You asked
How should we prepare everything before the first turn?
Answered counted as answeredAsked with: Imperium: Classicsbg-318184-en-1e
To prepare everything before the first turn, follow these steps: **Supply and Board Setup** 1. Place all tokens (including,,,,, and ) and the supply on the table, easily accessible to all players [1]. 2. Place the market board face up in the middle of the table, easily accessible to all players [1]. 3. Sort all common cards by suit:,,,,, and [1]. 4. If playing with three players, remove all common cards with a from the game [1]. 5. If playing with two players, remove all common cards with a or a from the game [1]. 6. Place all cards face up below the icon on the market board to form the unrest pile [1]. 7. Place the King of Kings card face up (A side up) above the icon on the market and place the fame deck (the remaining cards shuffled into a face-down deck) on top of it, perpendicular to the card [1]. 8. If playing with three players, remove the top card of the fame deck from the game without looking at it [1]. 9. If playing with two players, remove the top two cards of the fame deck from the game without looking at them [1]. 10. Shuffle the fame deck [1]. 11. Place the appropriate number of cards in a face-down deck above the market board icon for the region deck (6 cards for 2 players, 7 cards for 3 players, 8 cards for 4 players) [1]. 12. Shuffle the region deck [1]. 13. Place the appropriate number of cards in a face-down deck above the market board icon for the uncivilised deck (6 cards for 2 players, 7 cards for 3 players, 8 cards for 4 players) [1]. 14. Shuffle the uncivilised deck [1]. 15. Place the appropriate number of cards in a face-down deck above the market board icon for the civilised deck (6 cards for 2 players, 7 cards for 3 players, 8 cards for 4 players) [1]. 16. Shuffle the civilised deck [1]. 17. Shuffle all remaining,, and cards together with the cards and place them above where it shows on the market board to form the main deck [1]. 18. Draw one card from each of the region, uncivilised, and civilised decks and place each card face up, opposite its respective deck below the market board [1]. **Player Setup** 1. Choose a nation and take all associated cards indicated by the color in the bottom left corner [2]. 2. Place your power card in front of you, to the left of your play area (for new players, it is recommended to place the B side up) [2]. 3. Place any other cards below your power card; if playing as the Arthurians, place King Arthur's Court face up below your power card, and if playing as the Utopians, place Visions of Shangri-La on top of Gates of Shangri-La below your power card [2]. 4. Place your journey card (the top card in this pile) face up above the power card; for most nations, this is the accession card, but for Vikings it is the zenith card and for Arthurians it is the nadir card [2]. 5. The Atlanteans and Utopians do not have an accession card [2]. 6. Shuffle the cards into a face-down nation deck and place it on top of the accession/zenith/nadir card, perpendicular to it (the Atlanteans do not have a nation deck) [2]. 7. Place all development cards face up to the left of your nation deck (for Arthurians, these are quest cards in the quest area) [2]. 8. Place a state card with the side up to the left of your card area (Atlanteans place it with the side up) [2]. 9. Add any cards to the commons cards; only the Arthurians, Celts, Olmecs, Qin, Utopians, and Vikings have cards [2]. 10. Shuffle all remaining cards into a face-down draw deck and place it to the right of your power card [2]. 11. Draw five cards from your draw deck to form your starting hand [2]. 12. Give each player 3, 2, 1, 5, and 3 tokens [1]. 13. Each player should place their and tokens on their state card (Utopian players only receive 3 tokens instead of 5) [1].
🔧 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 213 ms · ask 12867 ms · total 65015 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 51927 ms · generation 13088 ms
- retrieval refs (raw)
- [{"page": 6, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "First, add 1 from the supply to any card in the market. If you're playing as the Carthaginians, add 1 or 2 tokens instead, as indicated on your power card. If you're playing as the Qin, add 1 token instead, as indicated on your power card. Once you've placed a token on a card in the market, the next", "headingPath": "Clean Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Choose a nation and take all the associated cards, as indicated by the colour in the bottom left corner. Before choosing a nation, you should look at the 'Nations' section on page 20 for an overview of the different decks. Place your card in front of you, to the left of your play area. You can place", "headingPath": "Each player takes the following steps:", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "ACTIVATE OR INNOVATE THEN CLEAN UP Activate: take up to 3 actions and use up to 5 exhaust abilities. Innovate: discard hand, then break through for , , , or . Revolt: return any cards in hand to unrest pile. Add 1 to market Clear and tokens Discard any number of cards Draw up to hand size of 5 If : ", "headingPath": "Turn Structure · Clean Up · Reshuffling · Collapse · Scoring · Player with most points wins:", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The game is played in a series of rounds. Each round starts with the player to the left of the solstice card taking their turn and then turn order proceeds clockwise. Play continues until either scoring or collapse is triggered, which ends the game. On each turn, you will: ACTIVATE INNOVATE REVOLT O", "headingPath": "How to Play · Activate · Taking Actions · Common Keywords", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "If your draw deck is empty and you need to draw a card, first check your state card: If your state card shows : If there are no tokens on your nation deck and you have one or more tokens on your state card, place the top card of your nation deck in your discard pile. Then move an token from your sta", "headingPath": "Reshuffling your Draw Deck · If your state card shows : · Resolve this immediately when triggered, even on another player's turn.", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Place all the , , , , and tokens on the table, easily accessible to all players. This is the supply . Give each player 3 , 2 , 1 , 5 , and 3 tokens. Each player should place their and tokens on their state card. If there is a Utopian player, only give them 3 tokens instead of 5. Place the market boa", "headingPath": "Each player takes the following steps:", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "You don't need to read this section to learn how to play, but reading your nation's entry will give you a sense of the key cards in your deck. When you play with a nation for the first time, take a moment before completing the player setup to look through its pool of cards. Each nation is unique, so", "headingPath": ". Nations · Carthaginians · Celts · Greeks · Macedonians", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "This card cannot be drawn as long as there is at least one face-down card . If you would look at more cards than there are face-down cards in the deck, simply look at all the remaining cards. If you would look at one or more cards and there are no face-down cards in the deck, resolve King of Kings i", "headingPath": "King of Kings · Nomads · Shaduf · Sumerians · Arthurians and their Quests", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}]
- citations (raw)
- [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Each player takes the following steps:", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Each player takes the following steps:", "sharpsignalDocId": 409}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 409 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 409 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 7, 2026 05:07
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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | Clean Up | p.6 | 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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | Each player takes the following steps: | p.4 | 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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | Turn Structure · Clean Up · Reshuffling · Collapse · Scoring · Player with most points wins: | p.13 | 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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | How to Play · Activate · Taking Actions · Common Keywords | 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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | Reshuffling your Draw Deck · If your state card shows : · Resolve this immediately when triggered, even on another player's turn. | p.7 | 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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | Each player takes the following steps: | p.5 | 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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | . Nations · Carthaginians · Celts · Greeks · Macedonians | p.11 | 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 Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | King of Kings · Nomads · Shaduf · Sumerians · Arthurians and their Quests | p.10 | 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
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.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | Each player takes the following steps: | p.5 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Imperium: Classics — Rulebook (corpus doc 409) | Each player takes the following steps: | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 213 ms · first delta 5777 ms · total 65015 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
- full breakdown
- queued 51927 ms · retrieval 213 ms · ask 12867 ms · gateway work 13088 ms · total 65015 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3619
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 1001
- tok/sec
- 137.6 tok/sec — 1001 output tokens in 7.276 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 58s 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
- NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
this game registers NO errata cards (edition 338), 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.