You asked
How do I setup the game?
Answered counted as answeredDepending on the chosen setup method, there are different ways to set up the game: **Standard Setup (5.1)** 1. Assign one faction to each player and determine the starting player and seating order randomly [1]. 2. Each player takes their chosen faction board and the pieces listed on its back [1]. 3. Place score markers on '0' on the score track [1]. 4. Shuffle the deck; if playing with two players, remove all four dominance cards before shuffling [1]. 5. Each player draws three cards [1]. (Note: If using certain expansion rules for two players, each player may draw five cards instead of three [2]). 6. Place a ruin in each of the four slots marked 'R' on the map [1]. 7. Form the item supply by placing 2 M, 2 B, 1 C, 1 H, 2 S, 2 T, and 2 X on the corresponding spaces near the top of the map [1]. 8. Hand out the 16 faction overview cards and place the two battle dice near the map [1]. 9. In setup order (A, B, C, etc.), each player follows their faction's specific instructions to set up their faction [1]. **Advanced Setup (A.8)** 1. Create a pool of factions: shuffle all militant faction cards and deal one to a pool; shuffle the remaining militant and all insurgent cards together and deal one per player [3]. 2. If playing with two players, remove all insurgent cards before dealing [3]. 3. If the last card dealt is an insurgent, turn it sideways to show it is "locked" [3]. 4. If a Vagabond card is dealt, also deal one random character card face up next to it [3]. 5. If the Knaves of the Deepwood card is dealt, also deal four random Captain cards; the player will choose three [3]. 6. Starting with the last player in turn order and moving counterclockwise, each player chooses a card from the pool and sets up that faction immediately [3][4]. 7. When choosing homelands, players cannot choose ones already taken by enemies or where they cannot place all pieces; if adjacency requirements cannot be met, players should try to set up as far away from enemies as possible [4].
Strategy guides → — community tips, kept separate from rulings
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- corpus profile
- live
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- gemma4:12b think:false 4eb23ef187e2
- timings
- search 228 ms · ask 13899 ms · total 14137 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 14137 ms
- retrieval refs (raw)
- [{"page": 4, "score": 0.032522, "snippet": "If any players are new to the game, use the Standard Setup (5.1) If everyone has played and you want more variety, use the Advanced Setup (Appendix A). If you want to play with five or more factions that would start in corner clearings, you must use the Advanced Setup.", "headingPath": "5. Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032018, "snippet": "Follow the modified setup rules on the first two pages of the Walking /Through Root booklet. Once you have set up the game, give the players an overview of Root's theme and the victory conditions for each faction. Now you're ready to play.", "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 75}, {"page": 23, "score": 0.031258, "snippet": "As a group, you may choose and set up factions as described in the Standard Setup (5.1) or you may use the faction setup cards included in the Marauder and Homeland Expansions, as described below. A.8.1 Step 1: Create Dra/ft Pool. Agree whether you will omit any factions from the game. You can- not ", "headingPath": "A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.016129, "snippet": "If you have /The Riverfolk Expansion , you can play a game with two Vagabonds by following these rules. 9.7.1 Setup. Use both sets of 'R' items and place two random 'R' items in each ruin slot. If you are us-", "headingPath": "9.7 Playing with Two Vagabonds", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.015873, "snippet": "5.1.1 Step 1: Assign Factions and Starting Player. Assign one faction to each player in any way. Determine the starting player and seating order randomly. Each player takes their chosen faction board and the pieces listed on its back. 5.1.2 Step 2: Place Score Markers. Each player places their score", "headingPath": "5.1 Standard Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 23, "score": 0.015625, "snippet": "Starting with the last player in turn order and going counterclockwise, each player chooses one faction setup card from the pool and sets up the faction immediately as it describes (before another player chooses) . I Homelands. When setting up, players might choose one or more homeland clearings. Pl", "headingPath": "A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.015385, "snippet": "1.5.1 Limits. Pieces are limited by the contents of the game. Do not use proxy pieces if you run out. 1.5.2 Starting Faction. Each player owns the faction they choose in setup (5) and the pieces listed on the back of its faction board except for items. Generically, these are called faction pieces or", "headingPath": "1.5 Pieces", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.015152, "snippet": "17.3.1 Step 1: Gather Pieces. Form a supply of 20 warriors. 17.3.2 Step 2: Place Warriors. Place 4 warriors in a corner clearing. /This is your starting clearing. Place 2 warriors in a different clearing. 17.3.3 Step 3: Fill Assemblies Track. Fill your Assemblies track on your player board with your", "headingPath": "17.3 Faction Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}]
- citations (raw)
- [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "5.1 Standard Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 23, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A.7 Step 7: Draw Five Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 23, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}, {"page": 23, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions", "sharpsignalDocId": 56}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it)
- 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
- Oct 22, 2026 01:12
retrieval — what the search arm returned
score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. How many arms fused this ruling was NOT RECORDED (it predates the boost trail, ran on the path that stored none, or stored one that could not be read), and the ceiling depends on that count (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60): 2 arms top out at 0.03279; 3 arms top out at 0.04918. So a score above 0.03279 here is not an anomaly: it is arithmetic proof a boost arm voted, and the measured band 0.016–0.033 (taken on two-arm asks) is what does not apply. 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 Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | 5. Setup | p.4 | 0.032522 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 269 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Root — Learning to Play (corpus doc 75) | Setup | p.3 | 0.032018 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 239 |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions | p.23 | 0.031258 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 300 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | 9.7 Playing with Two Vagabonds | p.10 | 0.016129 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 208 |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | 5.1 Standard Setup | p.5 | 0.015873 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 300 |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions | p.23 | 0.015625 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 300 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | 1.5 Pieces | p.2 | 0.015385 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 300 |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | 17.3 Faction Setup | p.20 | 0.015152 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 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 Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | 5.1 Standard Setup | p.5 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | A.7 Step 7: Draw Five Cards | p.23 | no quote on the wire |
| [3] | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions | p.23 | no quote on the wire |
| [4] | RULEBOOK Root — Law of Root (corpus doc 56) | A.8 Step 8: Set Up Factions | p.23 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 228 ms · first delta n/a · total 14137 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 228 ms · ask 13899 ms · gateway work 14137 ms · total 14137 ms
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 39s ago)
- stream path
- not recorded — this ruling predates the stream-path column (V41)
- 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 6), 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.