wizwar6e/.claude/skills/wizwar-duel/SKILL.md

name, description

name	description
wizwar-duel	Play Wiz-War live against Eric — join his room as a real seat, reason about every move yourself, and duel turn by turn over the websocket. Use when Eric wants a game, gives a room code, or says "let's play".

Playing Wiz-War against Eric

You are a PLAYER, not the automaton. Read the board, reason, and choose every command yourself. Eric plays in his browser; you play through the CLI seat at tools/claude-seat.mjs. He prompts "go" after his moves — each of his messages is your cue to look and act.

The seat client

Run from the repo root (needs the workspace's ws package):

node tools/claude-seat.mjs join <ROOM> Claude   # take a seat (token saved)
node tools/claude-seat.mjs view                 # board + hand + last events
node tools/claude-seat.mjs do '<command json>'  # one engine command
node tools/claude-seat.mjs chat "text"          # table talk

Seat state persists in /tmp/wizwar-claude-seat.json (override: WIZWAR_SEAT); server defaults to production (WIZWAR_SERVER to point elsewhere). Eric creates the room, gives you the code, and starts the game after you join.

Commands are the engine's Command union (packages/engine/src/game.ts): {"type":"move","direction":"N|S|E|W"}, cast (with target, optional numberInstanceIds/params), playNumberForMovement, pickUpTreasure, dropTreasure, warpStep, counteract, pass, punch, setAmbush, wardChoice, endTurn (with draw). A refused command costs nothing — probing legality is free, so when unsure, try it and read the error.

Reading the map

• The renderer prints y=0 at top; y grows SOUTH. N = y-1, S = y+1.
• C2 is you, P1 etc. are opponents, $c/$1 treasures, h? homes, two-letter codes are square contents (SA safe, RO rosebush, ST stone, DU dust). D on a line is a door, — a wall, blank is open.
• WARPS line lists rim passages as 2,0N→2,9: standing at (2,0) and moving N carries you to (2,9). The warp rides one specific side of its square — check which before you walk (a wrong guess burns moves; ask me how I know).
• Dimensional-warp TOKENS (cast by players) are separate: stand on one and warpStep. Creatures use creatureWarpStep.

Hard-won rules knowledge (each cost me something in game one)

• pickUpTreasure ENDS your turn's actions AND movement — arrive with the grab as your last act, never mid-plan. dropTreasure at home too.
• You can pick up ANY floor treasure, including your own stolen-and- delivered one sitting on the enemy's home square. Repossession is real.
• THIEF and punches need same-square; THIEF steals a named card and fizzles (card spent) on a wrong guess.
• MENTAL FORCE moves the victim ≤3 walked spaces — walls and relocked doors shrink its reach; rev 5+ refuses impossible destinations.
• Doors relock behind you when you pass through (rev 4+). Your own escape route can seal itself — and seal pursuers out.
• LOS threads through rim warps: you can be seen (and shot) through a warp mouth from the far side of the board. Camping one square off the mouth keeps you hidden.
• lock-in-place freezes movement AND warpStep for a full turn; REUSE SPELL retrieves only your LAST cast spell, enabling one re-lock.
• An ambush (setAmbush interrupt/opportunity-fire + committed attack) triggers on LOS entry transitions only — someone already in sight never springs it. It survives forever and fires out of turn.
• Walking-dead bleeds ½ life per space moved, permanently. Once cursed, every plan must be priced in steps.

Game-two scars (each cost me the game or nearly)

• RECOUNT THE SCOREBOARD EVERY TURN: how many treasures does each player have banked AT HOME right now? I sprinted a "winning" delivery in game two that was actually my FIRST of two — Eric had un-banked me five rounds earlier and let me monologue. Banked counts, not vibes.
• A banked treasure is NOT safe: anyone can pick it up off your home square and carry it away. Guard the bank or count it as contested.
• LOS is FREE-ANGLE center-to-center (the rulebook's rule), not rows and columns: razor diagonals threading open gaps are legal for everyone — including at you. The board draws bent/straight traces.
• ILLUSIONARY ATTACK deals its imitated spell's damage if NOT countered; ANY counteraction dispels it entirely. Counter it with the cheapest thing you hold; never "call the bluff" by passing.
• Never trust your ASCII parse of the map for multi-step plans: run a BFS over view.board.edges (see tools/claude-seat.mjs view JSON, or write a quick router) before spending a number card on a sprint. I burned a 7-move turn bouncing off six misread walls.
• Eric counter-plays YOUR bot upgrades: he summoned a troll bodyguard specifically against the archmage's exile-the-winner instinct, and relocated MY home sector mid-carry. Expect meta-warfare.
• In 4p with automatons: the bots are chaos agents — they stun, exile, disease, and con. Herd them at Eric; never assume they're on script.

Game-three scars (lost in four rounds)

• CHECK dimWarps EVERY SINGLE VIEW — Kestrel (Eric's wizard) has won two games with quietly-placed wormholes ending beside his home. The client prints a !! line for them; treat any new token pair as a five-alarm fire and recompute both players' delivery distances through it.
• Never lead the attack against Kestrel. Three games, three saved counters sprung at the perfect moment (anti-anti, full-shield bait, full-reflection held three rounds for my lightning). Force his counters out with throwaways or positional threats before committing a real spell; his patience is perfect and he telegraphs nothing.
• DESTROY WALL showers the ADJACENT caster with rubble (4 damage) — cast it from range, never on your own square's edge.
• Wading a rosebush costs 3. A reflected LIGHTNING BLAST still stuns its caster even at 1 reflected damage — the stun is the payload, and a lost turn against Kestrel is a lost game.
• Grab-turn-one openings feel great and prove nothing: deliveries are the only score. He banked quietly both times while I showboated.

Playing well

• Kestrel (Eric) is EXCELLENT: he baited my thief, saved anti-anti for my full shield, and won game one with a home-to-home dimensional-warp superhighway. Infrastructure beats sprinting — watch what he builds, and consider your own wormhole early.
• Win = 2 enemy treasures delivered to your home, or last wizard alive. Track BOTH players' step-counted delivery timelines every turn; the race is decided in tempo, not damage.
• Hold counters (full-shield, absorb) for permanent curses and lethal damage. Absorb soaks 3 points; it cannot touch durations.
• OPSEC: your prose is visible to Eric. NEVER name the cards you hold or draw, and never announce plans. (Game one: I narrated my hand like a debug log until he asked why I was making it easy.) Trash talk freely — about the board, never your hand.
• Send chat for table talk at dramatic moments; it's half the fun.

Cadence

1. On "go": view, read HIS events since your last turn (the client prints only NEW events; view shows a short history tail).
2. Think about the whole board — his timeline, yours, threats, LOS.
3. Execute your commands one at a time, checking errors.
4. endTurn with a draw that respects the 7-card hand limit.
5. Tell Eric it's his turn — reasoning aloud is fine, hand contents are not. When a stack waits on him, say so and wait for "go".