Ruling — Imperial Struggle

You asked

Before anyone takes a turn, how is everything laid out on the table?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Imperial Strugglebg-206480-en-1e

Before anyone takes a turn, the following items are laid out on the table: 1. Nine Investment tiles from the Investment Tile Stack are turned face up and placed in the Available Investment Tile spaces on the Investment Tile Display [1]. 2. Each player draws three Event cards from the draw pile (combining them with any unplayed Event cards from the previous turn, then discarding down to three) [1]. 3. If it is the first Peace Turn of a new Era, each player selects two Ministry cards that match the current Era and places them face down on their Playmat [1]. 4. On the first turn of the Empire and Revolution Eras, both players' Debt Limits are increased by four [2]. 5. On the first turn of a new Era, four Award tiles are drawn randomly and placed in the Award spaces on the board (one for each Region) and turned face up [2]. 6. Three Global Demand tiles are drawn at random from the six Global Demand tiles, mixed up, and placed face-up near the Global Demand display [2]. 7. All Exhausted markers are removed from Advantage tiles and Ministry cards [2]. 8. All Investment tiles are moved from the Available Investment Tiles display to the Used Investment Tiles box [2]. 9. The Initiative marker is placed in the Initiative box French side up if VP is less than 15, or British side up if VP is greater than 15 (if VP equals 15, it remains as it was on the previous turn) [1].

[1] RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook · p.9 · 4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1)

[2] RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook · p.9 · 4.1.2 Debt Limit Increase Phase · 4.1.3 Award Phase · 4.1.4 Global Demand Phase · 4.1.5 Reset Phase (Peace)

🔧 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 261 ms · ask 12849 ms · total 13119 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 13119 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 9, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Nine Investment tiles from the Investment Tile Stack are turned face up and placed in the Available Investment Tile spaces on the Investment Tile Display. If there are insufficient Investment tiles in the Investment Tile Stack, make available all remaining tiles in the stack, then shuffle all of the", "headingPath": "4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1)", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "The players now take Action Rounds, beginning with whichever player the Initiative player decided would go first, and alternating thereafter until each player has completed four Action Rounds. All actions must be resolved before the other player starts their next Action Round. The player taking an A", "headingPath": "4.1.9 Action Phase · 4.1.10 Reduce Treaty Points Phase · 4.1.11 Resolve Remaining Powers · 4.1.12 Scoring Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "If the game reaches this phase on Turn 6, and neither France nor Britain has won the game, Final Scoring is carried out (see 11.0). After that, France wins if the VP total is 16 or more, and Britain wins if the VP total is 14 or less. If the VP total is 15, the player with more Available Debt wins. ", "headingPath": "4.1.14 Final Scoring Phase · 5.0 Action Rounds · 5.1 Select an Investment Tile · 5.2 Play an Event Card", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "EXTRA REQUIREMENTS: Note that some Award tiles have an additional requirement, indicated on the tile as a smaller red number. This number indicates that, to win the award, a player must have an even greater edge in total Markets, Forts, Political Spaces, Territories, and Naval spaces. In this case, ", "headingPath": "4.1.12 Scoring Phase · 4.1.13 Victory Check Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "17 Counter Manifest ......................................................... 18 Index ............................................................................ 20 TABLE OF CONTENTS July 2020Living Rules This is the “Living Rules” document for the game. It includes updates and clarifications to t", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "GMT Games, LLC · P.O. Box 1308, Hanford, CA 93232-1308 · www.GMTGames.com This is the 'Living Rules' document for the game. It includes updates and clarifications to the original rules. To aid readability, updates and clarifications are indicated in blue text.", "headingPath": "TABLE OF CONTENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "If one player won every theater of the just-resolved War with the maximum possible Spoils of War, that player wins the game immediately. Otherwise, check the VP total in the same way as in a Peace Turn's Victory Check Phase. If neither player has won the game, the game continues. The players remove ", "headingPath": "7.4 Victory Check Phase · 7.5 Reset Phase (War) · 7.6 War Layout Phase · 8.0 Advantage Tiles · 8.1 Controlling an Advantage Tile", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "First, check the Bonus Condition. If it is satisfied, the player receives both the standard and bonus effects from the Event. Otherwise, only the standard effect is received. DESIGN NOTE: This means that you cannot use the standard Event effect to satisfy the Bonus Condition and thereby reap the Bon", "headingPath": "5.2 Play an Event Card", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1)", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "4.1.2 Debt Limit Increase Phase · 4.1.3 Award Phase · 4.1.4 Global Demand Phase · 4.1.5 Reset Phase (Peace)", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 464 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 464 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 05:49

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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1)	p.9	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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	4.1.9 Action Phase · 4.1.10 Reduce Treaty Points Phase · 4.1.11 Resolve Remaining Powers · 4.1.12 Scoring Phase	p.9	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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	4.1.14 Final Scoring Phase · 5.0 Action Rounds · 5.1 Select an Investment Tile · 5.2 Play an Event Card	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
#4	RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	4.1.12 Scoring Phase · 4.1.13 Victory Check Phase	p.10	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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)		p.1	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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	TABLE OF CONTENTS	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))	260
#7	RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	7.4 Victory Check Phase · 7.5 Reset Phase (War) · 7.6 War Layout Phase · 8.0 Advantage Tiles · 8.1 Controlling an Advantage Tile	p.16	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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	5.2 Play an Event Card	p.11	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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1)	p.9	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464)	4.1.2 Debt Limit Increase Phase · 4.1.3 Award Phase · 4.1.4 Global Demand Phase · 4.1.5 Reset Phase (Peace)	p.9	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 261 ms · first delta 10876 ms · total 13119 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 261 ms · ask 12849 ms · gateway work 13119 ms · total 13119 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4209
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 321
tok/sec: 146.7 tok/sec — 321 output tokens in 2.188 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 15s 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 394), 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.