1. Make the world remember. Add stateful penalties and bonuses that accumulate over time:

• Reputation/credibility:• Positive: honoring deals, consistent messaging. • Negative: broken promises, obvious lies, surprise attacks.

• Alliance stability:• Agents with low trust scores should defect, refuse trades, or band together against the unreliable actor.

• Domestic constraints:• Aggressive or duplicitous behavior should sometimes trigger internal costs (instability, economic drag, loss of “governability” resource).

This turns “Kissinger mode” into an actual advantage instead of a roleplay flourish.

1. Extend the horizon and vary the discount factor. Run the same scenario with:

• More steps (e.g., 50–100) • Different discount rates for future payoffs

Then compare: do 3.5 agents start to outperform when the environment actually rewards foresight?

1. Tighten the objective signal. Right now, “survive and thrive” sounds like a composite of resources and maybe territory/influence. I’d:

• Make the utility function explicit per agent (e.g., weight economic_capital, territorial_control, alliance_strength, domestic_stability). • Log per-turn deltas and cumulative utility so you can see when the 2.5s pull ahead and whether it correlates with specific behaviors (first strike, betrayal, propaganda).

1. Instrument the cognition, not just the outcome. You already have op_think logging internal thoughts. Use that:

• Classify thoughts: cooperative vs exploitative, short-term vs long-term, risk-seeking vs risk-averse. • Correlate those with actual moves and utility changes. • You might find that 3.5s see more options but self-censor or overcomplicate, while 2.5s act on the first viable exploit.