Skip to content
OpenTrain AIFor AI Companies

HFEPX · Eval paper review

LUDOBENCH: Evaluating LLM Behavioural Decision-Making Through Spot-Based Board Game Scenarios in Ludo

Ojas Jain, Dhruv Kumar

Published

Apr 7, 2026

Citations

0

Trust level

Moderate

Usefulness score

27/100 (Low)

Extraction confidence

55% (Moderate)

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Rater population

Not reported

Signals refreshed

Apr 7, 2026

Should you rely on this paper?

This paper is adjacent to HFEPX scope and is best used for background context, not as a primary protocol reference.

Use this for comparison and orientation, not as your only source.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A benchmark-and-metrics comparison anchor.

What to verify

Validate the evaluation procedure and quality controls in the full paper before operational use.

Main weakness

No major weakness surfaced.

Human feedback signal
Not explicit
Not explicit in abstract metadata
Evaluation signal
Detected
Eval setup described
Usefulness for eval research
27/100
Adjacent candidate

Treat as adjacent context, not a core eval-method reference.

Abstract

We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity. LudoBench comprises 480 handcrafted spot scenarios across 12 behaviorally distinct decision categories, each isolating a specific strategic choice. We additionally contribute a fully functional 4-player Ludo simulator supporting Random, Heuristic, Game-Theory, and LLM agents. The game-theory agent uses Expectiminimax search with depth-limited lookahead to provide a principled strategic ceiling beyond greedy heuristics. Evaluating six models spanning four model families, we find that all models agree with the game-theory baseline only 40-46% of the time. Models split into distinct behavioral archetypes: finishers that complete pieces but neglect development, and builders that develop but never finish. Each archetype captures only half of the game theory strategy. Models also display measurable behavioral shifts under history-conditioned grudge framing on identical board states, revealing prompt-sensitivity as a key vulnerability. LudoBench provides a lightweight and interpretable framework for benchmarking LLM strategic reasoning under uncertainty. All code, the spot dataset (480 entries) and model outputs are available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/LudoBench-5CBF/

What we could verify

These are the protocol signals we could actually recover from the available paper metadata. Use them to decide whether this paper is worth deeper reading.

Human Feedback Types

missing

None explicit

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

"We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity."

Evaluation Modes

strong

Simulation Env

Includes extracted eval setup.

"We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity."

Benchmarks / Datasets

strong

Ludobench

Useful for quick benchmark comparison.

"We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity."

Reported Metrics

strong

Dice

Useful for evaluation criteria comparison.

"We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity."

Benchmarks and datasets

Ludobench

Reported metrics

dice
Human feedback details
Uses human feedback
No
Feedback types
None
Rater population
Not reported
Expertise required
Coding
Evaluation details
Evaluation modes
Simulation Env
Agentic eval
Multi Agent, Web Browsing
Quality controls
Not reported
Evidence quality
Moderate
Use this page as
Background context only

Research brief

Metadata summary

We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key takeaways

  • We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning complexity.
  • LudoBench comprises 480 handcrafted spot scenarios across 12 behaviorally distinct decision categories, each isolating a specific strategic choice.
  • We additionally contribute a fully functional 4-player Ludo simulator supporting Random, Heuristic, Game-Theory, and LLM agents.

Researcher actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Check the full text for explicit evaluation design choices (raters, protocol, and metrics).
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Recommended queries

Contribution summary

  • We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning…
  • We additionally contribute a fully functional 4-player Ludo simulator supporting Random, Heuristic, Game-Theory, and LLM agents.
  • The game-theory agent uses Expectiminimax search with depth-limited lookahead to provide a principled strategic ceiling beyond greedy heuristics.

Why it matters for eval

  • We introduce LudoBench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM strategic reasoning in Ludo, a stochastic multi-agent board game whose dice mechanics, piece capture, safe-square navigation, and home-path progression introduce meaningful planning…
  • We additionally contribute a fully functional 4-player Ludo simulator supporting Random, Heuristic, Game-Theory, and LLM agents.

Researcher checklist

  • Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Evaluation mode is explicit

    Detected: Simulation Env

  • Quality control reporting appears

    No calibration/adjudication/IAA control explicitly detected.

  • Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    Detected: Ludobench

  • Metric reporting is present

    Detected: dice