RuleSage cited table rulings
← Pandemic

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Pandemicbg-30549-en-1e · Pandemic: On the Brinkbg-40849-en-1e

### Standard Setup 1. Set out the board and pieces [1]. 2. Place outbreaks and cure markers [1]. 3. Give each player cards and a pawn [1]. 4. Give each player a reference card [1]. 5. Shuffle the Role cards and deal 1 face up in front of each player [1]. 6. Place the matching colored pawns for these roles in Atlanta [1]. 7. Remove the remaining Role cards and pawngame from the game [1]. 8. Take the Epidemic cards out the Player Deck and set them aside until Step 5 [1]. 9. Shuffle the other Player cards (City and Event cards) [1]. 10. Deal cards to the players to form their initial hands: 4 cards for a 2-player game, 3 cards for a 3-player game, and 2 cards for a 4-player game [1]. 11. Place the outbreaks marker on the “0” space of the Outbreaks Track [1]. 12. Place the 4 cure markers, “vial” side up, near the Discovered Cure Indicators [1]. 13. Put the 6 research stations and disease cubes nearby [1]. 14. Separate the cubes by color into 4 supply piles [1]. 15. Place 1 research station in Atlanta [1]. **For a 5-player game:** * Deal a Role card to the 5th player and 2 Player cards to each player [2][3]. **When adding new Roles and Events:** * Add the 6 new Role cards to the base game Role cards before shuffling and dealing 1 Role card to each player [3]. * Add the 8 new Event cards to the 5 base game Event cards and shuffle them face down [3]. * Add 2 Event cards per player to the Player cards, before shuffling and dealing Player cards to each player [3]. ### Virulent Strain Challenge Setup 1. Put the normal Epidemic cards in the box [4][5]. 2. Select the Virulent Strain Epidemic cards to use by shuffling them face down before taking the needed number (4-7, based on your difficulty level) [4][5]. 3. Put the unused cards away without looking at them [4][5]. 4. Divide the remaining player cards into face down piles, as equal in the size as you can, so that the number of piles matches the number of Virulent Strain Epidemic cards you are using [4][6][5]. 5. Shuffle 1 Virulent Strain Epidemic card into each pile, face down [4][6]. 6. Stack these piles to form the Player Deck, placing smaller piles on the bottom [4][6]. ### Mutation Challenge Setup 1. Put the 12 purple disease cubes near the other cubes as a supply [7][8]. 2. Put the purple Discovered Cure Indicator and cure marker on the board [7][8]. 3. Put the 2 Mutation cards in the Infection Discard Pile (do not shuffle them into the Infection Deck) [7][8]. 4. After dealing cards to players, but before preparing the Player Deck, shuffle the 3 Mutation Event cards with the remaining Player cards [7][8].

