RuleSage cited table rulings
← Shallow Sea

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Shallow Seabg-428440-en-1e

1. Prepare as you would for a standard game (excluding Ecosystem Cards) [1][2]. 2. Place the Lionfish Card next to your Ocean Board [1]. 3. Shuffle all the Coral Tiles and place them into the Coral Pouch [3]. 4. Add the specified amount of Fish to the Fish Pouch based on player count and mix well [3]. 5. Place the Fish Pouch below the Coral Pouch and return any unused Fish to the box [3]. 6. Select 10 types of Sealife Tiles to use in the game [3]. 7. Add the specified amount of Sealife Tiles to the Sealife Pouch based on player count and mix well [3]. 8. Place the Sealife Pouch below the Fish Pouch and return any unused Tiles to the box [3]. 9. Coral Pool: Draw 5 Coral Tiles from the Coral Pouch and lay them face up next to the Coral Pouch [3]. 10. Fish Pool: Draw 5 Fish from the Fish Pouch and place one below each Coral Tile in the Coral Pool; if this is your first game, draw Fish from the pouch that match the colors of the Coral Tiles in the Coral Pool and place them below the corresponding Coral Tiles [3]. 11. Sealife Pool: Draw 5 Sealife Tiles from the Sealife Pouch and lay them face up next to the Sealife Pouch [3]. 12. Select 1 card from each of the Orange and Blue Ecosystem Cards and place them face up next to the Pools, returning unused cards to the box [3][4]. 13. Each player places an Ocean Board in front of them [3][4]. 14. Each player takes 5 Seashells [3][4]. 15. Place 2 Seashells on the Ocean Board and keep the other 3 nearby, outside the Ocean Board [4]. 16. Return any unused Seashells back into the box [4].

[1] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook · p.12 · GAME SETUP
[2] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook · p.12 · GAME SETUP
[3] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook · p.3 · GAME SETUP
[4] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook · p.3 · GAME SETUP
🔧 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 220 ms · ask 10669 ms · total 1755450 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 1744553 ms · generation 10897 ms
retrieval refs (raw)
[{"page": 12, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Prepare a standard game (see page 3) EXCLUDING Ecosystem Cards. NOTE For your first game, use the provided Sealife Tile setup below.", "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.048131, "snippet": "Prepare as you would for a standard game (see page 3). Then, place the Lionfish Card next to your Ocean Board.", "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047379, "snippet": "· Shuffle all the Coral Tiles and place them into the Coral Pouch. Ensure the Coral Pouch is within easy reach of all players. Refer to the table below for the required number of Fish based on player count. Add the specified amount to the Fish Pouch and mix well. Place the Fish Pouch below the Coral", "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047371, "snippet": "Select 1 card from each of the Orange and Blue Ecosystem Cards and place them face up next to the Pools. Return unused cards to the box. For your first game, we recommend using Cryptic Coloration (Orange #1) and Bountiful Caves (Blue #2) . NOTE Each player places an Ocean Board in front of them. Eac", "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Each player takes a turn, clockwise, until the end of the game. During your turn, perfom the following actions in the order:", "headingPath": "GOAL OF THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Whenever you need to spend a Seashell, you may instead draw a random Fish from the Fish Pouch and place it on the Lionfish Card. This can be done at any time during the game, as many times as you like. When placing Fish on the Lionfish Card, place the first 2 Fish in the two empty spaces at the top ", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY CHANGES", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "In Shallow Sea, you can earn achievements whether you're playing solo or with multiple players. Use the Achievement Record Sheet below to track accomplishments for up to 4 players. Complete all achievements to reach Legendary Mariner and make your name shine! Follow these steps to play in Achievemen", "headingPath": "SCORING", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.029437, "snippet": "The base game includes a total of 22 types of Sealife Tiles, from which players select 10 to use in the game. Players can freely choose their desired combination of Sealife Tiles, but for a more balanced gameplay experience, we recommend following the guide below. Use this guide to create a unique p", "headingPath": "SEALIFE TILES SETUP GUIDE", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}]
citations (raw)
[{"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAME SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 64}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 64 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 64 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 14:39

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 rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.12 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) 132
#2 RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.12 0.048131 (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)) 110
#3 RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.3 0.047379 (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 Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.3 0.047371 (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 Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GOAL OF THE GAME p.4 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)) 124
#6 RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAMEPLAY CHANGES p.12 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 Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) SCORING p.13 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 Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) SEALIFE TILES SETUP GUIDE p.20 0.029437 (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

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.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
[1] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.12 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.12 no quote on the wire
[3] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.3 no quote on the wire
[4] RULEBOOK Shallow Sea — Rulebook (corpus doc 64) GAME SETUP p.3 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 220 ms · first delta 7776 ms · total 1755450 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown
queued 1744553 ms · retrieval 220 ms · ask 10669 ms · gateway work 10897 ms · total 1755450 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
2176
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
428
tok/sec
139.3 tok/sec — 428 output tokens in 3.072 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 59s 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.
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
decision
SERVED — setup-shaped and this game's approved setup checklist is offered above
pattern that matched
SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question)
set up

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 11), 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.