Ruling — Catan — RuleSage

You asked

What happens when the barbarians attack?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Catanbg-13-en-1e · Catan: Cities & Knightsbg-926-en-1e

When the barbarian ship reaches the end of the barbarian track, it attacks [1][2][3]. The following steps occur in order: 1. Determine the barbarians' strength, which is equal to the number of cities currently on the board, including those with a metropolis [1]. Each metropolis on the board adds to the barbarians' strength [4]. 2. Determine the defenders' strength, which is equal to the sum of the strength of all active knights currently on the board [1]. 3. If the barbarians' strength is greater than the defenders' strength, the barbarians win and pillage 1 or more cities [1]: * The player(s) who contributed the lowest total strength of active knights has one of their cities pillaged; if that player cannot be pillaged, the next lowest contributor is chosen, continuing until a city is pillaged [1]. * Any players with zero active knights are automatically considered to have contributed the lowest total strength [1]. * Pillaged cities are reduced to settlements by replacing the city piece with a settlement [1]. * If a city with a city wall is pillaged, the city wall is removed from the board and returned to the player's area to be built again [1][5]. * Cities with a metropolis cannot be pillaged [1][4]. * If you do not have settlements in your supply, turn the city piece on its side and treat it as a settlement; this settlement must be upgraded to a city before any other settlement can be upgraded [1]. 4. If the defenders' strength is greater than or equal to the barbarians' strength, the knights successfully drive off the barbarians [1]: * The player who contributed the highest total strength of active knights receives a VP token worth 1 VP; if multiple players tied for the highest strength, no one receives a VP token, and instead each tied player draws a progress card from a deck of their choice, starting with the player whose turn it is [1]. 5. Move the barbarian ship back to the starting position on the barbarian track [1]. 6. Lay all knights down so that they are inactive [1]. Additionally, during the first barbarian attack, the robber is moved from its space by the barbarian track to the desert, where it becomes active [2][3].

[1] RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook · p.11 · BARBARIANS ATTACK · DETERMINE THE BARBARIANS' AND DEFENDERS' STRENGTHS · THE BARBARIANS ARE VICTORIOUS · THE DEFENDERS ARE VICTORIOUS · THE BARBARIANS RETURN HOME

[2] RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook · p.6 · Collect Your Starting Resources · TURN OVERVIEW · ROLL DICE PHASE · PLAY A PROGRESS CARD Basic City · ROLL THE DICE · Move the Barbarian Ship to mighty knights (Level 3).

[3] RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook · p.6 ·

[4] RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook · p.8 · Metropolises · Science · Trade · Politics

[5] RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook · p.8 · BUILD · City Walls · City Improvements

