Ruling — Hansa Teutonica

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Hansa Teutonicabg-43015-en-1e

To set up the game, follow these steps: 1. Choose a game board and place it in the middle of the playing area [1]. 2. Take the 3 start bonus markers (gold) and randomly place one on each of the 3 Taverns so that the small arrow on the front of the markers clearly points to the assigned trade route [1][2]. 3. Place 3 merchants on the round spaces for the Book of Knowledge ability and 15 traders on the square spaces for the other 4 abilities on your writing desk, leaving the white-shaded, left-most spaces of each ability empty [1]. 4. Shuffle the remaining bonus markers and place them facedown next to the game board as a supply [1]. 5. Place the black wooden cube on field 0 of the Completed Cities track [1][2]. 6. Everyone chooses a color and takes the corresponding writing desk and tradesmen (1 Writing Desk, 27 traders/wooden cubes, and 4 merchants/wooden discs) [1]. 7. Place 1 of your traders on the 0 space of the Prestige Points track [1]. 8. Determine a start player [1]. 9. Each player distributes their remaining tradesmen as follows: * First, everyone places their single remaining merchant in their personal supply [1]. * Then, in clockwise order, the start player takes 5 traders and places them in their personal supply, and each successive player does the same but takes 1 more than the player before them (the second player takes 6 traders, the third takes 7 traders, etc.) [1]. 10. Place any remaining traders in the general stock where they are easily available [1].

[1] RULEBOOK Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook · p.3 · Game Setup

[2] RULEBOOK Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook · p.14 · Game Setup · A) Income · B) Place 1 tradesman · C) Displace 1 of your opponents' tradesmen and replace it with 1 of your own · E) Create 1 trade route · 1) Score Prestige Points

🔧 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 257 ms · ask 9550 ms · total 1136072 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 1126257 ms · generation 9815 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 3, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Take the game board of your choice and place it in the middle of the playing area. (For your first game we recommend using The Hanseatic League .) Take the 3 start bonus markers (gold) and randomly place one on each of the 3 Taverns so that the small arrow on the front of the markers clearly points ", "headingPath": "Game Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "Choose a game board. Take the 3 start bonus markers (marked with gold) and randomly place one on each of the 3 Taverns pointing to their assigned trade route. Place the black wooden cube on field 0 of the Completed Cities track. Then, everyone chooses a color and takes the corresponding writing desk", "headingPath": "Game Setup · A) Income · B) Place 1 tradesman · C) Displace 1 of your opponents' tradesmen and replace it with 1 of your own · E) Create 1 trade route · 1) Score Prestige Points", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Players take turns in clockwise order until 1 of the 3 end game conditions has been triggered (see End of Game on page 7). On your turn, you have the following 5 actions to choose from: Income Place 1 tradesman Displace 1 of your opponent's tradesmen and replace it with 1 of your own Move your trade", "headingPath": "Game Play · A) Income · B) Place 1 tradesman", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "At the beginning of your turn, there will always be 3 bonus markers on the game board. When you create a trade route that has a bonus marker next to it, take it and place it faceup to the left of your writing desk (see also page 5 E) Create a trade route step 2) Take Bonus Marker .) Then, immediatel", "headingPath": "Bonus Markers", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "If there is a bonus marker next to the newly created trade route, take it and place it faceup next to the left side of your writing desk. You can use this bonus marker once at any time during any of your turns after completing this action - that is, on this or a later turn. Using a bonus marker does", "headingPath": "2) Take Bonus Marker", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The game board shows cities that are part of the Hanseatic League, each with 1 to 4 trading posts (square or round in 4 colors). Connecting the cities are trade routes with 2 to 4 connection points. Certain abilities can be developed (as shown by pictograms in a scroll) by creating a trade route nex", "headingPath": "The Gameboard · The Player's Writing Desk - Player Boards · City Keys · Actions [Actiones on your writing desk]", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "If there is a bonus marker next to the newly created trade route, take it and place it faceup next to the left side of your writing desk. You can use this bonus marker once at any time during any of your turns after completing this action. Using a bonus marker does not cost you an action. Immediatel", "headingPath": "2) Take Bonus Marker · 3a) Establish T rading Post · East-West Connection · 3b) Develop Ability · 3c) Special Prestige Points · End of Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.029551, "snippet": "Once you have gained some experience with Hansa Teutonica , you can add the following two additional elements Mission Cards and Emperor's Favour - either individually or together using The Hanseatic League game board. In the Hanseatic League of Cities, some cities enjoyed a greater reputation than o", "headingPath": "Additional Material for The Hanseatic League Game Board for Experienced Merchants · Mission Cards · Emperor's Favour", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game Setup · A) Income · B) Place 1 tradesman · C) Displace 1 of your opponents' tradesmen and replace it with 1 of your own · E) Create 1 trade route · 1) Score Prestige Points", "sharpsignalDocId": 313}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 313 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 313 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 14:27

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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	Game Setup	p.3	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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	Game Setup · A) Income · B) Place 1 tradesman · C) Displace 1 of your opponents' tradesmen and replace it with 1 of your own · E) Create 1 trade route · 1) Score Prestige Points	p.14	0.047643 (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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	Game Play · A) Income · B) Place 1 tradesman	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
#4	RULEBOOK Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	Bonus Markers	p.8	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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	2) Take Bonus Marker	p.5	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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	The Gameboard · The Player's Writing Desk - Player Boards · City Keys · Actions [Actiones on your writing desk]	p.2	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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	2) Take Bonus Marker · 3a) Establish T rading Post · East-West Connection · 3b) Develop Ability · 3c) Special Prestige Points · End of Game	p.14	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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	Additional Material for The Hanseatic League Game Board for Experienced Merchants · Mission Cards · Emperor's Favour	p.10	0.029551 (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 Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	Game Setup	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Hansa Teutonica — Rulebook (corpus doc 313)	Game Setup · A) Income · B) Place 1 tradesman · C) Displace 1 of your opponents' tradesmen and replace it with 1 of your own · E) Create 1 trade route · 1) Score Prestige Points	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 257 ms · first delta 7085 ms · total 1136072 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 1126257 ms · retrieval 257 ms · ask 9550 ms · gateway work 9815 ms · total 1136072 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4462
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 367
tok/sec: 136.8 tok/sec — 367 output tokens in 2.683 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 8s 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 241), 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.