Ruling — Arcs — RuleSage

You asked

How do I take my turn?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Arcsbg-359871-en-1e

On your turn, you must play an action card [1]. The sequence of actions is as follows: 1. Before taking any actions, you can choose to seize the initiative marker from the player who holds it by either playing an extra action card face down beside the played card (which provides no actions) or by Surpassing with a '7' action card [2]. If you seize it, lay the marker down to show it is seized; for the rest of that round, players cannot seize the initiative and the player with initiative cannot seize it [2]. 2. If you have the initiative, you may declare the ambition shown on your lead card before taking any actions [3]. To do this, take the highest-number ambition marker from the Available Markers section and place it in the ambition box of the declared ambition, then place the zero marker onto the lead card to cover its card number [3]. 3. Play an action card in one of three ways: * **Surpass**: Play an action card face up of the lead card's suit with a higher card number than the lead card; you may take actions up to the number of action pips on your card [2]. * **Copy**: Play any action card face down; you may take only one action of the lead card [2]. * **Pivot**: Play an action card face up that is not of the lead card's suit with any card number; you may take only one action on your card [2]. 4. Place the played card in the 'Surpass, Copy, or Pivot' card slot on the left map edge [2]. (Note: If you are the player with initiative, you play your card face up as the lead card and place it in the 'Lead' card slot) [1]. 5. Take actions using the action pips on the played card [1]. Your Prelude begins when you play an action card and ends when you spend any action pips from the card [4].

[1] RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook · p.8 · Playing a Chapter · Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn

[2] RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook · p.10 · Step 2: Other Players Take Turns · Seizing the Initiative

[3] RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook · p.9 · Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn · Declaring an Ambition

[4] RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook · p.17 · Raiding · Resources · Guild Cards

🔧 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 1561 ms · ask 13926 ms · total 15582 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 15582 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 10, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "After the player with initiative takes their turn, each other player in clockwise order takes a turn. Players with no cards in their hand skip their turn. On your turn, you must play an action card in one of three ways: Surpass: Play an action card face up of the lead card's suit. Its card number mu", "headingPath": "Step 2: Other Players Take Turns · Seizing the Initiative", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 23, "score": 0.047183, "snippet": "Steal: Add the specified piece to your play area from a Rival's play area . (This is distinct from take because some rules prevent stealing.) Supply: The general supply holds resources and other shared pieces, and players' supplies hold their Loyal ships and agents. Swap: Give the prompted piece and", "headingPath": "Credits", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.047123, "snippet": "A game of Arcs lasts up to 5 chapters . In each chapter, you play some number of rounds . In a round, each player takes one turn , starting with the player with the initiative marker. Broadly, on your turn, you must play 1 action card , which lets you take one or more actions. At the end of the roun", "headingPath": "Playing a Chapter · Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.046032, "snippet": "Lotus played the highest Construction card to Surpass this round. Nobody seized the initiative, so Lotus takes the initiative marker. After everyone has taken a turn, check whether the initiative marker goes to a new player. If no one seized the initiative this round, give the initiative to the play", "headingPath": "Seizing the Initiative · Step 3: Check Initiative · Step 4: Discard Cards & Check for New Round", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.045002, "snippet": "You can even declare an ambition that was declared in an earlier round! Just place another ambition marker in its box. You cannot declare an ambition multiple times using the same card. Declaring does not change your card's number of action pips. Before taking her actions, Mikah declares the Warlord", "headingPath": "Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn · Declaring an Ambition", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 23, "score": 0.044118, "snippet": "Bryant, Sam Buan, Cat Bult, Christina Berkley, Luke Bridwell, Ran C, Brenda Carrasco, Michael Cauthorn, Lili Chin, Jacob Church, Joshua Clark Orkin, Benjamin Cochrane, Justin Dowd and the Brass Cat crew, Erin, Zane Fisher, Andrew Grimes, Tonke Groot, Lily Gould, Daniel Hallinan, Haze, Sophia Hercher", "headingPath": "Credits", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 22, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Though declaring an ambition and seizing the initiative happen before any other actions, we usually let people do them during their turn as long as new info hasn't been revealed-such as rolling dice or drawing a card-and any relevant modifiers are followed. Don't get bogged down in technicalities un", "headingPath": "Turn Etiquette · Split Discard Piles", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "ADMINISTRATION Tax /o.smcp/r.smcp Repair /o.smcp/r.smcp Inﬂ uence 7 Pivot Play any action card that does not match the lead suit. You may take one action on your played card. (Not on the lead card!) Copy Play any action card face down. You may take one action of the lead card. Third, see if initiati", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Playing a Chapter · Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Step 2: Other Players Take Turns · Seizing the Initiative", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn · Declaring an Ambition", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}, {"page": 17, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Raiding · Resources · Guild Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 286}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 286 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 286 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 14:26

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 Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Step 2: Other Players Take Turns · Seizing the Initiative	p.10	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Credits	p.23	0.047183 (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 Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Playing a Chapter · Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn	p.8	0.047123 (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 Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Seizing the Initiative · Step 3: Check Initiative · Step 4: Discard Cards & Check for New Round	p.11	0.046032 (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 Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn · Declaring an Ambition	p.9	0.045002 (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 Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Credits	p.23	0.044118 (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 Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Turn Etiquette · Split Discard Piles	p.22	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
#8	RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)		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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Playing a Chapter · Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn	p.8	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Step 2: Other Players Take Turns · Seizing the Initiative	p.10	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Step 1: Player with Initiative Takes Turn · Declaring an Ambition	p.9	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Arcs — Rulebook (corpus doc 286)	Raiding · Resources · Guild Cards	p.17	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 1561 ms · first delta 12574 ms · total 15582 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 1561 ms · ask 13926 ms · gateway work 15582 ms · total 15582 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3112
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 416
tok/sec: 148.1 tok/sec — 416 output tokens in 2.809 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 49s 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 215), 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.