Ruling — Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqalabg-157354-en-1e · Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqalabg-176677-en-1e · Five Tribes: The Thieves of Naqalabg-199310-en-1e · Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultanbg-226828-en-1e

Because the sources provide different setup instructions depending on the specific version or expansion of the game being played, the setup varies:

For the base game (3 or 4 players):

1. Punch out all pieces from the game's punchboards, and insert empty frames under the vacuum tray to keep the tray flush.[1]

2. Each player takes 8 Camels and 1 Turn marker of their chosen color.[1]

3. Mix all 30 Tiles and place them randomly face up to form a 5 x 6 rectangle (the Sultanate).[1]

4. Mix all 90 wooden Meeples in the bag, then grab and drop them in random sets of 3 on each Tile.[1]

5. Place the Bid Order & Turn Order Tracks next to the Sultanate.[1]

6. Randomly place the players' Turn markers on the Bid Order track.[1]

7. Shuffle all Resource cards to form a face-down draw pile, then draw the top 9 cards and lay them face up in a row next to the pile.[1]

8. Shuffle the Djinns' cards and set them face down in a draw pile, then draw the top 3 and lay them face up next to the pile.[1]

9. Place the Palm Trees, Palaces, and all remaining Gold Coins in a bank within easy reach.[1]

For a 2-player game:

1. One player takes all 11 Pink Camels and 2 Turn markers, and the other takes all 11 Blue Camels and 2 Turn markers.[1]

2. Each player gets 50 Gold Coins (9 coins worth '5' each and 5 worth '1' each).[1]

For the Five Tribes expansion (with 16 specific tiles):

1. Each player receives their Camels, Turn Marker, Gold Coins, and a Tent in their color.[2]

2. Take 10 Tiles from the Five Tribes base game at random, then add the 6 new Tiles (Workshops, Specialized Markets, and Chasm).[2]

3. Shuffle the 16 Tiles and place them at random on the table, forming a 4x4 square.[2]

4. Shuffle the 20 remaining tiles and place them at random around the 16 central Tiles to form a 6x6 square.[2]

5. Ensure all Tiles use the same orientation and that no Tile is entirely surrounded by mountains.[2]

6. Place the Mountains on the Workshop Tiles.[2]

7. Place the purple Meeples in the bag and place 3 Meeples on each Tile, except the Chasm, which remains empty.[2]

8. Shuffle the Item Markers and stack them face down next to the board.[2]

9. Place the Bid Order & Turn Order Tracks, Resource cards, Djinn cards, Gold Coins, Palm Trees, and Palaces according to the usual set-up.[2]

For the Artisans of Naqala Expansion:

1. Mix the 6 tiles from the 'Whims of the Sultan' expansion with the core game tiles.[3]

2. Draw 14 tiles at random from this stack and add the 6 tiles from 'the Artisans of Naqala'.[3]

3. Shuffle these 20 tiles together and place them at random on the table, forming a 4 x 5 tiles grid.[3]

4. Lay the 22 remaining tiles around that grid to create a 6 x 7 tiles grid (the board).[3]

5. Ensure all tiles use the same orientation and that no tile is entirely surrounded by mountains or cut off by the Great Lake or Chasm.[3]

For the 5-player expansion (without Artisans of Naqala):

1. Switch the bid order and turn order tracks from the base game with the ones provided in this expansion.[4]

2. In a 3 to 5 player game, each player gets 8 camels and 1 turn marker in their color.[4]

3. Each player gets 50 gold coins (9 coins worth '5' each and 5 worth '1' each).[4]

4. Place the Bid order & turn order tracks, Resource cards, Djinn cards, gold coins, palm trees, and palaces according to the usual set-up.[4]

5. Randomly place the players' turn markers on the bid order track.[4]

6. Mix the 6 tiles from this expansion with the core game tiles and place them at random on the table to form a 6 x 6 tiles square.[4]

7. Remove the 3 Whim of the Sultan cards that have the Artisans symbol from the game.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook · p.2 · Settingupthegame

[2] RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala — Rulebook · p.2 · Setting up the game · Howtoplay · Tile Control Check

[3] RULEBOOK Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook · p.3 · With The Artisans of Naqala Expansion

[4] RULEBOOK Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook · p.3 · Setting up the game · At all Times · Without The Artisans of Naqala Expansion

