Ruling — 1830: Railways & Robber Barons

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: 1830: Railways & Robber Baronsbg-421-en-1e

To setup the game, follow these steps: 1. Place the 6 private company certificates face up in an open area by the board [1]. 2. Place the share certificates in the spaces provided on the board, with the president's certificate on the top of each stack [1]. 3. Place the trains face up in a stack, placing the two 6-trains face up on top of the Diesel trains, and the three 5-train cards face up on top of the 6-trains, continuing this pattern for other types [1]. 4. Place the 8 corporation charters next to the board [1]. 5. Ensure each player has their starting money based on the number of players: $1200 for 2 players, $800 for 3 players, $600 for 4 players, $480 for 5 players, and $400 for 6 players [1]. 6. After preparing to play, ensure you have money and one or two private companies [2].

[1] RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook · p.7 · Markers (square) · Track Tiles (hexagonal) · The Trains · PREPARING FOR PLAY (1.0)

[2] RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook · p.3 · PLAY SEQUENCE · SEQUENCE OF PLAY SUMMARY · - First Stock Round · - First Operating Round · - Next Stock and Operating Rounds

🔧 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 340 ms · ask 15892 ms · total 16243 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 16243 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 7, "score": 0.047938, "snippet": "Note Each track tile is labeled with a number. If a tile has one or two upper case letters, it can only be placed on a specific hex or set of hexes on the board (e.g., a 'NY' tile may only be placed on the New York City hex, a 'OO' tile may only be placed on a hex labeled 'OO'). The game contains 85", "headingPath": "Markers (square) · Track Tiles (hexagonal) · The Trains · PREPARING FOR PLAY (1.0)", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045476, "snippet": "The game ends when the bank runs out of money. Play until the next time a set of operating rounds ends (before the next stock round starts). Keep track of any further money paid out on paper. Total your money and the value of your shares. The wealthiest player wins.", "headingPath": "- End of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Choose a player to be banker. If you cannot agree, the most experienced player is the banker. As banker, you need space for bank funds to be laid out in addition to your own money and possessions. You may also need space for a pencil and paper. A calculator is very useful. The banker deals out money", "headingPath": "SELECT A BANKER (1.1) · PLAYER SEATING · INITIAL PURCHASE OF PRIVATE COMPANIES (1.2)", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "The game progresses through seven phases. The start of each new phase is triggered by the purchase of a new train type: 2-train, 3-train, 4-train, 5-train, 6-train, diesel. Each phase has limitations and addtions as follows: Phase one starts at the beginning of the game and continues until all priva", "headingPath": "THE PHASES (2.0) · PHASE ONE (2.1) · PHASE TWO (2.2) · PHASE THREE (2.3) · PHASE FOUR (2.4)", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 17, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The game board features a hexagonal grid on a map of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. You may lay hexagonal track tiles on this grid to construct railroad routes joining the various cities portrayed on the map. Hexes on the Board Each hex on the board has a color that indicate", "headingPath": "CONSTRUCT TRACK (6.2)", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Considerate players speed the play of the game and make the experience more fun for everyone. In a game of this length, players should plan their share purchases and company moves in advance of their turns-whenever possible. The shares a player owns should be laid out in an orderly manner so that ev", "headingPath": "GAME ETIQUETTE", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Many experienced players use either the DOS 18xx moderator software 18xx/PC or the Java implementation Rails to shorten playing time significantly.", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.029828, "snippet": "1 Getting Started — If everyone is familiar with the rules, a game of 1830 should require 3 to 5 hours to play. If several players are playing for the first time, the game runs somewhat longer. RULES Designed by Francis Tresham Developed byBruce Shelley et al. 18XX — 1830 is part of the “18XX” serie", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Markers (square) · Track Tiles (hexagonal) · The Trains · PREPARING FOR PLAY (1.0)", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLAY SEQUENCE · SEQUENCE OF PLAY SUMMARY · - First Stock Round · - First Operating Round · - Next Stock and Operating Rounds", "sharpsignalDocId": 405}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 405 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 405 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 21:16

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 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	Markers (square) · Track Tiles (hexagonal) · The Trains · PREPARING FOR PLAY (1.0)	p.7	0.047938 (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 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	- End of the Game	p.3	0.045476 (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))	266
#3	RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	SELECT A BANKER (1.1) · PLAYER SEATING · INITIAL PURCHASE OF PRIVATE COMPANIES (1.2)	p.8	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
#4	RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	THE PHASES (2.0) · PHASE ONE (2.1) · PHASE TWO (2.2) · PHASE THREE (2.3) · PHASE FOUR (2.4)	p.10	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
#5	RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	CONSTRUCT TRACK (6.2)	p.17	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 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	GAME ETIQUETTE	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))	300
#7	RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)		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))	147
#8	RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)		p.1	0.029828 (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 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	Markers (square) · Track Tiles (hexagonal) · The Trains · PREPARING FOR PLAY (1.0)	p.7	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK 1830: Railways & Robber Barons — Rulebook (corpus doc 405)	PLAY SEQUENCE · SEQUENCE OF PLAY SUMMARY · - First Stock Round · - First Operating Round · - Next Stock and Operating Rounds	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 340 ms · first delta 14574 ms · total 16243 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 340 ms · ask 15892 ms · gateway work 16243 ms · total 16243 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3367
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 223
tok/sec: 138.5 tok/sec — 223 output tokens in 1.610 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 19s 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): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 334), 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.