Ruling — Ark Nova

You asked

How do I take my turn?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Ark Novabg-342942-en-1e

Players take turns in clockwise order [1]. To take a turn, follow these steps: 1. Choose one of your Action cards to perform its action [2]. 2. Set the strength of the action (you may use X-tokens to increase the strength by 1 for each token used, but you must set this before performing the action) [2]. 3. Perform the action of that card with the chosen strength [2]. 4. Shift the chosen Action card to be lower than the others in the row (placing it in slot 1) [2]. 5. Shift all Action cards that were to the left of the newly empty slot to the right [2]. 6. Complete any effects from Zoo cards that allow you to execute an effect "after finishing" your action [2]. Note: You may not "do nothing" with your action [2][3]. If you cannot or do not want to perform any of the 5 actions, you can use an alternative action to take 1 X-token, provided you do not already have 5 X-tokens [4].

[1] RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.6 · GAMEPLAY

[2] RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.8 · A Turn / The 5 Action Cards

[3] RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.8 · A Turn / The 5 Action Cards

[4] RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.18 · Example: Playing a Sponsor card · Appeal and Conservation Points · · 10 conservation points : · Break

🔧 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 227 ms · ask 9602 ms · total 9840 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 9840 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 6, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Ark Nova does not play in formal rounds; instead, players simply take turns (in clockwise order) taking one turn at a time until the end of the game is triggered. In addition, there are so-called breaks in between, when the game is put on hold for an administration phase. During these breaks you wil", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "Collect all the income indicated by the following icon: . The icon appears on some Sponsor cards and in some bonuses on the left side of your zoo map. Take only the bonuses on your zoo map that you have already activated (those you have uncovered by placing the player token on a conservation project", "headingPath": "5. Take income : · 6. Break track : · 1. Game end · 2. Score cards · 3. Determine Victory Points · Example: Game end", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.045139, "snippet": "You are blue, and you are performing the action with strength 5, which lets you take 4 cards and discard 1. Above all, you would like to have the Lion that is within your reputation range in the display. You take the Lion (1) , draw 2 cards from the deck (2) and then decide to also take the Caracal ", "headingPath": "Example: Taking cards using side II", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.044557, "snippet": "Advance the Break token 2 spaces. Then draw cards from the deck OR snap. Compare the strength of the action with the table on the card. Draw the indicated number of cards (maximum 3) from the deck. Then, you might have to discard a card from your hand, which can be one of the cards you have just dra", "headingPath": "CARDS · DRAWING FROM THE DECK · SNAPPING · DRAWING WITHIN REPUTATION RANGE", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "One of them allows you to choose an alternative. So be aware that you cannot upgrade all of your Action cards! In each game you will have to decide which upgrades are most important to you. You may not 'do nothing' with your action (e. g. play 0 Animal cards or build 0 buildings). The individual act", "headingPath": "A Turn / The 5 Action Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Your Action cards are located below your zoo map. Each card is always assigned to a card slot at the bottom of the map. The number on the card slot indicates the strength with which you can use the Action card located there. The numbers range from 1 on the far left to 5 on the far right, meaning the", "headingPath": "A Turn / The 5 Action Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The game board has a display of 6 cards (see B in the example: Taking cards using side II below). Next to these cards is the Reputation track, where you keep track of the reputation of your zoo (see A in the example: Taking cards using side II below). Whenever you are allowed to increase the reputat", "headingPath": "The Reputation Track and the Display", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.029907, "snippet": "Take 1 X-token. If you cannot or do not want to perform any of the 5 actions, you can still use this alternative action and take 1 X-token. You can perform this action using any Action card. It is independent of the value of the card's slot and you cannot use X-tokens to increase the strength of the", "headingPath": "Example: Playing a Sponsor card · Appeal and Conservation Points · · 10 conservation points : · Break", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A Turn / The 5 Action Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A Turn / The 5 Action Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 18, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Example: Playing a Sponsor card · Appeal and Conservation Points · · 10 conservation points : · Break", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 247 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 247 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 5, 2026 13:16

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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	GAMEPLAY	p.6	0.048916 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	5. Take income : · 6. Break track : · 1. Game end · 2. Score cards · 3. Determine Victory Points · Example: Game end	p.19	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
#3	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Example: Taking cards using side II	p.9	0.045139 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	CARDS · DRAWING FROM THE DECK · SNAPPING · DRAWING WITHIN REPUTATION RANGE	p.9	0.044557 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	A Turn / The 5 Action Cards	p.8	0.032258 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	A Turn / The 5 Action Cards	p.8	0.031746 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	The Reputation Track and the Display	p.9	0.030303 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Example: Playing a Sponsor card · Appeal and Conservation Points · · 10 conservation points : · Break	p.18	0.029907 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	GAMEPLAY	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	A Turn / The 5 Action Cards	p.8	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	A Turn / The 5 Action Cards	p.8	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Example: Playing a Sponsor card · Appeal and Conservation Points · · 10 conservation points : · Break	p.18	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 227 ms · first delta 8097 ms · total 9840 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 227 ms · ask 9602 ms · gateway work 9840 ms · total 9840 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3511
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 232
tok/sec: 136.0 tok/sec — 232 output tokens in 1.706 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 17s 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 173), 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.