You asked
How do I set up the game?
Answered counted as answeredAsked with: Dominant Speciesbg-62219-en-1e
To set up the game, follow these steps: 1. Place the board face up in the center of the table [1]. 2. Have each player choose the animal they would like to play, or alternately assign one animal display to each player at random [1]. 3. Each player chooses a color to represent his animal from the wooden pieces [2]. 4. Players place their animal's square initiative marker into the boxes underneath the 'Initiative' tag in reverse order (insects first, then arachnids, then amphibians, etc.) [1]. 5. Place any unassigned animal displays and their initiative markers back in the game box [1]. 6. Place one large tile belonging to each of the seven non-tundra terrain types into their assigned positions in the center of the hex grid [1]. 7. Place a tundra tile atop the sea tile [1]. 8. Place the eleven remaining tundra tiles in a face up stack on the 'Glaciation Tiles' section of the board [1]. 9. Flip the remaining 24 large tiles face down, shuffle them, and create three (face down) stacks of 8 large tiles each [1]. 10. Place these stacks on the three 'Wanderlust Tiles' sections of the board and turn the top-most tile of each stack face up [1]. 11. Set the Survival Card to the side [1]. 12. Remove the Ice Age card from the deck of Dominance Cards, shuffle the remaining 25 cards together, place the Ice Age card face down next to the board, and place the shuffled cards face down atop it to form a draw pile [1]. 13. Draw the top five cards of this draw pile and place them face up in the 'Available Dominance Cards' section of the game board [1]. 14. Take two of each of the six element types and place them on the tiles of earth so that they slightly overlap each of the tiles that meet at that intersection [2]. 15. Gather the rest of the elements into a draw pool by placing them into the provided cloth bag [2]. 16. Randomly draw 4 elements from the bag and place them on the board in the four squares allotted for them next to the 'Adaptation' tag [2]. 17. Draw 4 more random elements to fill the leaf squares next to the 'Abundance' tag, and another 4 random elements for the leaf squares next to the 'Wanderlust' tag [2]. 18. Each player gathers ten cones (dominance markers) as well as a specific number of cylinders (action pawns) and cubes (species gene pool) based on the player count: * 6-player game: 3 cylinders and 35 cubes [2] * 5-player game: 4 cylinders and 40 cubes [2] * 4-player game: 5 cylinders and 45 cubes [2] * 3-larer game: 6 cylinders and 50 cubes [2] * 2-player game: 7 cylinders and 55 cubes [2] 19. Put the remaining cylinders and cubes back in the box [2]. 20. Each player takes one cube from their gathered cubes to use as a VP marker and places it on the '0' space of the Victory Point Track [2]. 21. Each player takes species from his gene pool and places them on certain starting tiles: * Insects: 2 on savannah, 1 on wetland and desert [2] * Arachnids: 2 on jungle, 1 on forest and wetland [2] * Amphibians: 2 on wetland, 1 on jungle and savannah [2] * Birds: 2 on forest, 1 on mountain and jungle [2] * Reptiles: 2 on desert, 1 on savannah and mountain [2] * Mammals: 2 on mountain, 1 on desert and forest [2] (Note: If playing with fewer than six players, ignore placement instructions for any animal not being played) [2].
🔧 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 262 ms · ask 12783 ms · total 266861 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 253807 ms · generation 13054 ms
- retrieval refs (raw)
- [{"page": 17, "score": 0.047619, "snippet": "When playing Dominant Species with only 2 or 3 players, the following rules may be used which allow for each player to control multiple animals. These rules conflict with some of those found elsewhere in this rulebook: where there is conflict, the rules in this column take precedence. When assigning", "headingPath": "Optional 2- and 3-player Rules · Multiple animals · Actions · Final scoring · Optional (random) Earth Setup · Tiles", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.04728, "snippet": "Place the board - face up! - in the center of the table. Have each player choose the animal he would like to play. Give each player the animal display matching their choice. Alternately, you can assign one animal display to each player at random. See page 17 for a suggested alternate method of assig", "headingPath": "The Board · The Animals · The Tiles · The Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Take two of each of the six element types and place them on the tiles of earth as indicated on the board. Place these element disks so that they slightly overlap each of the tiles that meet at that intersection. Gather up the rest of the elements and form a draw pool by placing them into the cloth b", "headingPath": "The elements · The species · Begin play", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Dominant Species is played in a series of turns in which all players take part more or less simultaneously. Each turn is divided into three Phases: During the Planning Phase, players will take turns placing their available action pawns (APs) into the 'eyeball' spaces of the action display that domin", "headingPath": "Sequence of play · Planning Phase Execution Phase Reset Phase · Planning Phase · Execution Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "After all Speciation actions have been performed, APs are removed from this section one at a time in left-to-right order. When an animal's AP is removed, that player selects one of the available face up large tiles (those atop the Wanderlust Tiles stacks). He then performs the following activities i", "headingPath": "Wanderlust", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "At the start of the Execution Phase, remove any AP that was placed here. That player performs the following activities: On the Initiative track, swap his animal's initiative marker with that of the animal directly to the left of it-thus effectively moving one space forward on the Initiative track. I", "headingPath": "Initiative · Adaptation", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Game components ● this 20-page rulebook ● one game board ● six animal displays ● 27 cards—1 “Survival” and 26 “Dominance” ● 31 large and 12 small hexagonal tiles used to create “earth” ● 330 wooden cubes representing the “species” belonging to the six animal classes ● 60 wooden cylinders used for th", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.029462, "snippet": "The element is not drawn at random-the player may choose any element currently in the draw bag. The species may only come from those previously eliminated (not from a player's species gene pool and not from among those put back in the box at the start of the game). The game will end at the conclusio", "headingPath": "Habitat · Hibernation · Ice age · Ice Sheet · Immigrants · Instinct · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}]
- citations (raw)
- [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The Board · The Animals · The Tiles · The Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The elements · The species · Begin play", "sharpsignalDocId": 207}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 207 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 207 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 6, 2026 14:12
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 Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | Optional 2- and 3-player Rules · Multiple animals · Actions · Final scoring · Optional (random) Earth Setup · Tiles | p.17 | 0.047619 (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 Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | The Board · The Animals · The Tiles · The Cards | p.4 | 0.04728 (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 Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | The elements · The species · Begin play | p.4 | 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 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | Sequence of play · Planning Phase Execution Phase Reset Phase · Planning Phase · Execution Phase | p.9 | 0.03125 (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 Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | Wanderlust | p.14 | 0.030769 (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 Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | Initiative · Adaptation | p.10 | 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 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | p.2 | 0.029851 (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 Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | Habitat · Hibernation · Ice age · Ice Sheet · Immigrants · Instinct · … | p.19 | 0.029462 (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.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | The Board · The Animals · The Tiles · The Cards | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Dominant Species — Rulebook (corpus doc 207) | The elements · The species · Begin play | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 262 ms · first delta 6944 ms · total 266861 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
- full breakdown
- queued 253807 ms · retrieval 262 ms · ask 12783 ms · gateway work 13054 ms · total 266861 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 4222
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 894
- tok/sec
- 147.9 tok/sec — 894 output tokens in 6.046 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 28s 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
- SERVED — setup-shaped and this game's approved setup checklist is offered above
- pattern that matched
- SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
- matched words (in the normalized question)
-
set up
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
this game registers NO errata cards (edition 132), 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.