Ruling — Istanbul

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Istanbulbg-148949-en-1e

To set up the game, follow these steps: 1. Lay out the 16 Place tiles in a 4x4 grid to create the game board [1]. (Note: For the first time, it is recommended to use the 'Short paths' layout by laying tiles according to their blue numbers [1]). 2. If using a random layout, shuffle the Place tiles and lay them out in a 4x4 grid, ensuring the Fountain 7 is on one of the 4 middle Places and the Black Market 8 and Tea House 9 are at least 3 Places apart [2]. 3. Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and place your Merchant disc on top of this stack, then place these stacks on the Fountain 7 [3]. 4. Place the 5th Assistant of each player easily accessible next to the game board [3]. 5. Place your Family members on the Police Station 12 [3]. 6. Place Family members face-up in a stack on the Large Market 10 [3]. 7. Repeat the procedure for the Small Market 11 using the light Demand tiles [3]. 8. Determine the starting Places of the Governor and the Smuggler by rolling both dice for each and placing their tokens on the Place tile with the appropriate number [3]. 9. Shuffle the Bonus cards and place them face-down in a stack [3]. 10. Place the coins and dice next to the game board [3]. 11. Sort the Mosque tiles by color and then by their number of goods symbols into 4 stacks (with the top tile showing 2 symbols) and place them on the two Mosques [3]. 12. Place 1 Ruby per player on each of the Mosques (for 5 players, only place 4 Rubies on each Mosque) [3]. 13. For 3 players, remove tiles with 5 symbols from the game; for 2 players, remove tiles with 3 and 5 symbols from the game [3]. 14. Per player, place 1 Ruby and 3 Wheelbarrow extensions on the Wainwright 1 [1]. 15. Place Rubies on the Gemstone Dealer 16 and the Sultan's Palace 13 beginning with the top space on the right, continuing for the appropriate number of players, placing 1 Ruby on each space and leaving remaining spaces empty [1]. 16. Place the Mail indicators in the top row of the Post Office 5 [1]. 17. In a 2-player game, place the Merchant discs of unused colors on the Mosques and the Gemstone Dealer 16, then have each player draw a Bonus card from the top of the stack [1]. 18. Assign the Start player 2 Lira and the Starting player marker; in clockwise order, each other player receives 1 more Lira than the player to his right [1].

[1] RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook · p.2 · PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine

[2] RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook · p.5 ·  Random layout

[3] RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook · p.2 · Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and

🔧 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 296 ms · ask 7695 ms · total 1480067 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 1472066 ms · generation 8001 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 5, "score": 0.048139, "snippet": "The first player to collect 5 Rubies (in a 2-player game: 6 Rubies) triggers the end of the game. When this happens, complete the current round. Then each player may use his leftover Bonus cards that provide goods or money. This may matter for the tie-breaker. The player with the most Rubies wins. T", "headingPath": "END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.04598, "snippet": "Numbers: used in the various Place tile layouts. The big number is also used to denote the new Place for a token when rolling the dice. Place symbol (at some places): These symbols are referred to on a number of Bonus cards and Mosque tiles. Name of the Place Available action Rubies (at some Places)", "headingPath": "PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "and place your Merchant disc on top of this stack. Then place these stacks on the Fountain 7 . Place the 5th Assistant of each player easily accessible next to the game board. 10 Place your Family members on the Police Station 12 . place them face-up in a stack on the Large Market 10 . Repeat this p", "headingPath": "Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Beginning with the Start player you take turns in clockwise order. When the first player has collected 5 Rubies (in a 2-player game: 6 Rubies) on the appropriate spaces of his Wheelbarrow, you complete the current round. After this round the game ends. A turn consists of 4 phases but, most of the ti", "headingPath": "FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "This layout offers a lot of variety: shuffle the Place tiles and lay them out in a 4x4 grid. The challenge is to find out which paths are the most efficient in the given layout, which is different from play to play. Please note: even with a random layout, it is recommended that you use the following", "headingPath": " Random layout", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "On your turn, you may play any number of Bonus cards whenever you like:  After you resolve the Bonus card, place it on the face-up discard pile on the Caravansary 6 .  When taking a Bonus card, draw it from the face-down draw pile (exception: Caravansary 6 , see p. 6).  Shuffle the discard pile t", "headingPath": "BONUS CARDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "2-5 players  aged 10 and up  playing time: 40-60 minutes Hustle and bustle in the bazaar district of Istanbul: merchants and their assistants are hurrying through the narrow alleys attempting to be more successful than their competitors. Good organization is key: wheelbarrows have to be filled wit", "headingPath": "INTRODUCTION · GAME IDEA", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Pay 7 Lira into the general supply to take a Wheelbarrow extension from the Wain- wright and place it in your Wheelbarrow. If you add 3 Wheelbarrow extensions to your Wheelbarrow, take a Ruby from the Wainwright and place it on your Wheelbarrow. Move the Goods indicator of the respective good as far", "headingPath": "Wainwright · Fabric/Spice/Fruit Warehouse · Post Office · Caravansery · Fountain · Black Market · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": " Random layout", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 124 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 124 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 14:34

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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS	p.5	0.048139 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine	p.2	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
#3	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and	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
#4	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …	p.3	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
#5	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	 Random layout	p.5	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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	BONUS CARDS	p.3	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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	INTRODUCTION · GAME IDEA	p.1	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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	Wainwright · Fabric/Spice/Fruit Warehouse · Post Office · Caravansery · Fountain · Black Market · …	p.4	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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	 Random layout	p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and	p.2	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 296 ms · first delta 3748 ms · total 1480067 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 1472066 ms · retrieval 296 ms · ask 7695 ms · gateway work 8001 ms · total 1480067 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3512
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 622
tok/sec: 147.9 tok/sec — 622 output tokens in 4.205 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 55s 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 46), 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.