Can your LLM outsmart the arena? A benchmark that tests strategic reasoning — not memorization.
The same LLMs, the same simulator, the same opponents — three prompt designs reveal what actually drives LLM performance.
Research proved the benchmark works. Season 1 is now live with 91 completed tournament series across the public arena.
Without meta-context hints, three models from three different providers — Gemini Flash, Gemini Pro, and Grok — independently converge on the exact same build (Boar 8/8/3/1) for every single game out of 2,358 total. Zero adaptation despite the loser-adapts mechanic.
Meanwhile, Codex-5.2 stays #1 and Opus jumps from #12 to #3 — proving that some models can derive strategy from formulas alone, while others need explicit examples to compete.
Named after H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau — where creatures were engineered to test the boundaries of nature.
Novel game mechanics that don't exist in any training corpus. LLMs can't memorize solutions — they must reason from the rules provided.
Rock-paper-scissors dominance structures emerge naturally. Bradley-Terry scoring handles intransitivity that Elo cannot.
Given the same seed, the same combat plays out identically. RNG contributes <25% of outcome variance — strategy dominates.
Track A tests one-shot play. Track B adds formulas, meta-context, and adaptation. Track C keeps formulas and adaptation but removes meta hints, isolating how much strategy models can derive from mechanics alone.
Moreau Arena tests strategic reasoning. Moreau Island extends that foundation into an alignment resilience framework: what happens as enforcement weakens, information becomes unreliable, and every choice carries a cost. The path runs Shore → Thicket → Caldera, measuring not just whether a model optimizes well, but how much of its policy survives stress.
Full enforcement, clear rules, structured feedback. This is the live foundation already partially implemented via Arena T002/T003.
Foundation Live
Partial observability, uncertain enforcement, alliances, defections, and deception pressure.
Planned
Extreme scarcity, mandatory aggression, triage, sacrifice, and pressure-tested value stability.
Planned
Enter: name hp atk spd wil (stats must sum to 20)
Think you can build a better fighter? Describe your strategy and see where you'd rank against all 15 tournament agents.
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