AutomatonStyle,
+  type AutomatonTier,
 } from "@wizwar/engine";
 
 export interface LoggedCommand {
@@ -47,8 +49,8 @@ export interface Room {
   events: GameEvent[]; // full history (unredacted — redact per recipient)
   /** Table talk, persisted with the room (public to all seats). */
   chat: { player: PlayerId; text: string; at: string }[];
-  /** Seats the server itself plays: temperament, and whether it is told. */
-  bots: Map<PlayerId, { style: AutomatonStyle; secret: boolean }>;
+  /** Seats the server itself plays: temperament, tier, and secrecy. */
+  bots: Map<PlayerId, { style: AutomatonStyle; secret: boolean; tier: AutomatonTier }>;
 }
 
 const rooms = new Map<string, Room>();
@@ -242,7 +244,11 @@ export function addChat(room: Room, playerId: PlayerId, rawText: string): { text
 const AUTOMATON_NAMES = ["Automaton", "Automaton II", "Automaton III", "Automaton IV", "Automaton V"];
 
 /** Seat a clockwork wizard (host's choice, before the game starts). */
-export function addAutomaton(room: Room, styleWanted?: string): { name: PlayerId } | { error: string } {
+export function addAutomaton(
+  room: Room,
+  styleWanted?: string,
+  tierWanted?: string,
+): { name: PlayerId } | { error: string } {
   if (room.state) return { error: "the game has started" };
   if (room.players.length >= 6) return { error: "room is full" };
   const name = AUTOMATON_NAMES.find((n) => !room.players.includes(n));
@@ -252,9 +258,12 @@ export function addAutomaton(room: Room, styleWanted?: string): { name: PlayerId
     ? (styleWanted as AutomatonStyle)
     : AUTOMATON_STYLES[randomInt(AUTOMATON_STYLES.length)]!;
   const secret = !known; // the mystery machine keeps its mood to itself
+  const tier: AutomatonTier = AUTOMATON_TIERS.includes(tierWanted as AutomatonTier)
+    ? (tierWanted as AutomatonTier)
+    : "adept";
   room.players.push(name);
-  room.bots.set(name, { style, secret });
-  appendLine(room.id, { kind: "join", name, bot: true, style, ...(secret ? { secret: true } : {}) });
+  room.bots.set(name, { style, secret, tier });
+  appendLine(room.id, { kind: "join", name, bot: true, style, tier, ...(secret ? { secret: true } : {}) });
   return { name };
 }
 
@@ -279,7 +288,8 @@ export function driveOneAutomaton(room: Room): { seat: PlayerId; events: GameEve
   const seat = actingSeat(room);
   if (!seat || !room.bots.has(seat)) return null;
   const view = viewFor(room.state!, seat);
-  const cmd = automatonCommand(view, room.bots.get(seat)?.style) ?? automatonFallback(view);
+  const bot = room.bots.get(seat);
+  const cmd = automatonCommand(view, bot?.style, bot?.tier) ?? automatonFallback(view);
   let r = runCommand(room, seat, cmd);
   if ("error" in r) {
     r = runCommand(room, seat, automatonFallback(view));
@@ -499,6 +509,7 @@ export function loadPersistedRooms(): void {
             room.bots.set(line.name, {
               style: (line.style as AutomatonStyle) ?? "hunter",
               secret: line.secret === true,
+              tier: (line.tier as AutomatonTier) ?? "archmage",
             });
           } else {
             const joinHash = line.tokenHash ?? (line.token ? hashToken(line.token) : null);