Ruling — Agricola

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Agricolabg-31260-en-1e

To set up the game, follow these steps: 1. Place the three game boards as shown in the illustration [1]. 2. Each player chooses a color and takes the playing pieces in that color, as well as one farmyard [1]. 3. Place the chosen farmyard in front of the player (facing whichever direction the player chooses) [1]. 4. On each of the two building spaces on this farmyard, players first place a Wooden hut room tile and then place one of their Family members in each of these rooms [1]. 5. The remaining playing pieces (additional Family members, fences, and stables) remain in the bag for now or are placed to one side [1]. 6. Sort the remaining house and hut tiles and the rest of the game components and place them beside the playing area [1]. 7. Place the 10 red Major Improvement cards face up on the Major Improvements board [2]. 8. Shuffle the orange Minor Improvement cards [2]. 9. Each player is dealt a hand of 7 Minor Improvement cards and may look through them [2]. 10. Put the remaining Minor Improvement cards to one side [2]. 11. Place the grey Begging cards face-up beside the playing area [3]. 12. Each player takes a Summary card and places it in their playing area [3]. 13. Players choose a starting player, who receives the Starting player marker and 2 Food; other players each receive 3 Food [3]. 14. Turn over the top Round card and place it on the appropriate space on the board [3].

[1] RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook · p.2 · preparinG to play

[2] RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook · p.3 · phase 3: Work phase

[3] RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook · p.3 · Reverse sides: · startinG player · play of the Game · phase 1: start the round - draW a neW round Card. · phase 2: replenish - plaCe neW Goods and animals.

🔧 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 1452 ms · ask 21765 ms · total 703649 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 680329 ms · generation 23320 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 2, "score": 0.047163, "snippet": "Sort the cards according to the color of the reverse side. Depending on the number of players, different green Action cards (B) are used . There are also blue Round cards (A), yellow Occupation cards (C), orange 'Minor Improvement' cards (D), red 'Major Improvement' cards (E), grey Begging cards (F)", "headingPath": "Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Place the three game boards as shown in the illustration to the right. Each player chooses a color and takes the playing pieces in that color, as well as one farmyard. These are placed in front of the player (facing whichever direction the player chooses). On each of the two building spaces on this ", "headingPath": "preparinG to play", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "To play a Solo game, start with 0 Food. The left-hand spaces on the left game board remain empty, as in the 2-player game. Otherwise, play the game by the same rules as the multi-player game, taking your turns one after another. After you play a Minor Improvement that should be passed to the player ", "headingPath": "solo version (for 1 person, from 12 years) · To play a series of Solo games: · 1. the aCtion spaCes", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Place the grey Begging cards face-up beside the playing area. Each player takes a Summary card and places it in their playing area. One side of the card gives an overview of the game phases; the other explains the scoring at the end of the game. There are no scoring rounds during the game. Players c", "headingPath": "Reverse sides: · startinG player · play of the Game · phase 1: start the round - draW a neW round Card. · phase 2: replenish - plaCe neW Goods and animals.", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Players start the game with a farming couple living in a simple two-roomed hut. During the course of the game, these families have abundant possibilities to improve their quality of life by building up their home, improving their fields and breeding their animals. In each of the game's 14 rounds, ea", "headingPath": "objeCt of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "- Point 1 Points Point Points 2 3 1 0 - 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 - 3 1 1 - 3 1 - 4 3 6 - 7 3 6 - 7 5 - 3 2 4 5 - 2 4 - 5 3 - 6 4 2 0 2 - - 1 5 4 3 point per unused space in the Farmyard point per fenced stable & per Clay hut room points per Stone house room points per Family member Scoring Fields Pastures ", "headingPath": "phase 3: Work phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "The game is divided into 14 rounds over 6 stages - the first stage lasts for 4 rounds, the second for 3, the third to fifth for 2 each and the sixth for 1 round. In each round, a new Action space is added into the game; this can be used in the round in which it is turned up and in each subsequent ro", "headingPath": "1.2. aCtion spaCes on the round Cards.", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "In clockwise order, starting with the Starting player, players take turns taking a single Family member from their farmyard, placing it on an unoccupied Action space and taking that action. Play continues until all Family members have been placed. A player may only ever place one Family member at a ", "headingPath": "phase 3: Work phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "preparinG to play", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "phase 3: Work phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Reverse sides: · startinG player · play of the Game · phase 1: start the round - draW a neW round Card. · phase 2: replenish - plaCe neW Goods and animals.", "sharpsignalDocId": 271}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 271 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 271 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 14:20

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 Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	Cards	p.2	0.047163 (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 Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	preparinG to play	p.2	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
#3	RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	solo version (for 1 person, from 12 years) · To play a series of Solo games: · 1. the aCtion spaCes	p.9	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 Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	Reverse sides: · startinG player · play of the Game · phase 1: start the round - draW a neW round Card. · phase 2: replenish - plaCe neW Goods and animals.	p.3	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
#5	RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	objeCt of the Game	p.2	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
#6	RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	phase 3: Work phase	p.3	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 Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	1.2. aCtion spaCes on the round Cards.	p.9	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 Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	phase 3: Work phase	p.3	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 Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	preparinG to play	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	phase 3: Work phase	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Agricola — Rulebook (corpus doc 271)	Reverse sides: · startinG player · play of the Game · phase 1: start the round - draW a neW round Card. · phase 2: replenish - plaCe neW Goods and animals.	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 1452 ms · first delta 20785 ms · total 703649 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 680329 ms · retrieval 1452 ms · ask 21765 ms · gateway work 23320 ms · total 703649 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3702
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 342
tok/sec: 137.2 tok/sec — 342 output tokens in 2.492 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 52s 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 199), 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.