Ruling — Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan

You asked

What does each player take, and what goes in the middle, before we begin?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Sekigahara: The Unification of Japanbg-25021-en-1e

Before the game begins: 1. Set the turn counter to Week 1 [1]. 2. Shuffle the two decks separately [1]. 3. Each player draws 5 cards from his deck [1]. 4. Separate the blocks with setup symbols in the lower right corner and put the remaining blocks into two draw bags (one for each color) [1]. 5. Place blocks on the map as described in rule 5.1 [1]. 6. Place the blocks which have a setup symbol in the lower right corner on the map in the Locations that have the matching symbol [1]. 7. Put all the rest of the blocks into two draw bags, one for each player [1]. 8. Fill the locations indicated for random blocks by drawing the required number of blocks at random from a bag and placing them there [1]. 9. Shuffle both decks and place them face down to form two draw piles [2].

[1] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.5 · 5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE

[2] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.3 · 3.2 BloCks · 3.3 Cards · 3.4 othEr ComPonEnts

🔧 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 270 ms · ask 11040 ms · total 11321 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 11321 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 5, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Each player receives new cards and blocks, as follows: Each player discards half (round down) of their hand. Example: if you have 7 cards you would discard 3. Each player draws 5 cards. The player who controls the most castles draws a 6th card. Each player draws at random from their bag a number of ", "headingPath": "6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Set the turn counter to Week \u0018. Shuffle the two decks separately. Each player draws 5 cards from his deck. (This small starting hand represents the limited organizational capacity of each army in the early stages.) Separate the blocks with setup symbols in the lower right corner, and put the remaini", "headingPath": "5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Leadership present at the origin of a move increases the Base Movement Rate of a stack by one location. Leadership can be a leader, a castle, or a capital (or any combination of the three). If a player uses a leader for the increased movement, the leader block must be declared to the opponent. (It i", "headingPath": "7.3.4 Leadership", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "During the Movement Phase a player may move none, some, or all of the stacks of blocks they control on the board. A stack is all of the blocks in a single location. The number of stacks that can be moved is determined by the number of cards spent for movement. Mustering and Overruns can also occur i", "headingPath": "7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Combat occurs after all movement. Combat must be declared in every location on the board where opposing pieces appear together. These declarations are made one at a time by the phasing player, with combat resolved immediately following each declaration. Combat will be a battle or a siege, the latter", "headingPath": "8.1 GEnEral rulE · 8.2.1 Battle Procedure · 8.2.2 Cards and Deployment · 8.2.3 Deployment Procedure · 8.2.4 Initial Deployment of a Leader Block · 8.3.1 Impact in General", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Large forces move more slowly than small ones. For every multiple of four blocks beyond the first four, a stack's movement capacity is reduced by one. Thus, movement capacity is decreased (-\u0018) at the 5th, 9th, \u00183th, and \u00187th block (see chart below). To each block's movement capacity, apply a size pe", "headingPath": "7.3.5 Movement and Force Sizes · 7.3.6 Movement Chart · 7.4.1 Overruns in General · 7.4.2 Overrun Procedure · 7.4.3 Overruns and Castles", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Some blocks represent a daimyo (leader). These are marked with a nobori (banner). Most nobori have a single dot, but the protagonists of the campaign, Ishida Mitsunari and Tokugawa Ieyasu, are marked with nobori of three dots. Cards represent the allegiance of each player's armies. The greater the n", "headingPath": "3.2 BloCks · 3.3 Cards · 3.4 othEr ComPonEnts", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "The Ishida player (gold blocks) plays two cards during his Movement Phase to allow all his stacks to move. This allows him one Muster action which he does first. He can muster one block of any designation to any friendly recruitment location, or he can muster all blocks that match a mon to the recru", "headingPath": "EXAMPLE OF MOVEMENT", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3.2 BloCks · 3.3 Cards · 3.4 othEr ComPonEnts", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 340 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 340 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 18:17

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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:	p.5	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
#2	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE	p.5	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
#3	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.3.4 Leadership	p.6	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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG	p.6	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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	8.1 GEnEral rulE · 8.2.1 Battle Procedure · 8.2.2 Cards and Deployment · 8.2.3 Deployment Procedure · 8.2.4 Initial Deployment of a Leader Block · 8.3.1 Impact in General	p.8	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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.3.5 Movement and Force Sizes · 7.3.6 Movement Chart · 7.4.1 Overruns in General · 7.4.2 Overrun Procedure · 7.4.3 Overruns and Castles	p.7	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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	3.2 BloCks · 3.3 Cards · 3.4 othEr ComPonEnts	p.3	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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	EXAMPLE OF MOVEMENT	p.7	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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	3.2 BloCks · 3.3 Cards · 3.4 othEr ComPonEnts	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 270 ms · first delta 9813 ms · total 11321 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 270 ms · ask 11040 ms · gateway work 11321 ms · total 11321 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4178
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 197
tok/sec: 136.9 tok/sec — 197 output tokens in 1.439 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 31s 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: BEGIN — "begin" / "beginning"
matched words (in the normalized question): begin

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 268), 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.