Question closed. Friendships intact.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 295 ms · ask 10919 ms · total 11220 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 11220 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.048172, "snippet": "If this is the first play, punch out all the pieces from the game's punchboards. Rather than discarding the empty frames, insert them under the vacuum tray inside your game box. This will help your tray stay flush with your game's box top, preventing pieces inside from spilling over when storing you", "headingPath": "Settingupthegame", "sharpsignalDocId": 285}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032522, "snippet": "Note: This expansion provides the components needed to play 5-player games of Five Tribes. This option is only possible by adding at least one of the expansions that adds tiles to the game. The only change to the setup in this case is to switch the bid order track and the turn order track from the b", "headingPath": "Setting up the game · At all Times · Without The Artisans of Naqala Expansion", "sharpsignalDocId": 873}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032002, "snippet": "✦ Players receive their Camels, Turn Marker, and Gold Coins as usual. Also, each player receives a Tent in their color. ✦ Take 10 Tiles from the Five Tribes base game at random, then add the 6 new Tiles (Workshops, Specialized Markets and Chasm). Shuffle the 16 Tiles and place them at random on the ", "headingPath": "Setting up the game · Howtoplay · Tile Control Check", "sharpsignalDocId": 871}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.031754, "snippet": "We invite you to join our online community of players at Days of Wonder Online, where we host a number of online versions of our games. To use your Days of Wonder Online number, add it to your existing Days of Wonder Online account or create a new account at: www.daysofwonder.com/five-tribes and cli", "headingPath": "Days of Wonder Online", "sharpsignalDocId": 285}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031258, "snippet": "Once his/her turn comes up, each player takes all of the following actions, before letting the next Turn Marker owner play: Take your Turn Marker off the Turn Order Track and place it onto the first empty spot on the Bid Order Track. Note: If you go first, this means you will also bid first for Turn", "headingPath": "2. Player's Actions · 2.1 Move Turn Marker · 2.2 Move Meeples", "sharpsignalDocId": 285}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030777, "snippet": "The player whose Turn marker is in first position (spot marked '1') on the Bid Order track goes first and announces which spot of the Turn Order Track she wishes to place her Turn Marker on; she immediately pays to the bank the amount of Gold Coins indicated on that spot, and places her Turn Marker ", "headingPath": "1. Bid for Turn Order", "sharpsignalDocId": 285}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.03009, "snippet": "Taking all the Meeples from the Small Market tile in hand, the player then drops a green Meeple on the Oasis (1), a blue Meeple on the Big Market (2), a red Meeple on the Sacred Place (3), a yellow Meeple on the Small Market (4), and the last green Meeple on the Oasis (5). This move let the player r", "headingPath": "There are 3 rules you must respect while moving these Meeples:", "sharpsignalDocId": 285}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "✦ Mix the 6 tiles from the 'Whims of the Sultan' expansion with the ones from the core game. ✦ Draw 14 tiles at random from this stack and add the 6 tiles from 'the Artisans of Naqala'. Shuffl e these 20 tiles together and place them at random on the table, forming a 4 x 5 tiles grid. ✦ Lay the 22 r", "headingPath": "With The Artisans of Naqala Expansion", "sharpsignalDocId": 873}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Settingupthegame", "sharpsignalDocId": 285}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting up the game · Howtoplay · Tile Control Check", "sharpsignalDocId": 871}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "With The Artisans of Naqala Expansion", "sharpsignalDocId": 873}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting up the game · At all Times · Without The Artisans of Naqala Expansion", "sharpsignalDocId": 873}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 285 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 285 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)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.87981 of 2962 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 23, 2026 15:09 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

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 Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	Settingupthegame	p.2	0.048172 (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 Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook (corpus doc 873)	Setting up the game · At all Times · Without The Artisans of Naqala Expansion	p.3	0.032522 (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 Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 871)	Setting up the game · Howtoplay · Tile Control Check	p.2	0.032002 (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 Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	Days of Wonder Online	p.8	0.031754 (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 Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	2. Player's Actions · 2.1 Move Turn Marker · 2.2 Move Meeples	p.4	0.031258 (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 Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	1. Bid for Turn Order	p.3	0.030777 (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 Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	There are 3 rules you must respect while moving these Meeples:	p.5	0.03009 (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 Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook (corpus doc 873)	With The Artisans of Naqala Expansion	p.3	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

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 31 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	Settingupthegame	p.2	#1	0.048172 (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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 871)	Setting up the game · Howtoplay · Tile Control Check	p.2	#3	0.032002 (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))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	2. Player's Actions · 2.1 Move Turn Marker · 2.2 Move Meeples	p.4	#5	0.031258 (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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 871)	Purple Artisans Tribe · New Tile Actions · WORKSHOP · SPECIALIZED MARKET · CHASM · Items · …	p.3	#14	0.026646 (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))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	1. Bid for Turn Order	p.3	#6	0.030777 (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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Thieves of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 872)	Components · Setting Up the Game · Buying a Thief card · Using a Thief card · Clean-Up · End of the Game · …	p.1	#9	0.029762 (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))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook (corpus doc 873)	With The Artisans of Naqala Expansion	p.3	#8	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))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook (corpus doc 873)	Setting up the game · At all Times · Without The Artisans of Naqala Expansion	p.3	#2	0.032522 (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))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 285)	Settingupthegame	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala — Rulebook (corpus doc 871)	Setting up the game · Howtoplay · Tile Control Check	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook (corpus doc 873)	With The Artisans of Naqala Expansion	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan — Rulebook (corpus doc 873)	Setting up the game · At all Times · Without The Artisans of Naqala Expansion	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 295 ms · first delta 3414 ms · total 11220 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 295 ms · ask 10919 ms · gateway work 11220 ms · total 11220 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3584
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 132.8 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 7.709 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 17s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 6s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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 214), 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.