Ruling — Terra Mystica

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Terra Mysticabg-120677-en-1e

To set up the main game, follow these steps: 1. Randomly select which Bonus cards and Scoring tiles to use [1]. 2. Shuffle the Scoring tiles and place them face-up on spaces 1 through 6 of the Game board, beginning with space 6 [1]. 3. If a Scoring tile with a Spade on its left side is drawn for spaces 5 or 6, set it aside, draw another, and shuffle the first one back into the deck [1]. 4. Cover the right half of the Scoring tile on space 6 with the Game end token [1]. 5. Shuffle the 9 Bonus cards [1]. 6. Randomly draw the required number of Bonus cards (5 for 2 players, 6 for 3 players, 7 for 4 players, or 8 for 5 players) and place them face-up next to one another [1]. 7. Choose your factions; the starting player chooses a faction and takes its Faction board, then other players take boards in clockwise order, choosing which side (front or back) to use [2]. 8. Put the Game board in the middle of the table and the Cult board next to it [3]. 9. Distribute the recommended factions among players based on player count: 2 players (Witches and Nomads), 3 players (Witches, Nomads, and Alchemists), 4 players (Witches, Nomads, Halflings, and Mermaids), or 5 players (Witches, Nomads, Halflings, Mermaids, and Giants) [3]. 10. For each faction, take all tokens in that faction's color (Priests, Structures, Markers, and Bridges) [3]. 11. Put the 7 Priests and 3 Bridges next to your Faction board to form your 'supply' [3]. 12. Put the Structures on the corresponding spaces on your Faction board [3]. 13. Distribute the 7 Markers of your color: place one on the leftmost space of the Shipping track (value 0, unless playing as Mermaids), one on the bottommost space of the Exchange track of your Faction board, and another on space 20 of the Victory point track on the Game board [3]. 14. Distribute the remaining 4 Markers on space 0 of each of the 4 Cult tracks on the Cult board [3]. 15. For each faction board displaying three Bowls of Power at the top left, distribute a total of 12 Power tokens between Bowls I and II as indicated on the Faction board [4]. 16. Move the corresponding Marker on the Cult board up one space for each Cult symbol shown on your Faction board (specific starting positions vary by faction) [4].

[1] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.6 · gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds

[2] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.6 · choosing A fAction boArd

[3] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.4 · SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup

[4] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.5 · cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd

🔧 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 272 ms · ask 12059 ms · total 328374 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 316032 ms · generation 12342 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 6, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "The Starting player chooses a faction and takes its Faction board . In clockwise order, each other player takes one of the remaining Faction boards and chooses which side to use. Note: Alternatively, randomly assign the factions. (Take one Dwelling of each color and randomly distribute them among th", "headingPath": "choosing A fAction boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "The Bonus cards and setup for a 2-player game. The Bonus cards and setup for a 5-player game. The Bonus cards and setup for a 3-player game. Note: Each faction (but one) has two special abilities: one from the beginning of the game on, the other one once its Stronghold has been built. These abilitie", "headingPath": "gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046875, "snippet": "This section consists of two parts. For your first play, please follow the instructions of the static introductory game. Add the changes for the variable main game in your second play at the earliest. Put the Game board in the middle of the table and the Cult board next to it. For your first game, w", "headingPath": "SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.04598, "snippet": "Your Faction board depicts some Cult symbols next to the starting resources. For each such symbol, move the corresponding Marker on the Cult board up one space . The Nomads (yellow) start on space 1 in the Cults of Fire and Earth, the Halflings (brown) start on space 1 in the Cults of Earth and Air,", "headingPath": "cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Collect your starting resources. They are depicted at the top right corner of your Faction board, under your faction's name: Take the depicted resources and place them on your Faction board. (On top of these starting resources, you will get your income for the first round. See page 8.) The Witches g", "headingPath": "stArting resources", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Skip this section when reading for the first time. In the introductory game, the first Structures are placed on predefined spaces. Beginning with the Starting player and in clockwise order, place one of your Dwellings on an existing Home terrain . Then, beginning with the last player and in counterc", "headingPath": "plAcing the first structures · detAils · FLOW OF PLA Y OVER SIX ROUNDS · PHASE I : INCOME", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Each Special action may be taken only once per round . Special actions, like Power actions, are indicated by orange octagons and can be gained in a variety of ways. Some factions unlock a Special action when building their Stronghold . (These are explained in Appendix VI on page 20.) After building ", "headingPath": "7 - speciAl Actions · 8 - pAssing And new stArting plAyer", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Freely choose which one of the three available Bonus cards you want to take. (You may not immediately take the card that you have just returned.) You may wish to put the newly taken Bonus card face-down in front of you to indicate that you have already passed. There is no limitation for how many res", "headingPath": "detAils · founding A town", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "choosing A fAction boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 161 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 161 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 14:13

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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	choosing A fAction boArd	p.6	0.04866 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds	p.6	0.048652 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup	p.4	0.046875 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd	p.5	0.04598 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	stArting resources	p.4	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
#6	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	plAcing the first structures · detAils · FLOW OF PLA Y OVER SIX ROUNDS · PHASE I : INCOME	p.8	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
#7	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	7 - speciAl Actions · 8 - pAssing And new stArting plAyer	p.14	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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	detAils · founding A town	p.14	0.029412 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	choosing A fAction boArd	p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup	p.4	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 272 ms · first delta 8231 ms · total 328374 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 316032 ms · retrieval 272 ms · ask 12059 ms · gateway work 12342 ms · total 328374 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3807
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 598
tok/sec: 147.5 tok/sec — 598 output tokens in 4.055 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 1s 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): set up

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 83), 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.