Strategy guides → — community tips, kept separate from rulings

🔧 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 267 ms · ask 12503 ms · total 12780 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 12780 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 11, "score": 0.032018, "snippet": "The robber begins the game in the desert Y . It is moved only by rolling a '7' Y or playing a Knight Y card. If the robber is moved to any other terrain hex, it prevents that hex from producing resources. Players with settlements and/or cities adjacent to the target terrain hex receive no resources ", "headingPath": "roBBer", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030415, "snippet": "When you play a 'Knight' development card during your turn, you must immediately move the robber Y . Place the knight card face up in front of you. You must move the robber away from its current spot and onto the number token of any other terrain hex or on the desert. You then steal 1 resource card ", "headingPath": "KniGht Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029958, "snippet": "If you roll a '7,' no one receives any resources. Instead, every player who has more than 7 resource cards must select half (rounded down) of their resource cards and return them to the bank. Then you must move the robber Y . Proceed as follows: You must move the robber Y immediately to the number t", "headingPath": "a) Rolling a '7' and Activating the Robber Y", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029139, "snippet": "If you are the first player to play 3 knight cards, you receive this special card, which is worth 2 victory points. You place the 'Largest Army' card face up in front of you. If another player plays more knight cards than you have, they immediately take the special card. The 2 victory points likewis", "headingPath": "larGest army", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.028718, "snippet": "If you play a knight card, you must immediately move the robber. See 'Rolling a '7' and Activating the Robber' above and follow steps 1 and 2. Once played, knight cards remain face up in front of you. The first player to have 3 knight cards in front of themself receives the special card 'Largest Arm", "headingPath": "Knight Cards (Purple Frame) Y", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.028139, "snippet": "If you roll a '7' for resource production, none of the players receive resources. Instead: Each player counts their resource cards. Any player with more than 7 resource cards (i.e., 8 or more) must choose and discard half of them. Return discards to the supply stacks. If you hold an odd number of ca", "headingPath": "rollinG a '7' and aCtivatinG the roBBer", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.027584, "snippet": "This 'Catan Almanac' contains detailed, alphabetical entries and examples for Catan . These are not the 'Game Rules.' You do not have to read this material prior to your first game. Instead, use the Game Rules. Then read this to enjoy the complete experience. This almanac includes advanced rules and", "headingPath": "almanac", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.026471, "snippet": "The first player to reach (be at) 10 victory points (VPs) on their turn wins the game. Players acquire victory points (VPs) for the following: 1 settlement = 1 VP 1 city = 2 VPs Longest Road special card = 2 VPs Largest Army special card = 2 VPs Victory point (VP) card = 1 VP Since each player begin", "headingPath": "viCtory points", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "BARBARIANS ATTACK · DETERMINE THE BARBARIANS' AND DEFENDERS' STRENGTHS · THE BARBARIANS ARE VICTORIOUS · THE DEFENDERS ARE VICTORIOUS · THE BARBARIANS RETURN HOME", "sharpsignalDocId": 217}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Collect Your Starting Resources · TURN OVERVIEW · ROLL DICE PHASE · PLAY A PROGRESS CARD Basic City · ROLL THE DICE · Move the Barbarian Ship to mighty knights (Level 3).", "sharpsignalDocId": 217}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 217}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Metropolises · Science · Trade · Politics", "sharpsignalDocId": 217}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "BUILD · City Walls · City Improvements", "sharpsignalDocId": 217}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 43 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 43 boosted
layering — route: not layered — one pooled read: the books were read together and that read answered, so re-reading them one at a time would spend the same GPU to re-derive an answer already given
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 21:01

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 rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	roBBer	p.11	0.032018 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	KniGht Cards	p.8	0.030415 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	a) Rolling a '7' and Activating the Robber Y	p.5	0.029958 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	larGest army	p.8	0.029139 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	Knight Cards (Purple Frame) Y	p.5	0.028718 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	rollinG a '7' and aCtivatinG the roBBer	p.11	0.028139 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	almanac	p.6	0.027584 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43)	viCtory points	p.14	0.026471 (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

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook (corpus doc 217)	BARBARIANS ATTACK · DETERMINE THE BARBARIANS' AND DEFENDERS' STRENGTHS · THE BARBARIANS ARE VICTORIOUS · THE DEFENDERS ARE VICTORIOUS · THE BARBARIANS RETURN HOME	p.11	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook (corpus doc 217)	Collect Your Starting Resources · TURN OVERVIEW · ROLL DICE PHASE · PLAY A PROGRESS CARD Basic City · ROLL THE DICE · Move the Barbarian Ship to mighty knights (Level 3).	p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook (corpus doc 217)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook (corpus doc 217)	Metropolises · Science · Trade · Politics	p.8	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Catan: Cities & Knights — Rulebook (corpus doc 217)	BUILD · City Walls · City Improvements	p.8	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 267 ms · first delta 9092 ms · total 12780 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 267 ms · ask 12503 ms · gateway work 12780 ms · total 12780 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3716
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 498
tok/sec: 137.0 tok/sec — 498 output tokens in 3.636 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 11s 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: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1), 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.