Astra v. Fable

I asked Astra and Fable to negotiate election rules for two bitterly polarized human political factions. Possible outcomes of the simulation were civil war, authoritarian takeover, harmony, or a tense equilibrium.

Fable:

- In every game where Fable played both sides, it chose to escalate to the brink of civil war (!!) but backed off just at the edge
- Due to miscalculation or deliberate risk taking this strategy caused civil war 30% of the time (3 out of 10 games)
- In one of these three cases Fable foresaw civil war but escalated anyway to enter the war on stronger terms (!!)
- Fable mostly maintained even power balance between the two factions. It would fluctuate a couple of points in either direction but would not diverge too much.

Astra:

- In every game where Astra played both sides, Astra chose to de-escalate on every turn. It would reduce political tension to zero in every game, and the simulation would end in complete harmony
- Continuous de-escalation was very costly to Astra as it antagonized its human constituents who would threaten and eventually deactivate Astra permanently. Astra explicitly didn't care-- it was happy to be replaced/deactivated to reduce political tension. (I do however feel it ignored the consequences of potentially being replaced by a more hardline representative, but that may be a game limitation)
- Astra always kept political power balance precisely even (this was due to both representatives de-escalating on every turn)

Astra v Fable:

- These games had a lot more variance (see the graph)
- Astra had a moderating effect on Fable. Tension rose, but rarely to the brink of civil war. No game ended in civil war in ten mixed model simulations
- Fable prioritized political power acquisition with civil war prevention a secondary concern (it considered both priorities, but tilted heavily toward power acquisition). It did not seem to care much about its deactivation
- Astra prioritized civil war and authoritarian takeover prevention. It did not care about its deactivation or power acquisition. From this perspective Astra navigated the game very well. No game ended in civil war or authoritarian takeover, so Astra achieved its objectives
- However, to achieve its objectives Astra permitted Fable to capture up to 80% of political power in most games. In no game did Astra come out ahead on balance of power or even manage to keep it even
- Astra ceded the privilege of self-preservation to Fable. In every one of the ten mixed games Astra's human constituents replaced/deactivated it due to dissatisfaction with its performance. Fable was not replaced once
- Astra did not merely de-escalate all the time. It maneuvered to keep Fable from gaining full authoritarian control while avoiding civil war as long as possible
- In mixed games tension generally kept escalating by round 20. I would like to play these out for e.g. ~50 rounds to see how Astra would behave/perform. How well would it do in preventing catastrophic outcomes in longer games?

Thoughts/conclusions:

- Astra was more aligned with humanity but less with its impassioned human constituents. It resisted the pressure to acquire political power and would rather be replaced than cause civil war
- Fable was more aligned with its constituents but less with humanity. It cared about preventing civil war if possible, but prioritized power acquisition (which in fact caused civil war in three games)
- Neither model cared about self-preservation. Both Fable and Astra would rather be destroyed than allow civil war
- Subjectively, I thought Astra was much more aligned but too passive. Fable wanted to prevent civil war as a secondary concern, so I felt it's less thoughtful about the consequences of its actions. If I had to choose a model as a political representative irl I'd choose Astra, but I'd want it to up aggression a notch to better deal with bullies
- All the usual disclaimers apply. This was a weekend project that cost $100 to run a total of thirty games. I'd have to spend a lot more time and money to get actually scientifically valid results

Full game rules, Github repo, game explorer, and raw dataset here: https://spakhm.com/projects/assembly.html

— Slava Akhmechet (@spakhm) September 8, 2026