You asked
describe the different factions
Answered counted as answeredThe different factions and their special abilities are as follows: - **Rusviet (RELENTLESS)**: May choose the same section on their Player Mat as the previous turn(s). This ability allows them to reuse a section of their Player Mat, unlike other factions who typically cannot choose the same section twice in a row [1]. - **Crimea (COERCION)**: Once per turn, may spend 1 combat card as if it were any 1 resource token. This allows them to use a combat card as a resource token to pay for something, though combat cards still have no value at the end of the game [1]. - **Nordic (SWIM)**: Workers may move across rivers. This ability applies only to workers, not the character or mechs, and allows Nordic workers to cross rivers onto any terrain except lakes [1]. - **Polania (MEANDER)**: May pick up to 2 options per encounter card. The benefit from the first selected option may be used to pay the cost for the second selected option. Only one encounter card is drawn [1]. - **Saxony (DOMINATE)**: May complete both of their objective cards (without discarding the second card after achieving the first), and are not limited to 2 combat victory stars. If Saxony has available stars, after winning combat, they must place the star [2][1]. Each faction has a unique ability indicated at the upper right of the Faction Mat [3]. These abilities are distinct and provide different strategic advantages during gameplay [1]. Note: The Riverwalk ability and mechs are mentioned in relation to faction capabilities, but the specific faction-level Riverwalk ability is not explicitly detailed in the sources [4][5]. The Riverwalk cards are a reminder of which factions can cross into home territories when the Riverwalk mech ability is unlocked, but the exact details for each faction are not provided in the sources. Therefore, the Riverwalk ability is not fully described in the provided sources. Answer: Rusviet may choose the same section on their Player Mat as the previous turn(s) [1]; Crimean faction may spend 1 combat card as if it were any 1 resource token once per turn [1]; Nordic workers may move across rivers onto any terrain except lakes [1]; Polanian faction may pick up to 2 options per encounter card, with the benefit from the first option used to pay for the second [1]; Saxony may complete both objective cards without discarding the second and is not limited to 2 combat victory stars, must place stars after winning combat if available [2][1].
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- corpus profile
- live
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- unset-dev (corpus lane freezes the deploy value)
- timings
- search 139 ms · ask 16684 ms · total 16824 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 16824 ms
- retrieval refs (raw)
- [{"page": 3, "score": 0.016393, "snippet": "FACTION PRIMARY COLOR 1 Faction Mat 1 action token 1 popularity token 1 power token 6 star tokens 4 structure tokens 4 recruit tokens 4 mech miniatures 1 character miniature 8 workers 6 technology cubes", "headingPath": "5 quick-start cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 21, "score": 0.016129, "snippet": "Each faction has a special ability indicated at the upper right of the Faction Mat. RUSVIET (RELENTLESS): You may choose the same section on your Player Mat as the previous turn(s). The Rusviets push their people hard, day after day, to achieve their ultimate goal. While other factions let their inf", "headingPath": "F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 30, "score": 0.015873, "snippet": "You are represented on the board by your character, who has been sent on a mission to make your faction's claim to the uncharted lands surrounding the defunct Factory. Each character unit is comprised of a person and their animal companion. While each of the characters appears to be functionally the", "headingPath": "CHARACTERS", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 21, "score": 0.015625, "snippet": "The Saxon faction may complete both of their objective cards (they don't discard the second card after achieving the first), and they are not limited to 2 combat victory stars. If Saxony has available stars, after winning combat, they must place the star. DESIGNER'S NOTE: One of the subtle benefits ", "headingPath": "F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 17, "score": 0.015385, "snippet": "RIVERWALK: Your character and mechs can move across rivers onto farms and tundra. WAYFARE: Your character and mechs may move from a territory or home base to any inactive faction's home base or your own regardless of the distance. An 'inactive faction' is any faction not currently in the game, inclu", "headingPath": "CRIMEA", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.015152, "snippet": "Place your character (miniature with the person & animal) on your faction's home base.", "headingPath": "CHARACTER", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.014925, "snippet": "Each of the three unit types in the game-characters, mechs, and workers-share two key similarities: They can move around the board (not over rivers or onto lakes, by default). They can transport any number of resource tokens. Each type of unit also has some unique traits that aren't shared by the ot", "headingPath": "TYPES OF UNITS", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.014706, "snippet": "The riverwalk cards-one per player-are a reminder as to which factions have the ability to cross into each home territory if they unlock the Riverwalk mech ability, as each Riverwalk ability is slightly different. This ability is explained for each faction on pages 15 - 17. MECHS: Place your 4 mech ", "headingPath": "RIVERWALK CARD", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}]
- citations (raw)
- [{"page": 21, "quote": null, "headingPath": "F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 21, "quote": null, "headingPath": "F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "FACTION MAT", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 17, "quote": null, "headingPath": "CRIMEA", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "RIVERWALK CARD", "sharpsignalDocId": 44}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
- gate not evaluated for this ruling (boost, supersedence, and wrench all off at ask time), and the base-rulebook arm went unrecorded for the same reason — the wrench that would have stored it was off; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=false, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=false
- 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 7, 2026 15:10
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 Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | 5 quick-start cards | p.3 | 0.016393 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 202 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S | p.21 | 0.016129 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 300 |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | CHARACTERS | p.30 | 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 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S | p.21 | 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 |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | CRIMEA | p.17 | 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 |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | CHARACTER | p.7 | 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) | 86 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | TYPES OF UNITS | p.5 | 0.014925 (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 Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | RIVERWALK CARD | p.9 | 0.014706 (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 Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S | p.21 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | F A C T I O N A B I L I T I E S | p.21 | no quote on the wire |
| [3] | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | FACTION MAT | p.9 | no quote on the wire |
| [4] | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | CRIMEA | p.17 | no quote on the wire |
| [5] | RULEBOOK Scythe — Rulebook (corpus doc 44) | RIVERWALK CARD | p.9 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 139 ms · first delta n/a · total 16824 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 139 ms · ask 16684 ms · gateway work 16824 ms · total 16824 ms
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 38s 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
- 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 2), 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.