[1] RULEBOOK Pandemic — Rulebook · p.2 ·
[2] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook · p.2 ·
[3] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook · p.2 ·
[4] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook · p.3 · VIRULENT STRAIN CHALLENGE · Setup · Prepare the Player Deck · Determining the Virulent Strain · Virulent Strain Epidemic Effects · Winning and Losing · …
[5] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook · p.3 ·
[6] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook · p.3 ·
[7] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook · p.4 · MUTATION CHALLENGE · Setup · The Mutation (Purple) Disease · Mutation Cards · Mutation Event Cards · Infections
[8] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook · p.4 ·
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile
live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings
search 244 ms · ask 15625 ms · total 15881 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 15881 ms
retrieval refs (raw)
[{"page": 2, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "2 San FranciS co chicago MontrÉal new York waShington atlanta loS angeleS Mexico citY liMa Santiago BuenoS aireS São Paulo lagoS kinS haS a JohanneSBurg khartouM riYadh cairo algierS Madrid london eSSen PariS Milan St. PeterSBurg MoS cow iStanB ul Baghdad tehran karachi MuMBai chennai delhi kolkata ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 174}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.044652, "snippet": "3 San FranciS co chicago MontrÉal new York waShington atlanta loS angeleS Mexico citY liMa Santiago BuenoS aireS São Paulo lagoS kinS haS a JohanneSBurg khartouM riYadh cairo algierS Madrid london eSSen PariS Milan St. PeterSBurg MoS cow iStanB ul Baghdad tehran karachi MuMBai chennai delhi kolkata ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 174}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "You may do up to 4 actions each turn. Select any combination of the actions listed below. You may do the same action several times, each time counting as 1 action. Your role's special abilities may change how an action is done. Some actions involve discarding a card from your hand; all these discard", "headingPath": "ACTIONS · Drive / Ferry · Direct Flight · Charter Flight · Shuttle Flight CITY · Build a Research Station · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 174}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.032002, "snippet": "delhi When playing the Introductory game (4 Epidemic cards), place your cards face up in front of you, for all players to see. algierS Madrid Baghdad karachi karachi Only Player cards count towards your hand limit. Your Role and your Reference cards are not part of your hand. cairo When playing the ", "headingPath": "PLAYER CARDS i StanBul Baghdad · GAME END São Paulo", "sharpsignalDocId": 174}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031281, "snippet": "During setup, deal a Role card to the 5th player and 2 Player cards (as with 4 players) to each player. Legendary Game Feeling invincible? Try the Legendary difficulty level. Use the Epidemic card in this expansion to play with 7 Epidemic cards. Play any time. Not an action. EVENT Take 2 exTRa acTIo", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030798, "snippet": "Set up the game normally (separating the Player cards into 7 piles before shuffling an Epidemic card into each pile). When you draw the 7 th Epidemic, the infection rate remains at 4 (the track maximum). Warning: Not for the faint of heart... Each challenge adds some difficulty, so you may wish to t", "headingPath": "Shuffle · Adding Challenges", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030777, "snippet": "3-INTENSIFY SHUFFLE THE CARDS IN THE INFECTION DISCARD PILE AND PUT THEM ON TOP OF THE INFECTION DECK. 575,000 2,800/KM2 GERMANY GERMANY ESSEN ESSEN Play any time. Not an action. EVENT reMove Any 1 cArd in the infection discArd pile froM the GAMe. you MAy plAy this between the infect And intensify s", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 174}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030118, "snippet": "OVERVIEW This expansion adds a 5th player, 6 roles, 8 events, and 3 challenges to Pandemic. To get started, play the base game with the new roles and events. You may also add a challenge to vary the game some more. We suggest you try the three challenges in order: • Virulent Strain challenge: makes ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}]
citations (raw)
[{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 174}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "VIRULENT STRAIN CHALLENGE · Setup · Prepare the Player Deck · Determining the Virulent Strain · Virulent Strain Epidemic Effects · Winning and Losing · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "MUTATION CHALLENGE · Setup · The Mutation (Purple) Disease · Mutation Cards · Mutation Event Cards · Infections", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 219}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 174 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 174 boosted
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
Nov 3, 2026 20:21

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. 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 rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Pandemic — Rulebook (corpus doc 174) p.2 0.046642 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Pandemic — Rulebook (corpus doc 174) p.3 0.044652 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#3 RULEBOOK Pandemic — Rulebook (corpus doc 174) ACTIONS · Drive / Ferry · Direct Flight · Charter Flight · Shuttle Flight CITY · Build a Research Station · … p.4 0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Pandemic — Rulebook (corpus doc 174) PLAYER CARDS i StanBul Baghdad · GAME END São Paulo p.7 0.032002 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#5 RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) p.2 0.031281 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#6 RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) Shuffle · Adding Challenges p.2 0.030798 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#7 RULEBOOK Pandemic — Rulebook (corpus doc 174) p.1 0.030777 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#8 RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) p.2 0.030118 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

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.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
[1] RULEBOOK Pandemic — Rulebook (corpus doc 174) p.2 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) p.2 no quote on the wire
[3] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) p.2 no quote on the wire
[4] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) VIRULENT STRAIN CHALLENGE · Setup · Prepare the Player Deck · Determining the Virulent Strain · Virulent Strain Epidemic Effects · Winning and Losing · … p.3 no quote on the wire
[5] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) p.3 no quote on the wire
[6] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) p.3 no quote on the wire
[7] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) MUTATION CHALLENGE · Setup · The Mutation (Purple) Disease · Mutation Cards · Mutation Event Cards · Infections p.4 no quote on the wire
[8] RULEBOOK Pandemic: On the Brink — Rulebook (corpus doc 219) p.4 no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split
retrieval 244 ms · first delta 10583 ms · total 15881 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 244 ms · ask 15625 ms · gateway work 15881 ms · total 15881 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
5221
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
718
tok/sec
137.8 tok/sec — 718 output tokens in 5.212 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 55s ago)
stream path
streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
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
SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question)
setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 43), 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.