{
  "rules": 12,
  "baseline": "repair-defense-v12-1",
  "candidates": [
    "adaptive",
    "pressure",
    "fortress",
    "resilient",
    "resource",
    "deep",
    "denial",
    "heuristic"
  ],
  "screenSeeds": [
    271,
    811
  ],
  "validationSeeds": [
    1579,
    3469,
    7907
  ],
  "crossOpponentSeeds": [
    1579
  ],
  "crossOpponents": [
    "balanced",
    "raider"
  ],
  "search": {
    "width": 10,
    "depth": 5
  },
  "pairing": "Same seed and per-seat decks; candidate occupies each seat once, with seat 0 starting.",
  "outcomes": "Full games through the rules engine; draws remain draws; no move-limit adjudication.",
  "validation": "Replay every action from initial state and assert exact equality with final state.",
  "selection": "Heuristic exposed as optional experimental type; screening2-2 does not show improvement. Denial has won both seats of seed271 (all previous candidates split that seed); freeze denial for predeclared holdout seeds before observing their results. No candidate code tuning on holdouts.",
  "fairness": "No opponent hidden hand, future deck or RNG consulted. Scoring-profile trials use equal10x5 budgets; deep and heuristic explicitly increase candidate search only.",
  "screenExtensionReason": "All three candidates tied 1-1 on seed 271; add a second screening seed before selection. Holdout seeds remain unused.",
  "additionalCandidateReason": "Attack-estimate-only candidate lost 3 of 4 screening games; isolate shorter defensive growth projects while retaining baseline attack evaluation.",
  "resourceCandidateReason": "Existing AI treats surplus energy mainly as waste and ignores the option value of same-turn overflow draws in future turns; test card-economy valuation separately from attack changes.",
  "deepCandidateReason": "Core enumeration equivalence proven; ~2.14× CPU speedup allows larger beam search. Deep candidate uses 16×7 on <=8 own nodes, else 12×6; baseline remains 10×5. This is an explicit budget increase, not an equal-budget heuristic comparison.",
  "denialCandidateReason": "Existing opening denial is hardcoded to 21/73/(3,7). Generalize to public, partly built level-one core routes without inspecting enemy hand, using original search budget.",
  "heuristicReason": "User permits AI-only heuristic core searches. Six local windows of <=7 nodes plus unchanged verified root cores; strict final rescoring. Beam14x7 vs baseline10x5, explicit budget increase. Rules engine stays exact.",
  "deferred": {
    "deep": "Superseded before running by user-requested bounded core search experiment.",
    "heuristicHoldout": "Prioritize independent validation of promising denial candidate; heuristic remains optional and is not claimed stronger."
  }
}