Ruling — Viticulture World

You asked

how do i start?

Answered counted as answered

To start the game, follow these setup steps based on the provided sources: * **Game Board and Components:** Place the Viticulture World board on the table. Use the side with extra orange spaces if using structure cards from the Tuscany expansion [1]. Shuffle the decks of small cards (green, yellow, purple, blue, and orange) and place them face down on their indicated spots [1]. Place the gray temporary worker token on the wake-up chart, and set up the general supply of grape/wine tokens and lira next to the board [1]. * **Continent Selection:** Choose a continent for the game. If new to Viticulture World, it is recommended to start with Greengully [1]. Gather all cards for that continent, place the event token nearby, read the story card aloud, and follow the specific setup and rules instructions provided for that continent [1]. * **Event Deck:** Create the event deck. For your first game in each continent, use event cards 1-6 (sorted numerically); for subsequent games with variable difficulty, shuffle all cards for the selected continent and place 6 face down [1]. * **Innovation Tiles:** Shuffle and place the innovation tiles next to the board in two separate stacks by shape [1]. * **Track Setup:** Place the influence token on the position corresponding to the player count [1]. Place a green grape token on the first position of the year track [1]. * **Player Setup:** Each player takes a vineyard mat and places field cards on it [2]. Each player receives one Red card and one Blue card; regardless of what these cards indicate, every player starts with 1 grande worker and 4 regular workers [3]. Specifically, players start with 2 summer workers (yellow hats), 2 winter workers (blue hats), and the remaining workers are considered "trained" (grande workers, any worker without a hat, or the gray temporary worker) [4]. Place all personal tokens next to your mat, place your residual payment token on the tracker, and place your victory point token on start [2].

[1] RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook · p.2 · General setup

[2] RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook · p.3 · Continent Difficulty Ranking:

[3] RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook · p.3 · player setup

[4] RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook · p.5 · worker plaCement

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:12b think:false 4eb23ef187e2
timings: search 146 ms · ask 10361 ms · total 10522 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 10522 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 7, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "In turn order, choose one of the following two options: Place a winter worker, a trained worker, or a grande worker on a winter action or a (or a year-round action) OR pass. 1 . reveal a new event card summer spring A B draw play Most actions are similar to those found on the core game board; howeve", "headingPath": "winter", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "During the spring season, perform the following 3 steps in order: Reveal 1 Event Card: Read the top card of the face-down event deck, starting with the historical flavor text and then the gameplay effect. Keep this card face-up next to the event deck. The gameplay effect only modifies the rules for ", "headingPath": "sprinG", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.031099, "snippet": "Red and Blue Cards: Each player draws one of each card and gains the benefits shown. As indicated on these cards, each player will start the game with 1 grande worker and all 4 regular workers. 4 Note : You may shuffle the new red cards in with the original Mama cards and the new blue cards in with ", "headingPath": "player setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031025, "snippet": "In turn order (clockwise from the icon at the top of the track), choose one of the following two options: Place a summer worker, a trained worker, or a grande worker on a summer action (or a year-round action) OR pass. 1 . reveal a new event card spring Most actions are similar to those found on the", "headingPath": "summer", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029762, "snippet": "f Vineyard Mat: Each player takes a vineyard mat and places field cards on it as usual. Tokens: Each player places all tokens of their color next to their vineyard mat and performs the following: 1 1. 2 2. 3 3. Return 1 regular worker to the game box (leaving 4 regular workers and 1 grande worker). ", "headingPath": "Continent Difficulty Ranking:", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.028372, "snippet": "Viticulture World modifies the core game's worker placement system as follows: Player Count Scaling: Each action has two action spaces. In a 2-3 player game, only one action space is available; in a 4-6 player game, both action spaces are available (there is a reminder at the bottom left of the main", "headingPath": "worker plaCement", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.016393, "snippet": "When you pass during summer, you move into fall and perform the following steps in order: Move your rooster into the corresponding inner ring position on the wake-up chart (player order does not change). Choose one of the depicted benefits (gain , draw any 1 card, or age 1 of your grape tokens). The", "headingPath": "Fall", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.015385, "snippet": "Greengully (Introductory) Asia (Easy) Oceania (Medium) South America (Medium) Europe (Medium) North America (Medium) Africa (Hard)", "headingPath": "Continent Difficulty Ranking:", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "General setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Continent Difficulty Ranking:", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "player setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "worker plaCement", "sharpsignalDocId": 80}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=false, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=false
base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it)
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Oct 10, 2026 16:05

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. How many arms fused this ruling was NOT RECORDED (it predates the boost trail, ran on the path that stored none, or stored one that could not be read), and the ceiling depends on that count (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60): 2 arms top out at 0.03279; 3 arms top out at 0.04918. So a score above 0.03279 here is not an anomaly: it is arithmetic proof a boost arm voted, and the measured band 0.016–0.033 (taken on two-arm asks) is what does not apply. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	winter	p.7	0.032258 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	sprinG	p.4	0.03125 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	player setup	p.3	0.031099 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	summer	p.6	0.031025 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	Continent Difficulty Ranking:	p.3	0.029762 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	worker plaCement	p.5	0.028372 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	Fall	p.7	0.016393 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	Continent Difficulty Ranking:	p.2	0.015385 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded)	130

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	General setup	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	Continent Difficulty Ranking:	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	player setup	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Viticulture World — Rulebook (corpus doc 80)	worker plaCement	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 146 ms · first delta n/a · total 10522 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 146 ms · ask 10361 ms · gateway work 10522 ms · total 10522 ms
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 49s ago)
stream path: not recorded — this ruling predates the stream-path column (V41)
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: HOW_DO_I_START — "how do I start"
matched words (in the normalized question): how do i start

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 14), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.