Ruling — Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization

← Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilizationbg-182028-en-1e · Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wondersbg-280833-en-1e

To setup the game, follow these steps:

1. Place the game boards in the center of the table in any suitable configuration.[1]

2. For a 3-player game, remove the three cards with specific markings from civil decks I, II, and III.[1]

3. For a 2-player game, remove the nine cards with specific markings from civil decks I, II, and III.[1]

4. In a 2-player game, remove all pact cards from military decks II and III.[1]

5. Shuffle the Age A military deck.[1]

6. Take a number of cards equal to the number of players plus 2 and place them face down on the military board as the current events deck.[1]

7. Return the remaining cards from the Age A military deck to the box without looking at them.[1]

8. Choose the starting player (this player will not change during the game).[1]

9. (Optional) Mark the starting player by sliding one unused Age A military card face down under their board.[1]

10. Assign initial civil actions: the starting player begins with 1 unspent civil action (indicated by placing one white token on their Despotism card), and each subsequent player in clockwise order begins with one more action than the previous player (indicated by 2, 3, or 4 white tokens on their Despotism cards).[1]

11. Shuffle the Age A civil deck.[1]

12. Deal 13 cards face up to the spaces of the card row.[1]

13. Put the rest of the Age A civil deck on the light half of the current age board.[1]

14. Keep the other decks nearby but out of the use.[1]

15. (If using expansion/Secret Mix) Organize leader and wonder cards from the base game and expansion into eight stacks (one wonder stack and one leader stack for each age).[2]

16. Shuffle each stack and randomly draw the appropriate number of leaders (6 for two players, 7 for three or four) and wonders (4 for two players, 5 for three or four) for each age.[2]

17. Return the unused leader and wonder cards to the box.[2]

18. Shuffle the Age A leaders and wonders into the Age A deck.[2]

19. Place the Age I leaders and wonders on the spaces of the leader and wonder boards.[2]

20. (If using expansion/Secret Mix) Add the randomly selected leaders and wonders to the corresponding civil decks without looking at them.[3]

21. For civil decks I, II, and III, replace the leaders and wonders with proxy cards (using proxies 1 to 6 and 1 to 4 for two players, or proxies 1 to 7 and 1 to 5 for three or four players).[3]

22. Shuffle all decks.[3]

23. Use the side of the boards corresponding to the number of players and place the boards where everyone can see them.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook · p.2 · Game Boards · deCk setup · in the Box · preparinG the event deCk · startinG pLayer · initiaL aCtions · …

[2] RULEBOOK Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook · p.5 · Selecting Leaders and Wonders · Round 1 · Later Rounds · End of Age I

[3] RULEBOOK Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook · p.4 · Secret Mix · Public Mix · Proxy Cards · Leader and Wonder Boards

That's the page. Back to the table.

🔧 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 206 ms · ask 9239 ms · total 9447 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 9447 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Place the game boards in the center of the table, in any suitable configuration. Ages A, I, II, and III each have their own civil and military decks. So there are 8 separate decks, each with a different back. military decks In a 2- or 3-player game, you must remove certain cards. These cards will no", "headingPath": "Game Boards · deCk setup · in the Box · preparinG the event deCk · startinG pLayer · initiaL aCtions · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 242}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.048147, "snippet": "This rulebook presents all the rules for Through the Ages in a point-by-point format. It is especially useful for players who need to find a rule quickly. Players who are learning the game should not start with this rulebook. Instead, they should learn from the Handbook , which provides thematic bac", "headingPath": "Code of Laws", "sharpsignalDocId": 242}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031258, "snippet": "Each player chooses a color and takes the components in that color: The player board depicts 6 initial technologies: Warriors , Agriculture , Bronze , Philosophy , Religion , and Despotism . These count as technology cards. Put a blue token on each of the 16 squares in the blue bank. Put a yellow to", "headingPath": "pLayer Components · pLayer Board · ratinG markers · points Counters · taCtiCs standard", "sharpsignalDocId": 242}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031025, "snippet": "Once you start combining the base game leaders and wonders with the new ones from the expansion, you get a huge number of new combinations. Also, we can now increase the number of leaders in three- and four-player games, to mitigate the fact more players compete for them. Set out all the leaders and", "headingPath": "Secret Mix\b · Public Mix\b · Proxy Cards\b · Leader and Wonder Boards\b", "sharpsignalDocId": 897}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030835, "snippet": "Take the leader and wonder cards from the base game and the expansion and organize them into eight stacks - a wonder stack and a leader stack for each age. Shuffle each stack and randomly draw the appropriate number of leaders (6 for two players, 7 for three or four) and the appropriate number of wo", "headingPath": "Selecting Leaders and Wonders\b · Round 1 · Later Rounds · End of Age I", "sharpsignalDocId": 897}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030777, "snippet": "You can do this only if you already have an unfinished wonder in play. Pay 1 civil action. Pay resources indicated by the leftmost uncovered cost depicted on the wonder. Cover that cost with a blue token from your blue bank. -If there are no tokens in your blue bank, use one from your technology car", "headingPath": "BuiLd a staGe of a wonder · deveLop a teChnoLoGy · deCLare a revoLution", "sharpsignalDocId": 242}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03031, "snippet": "Pay the lower science cost depicted on the government card. Put the government into play. Replace your previous government by removing it from the game or covering it with the new card. Apply all effects of the new government. -Update your statistics , if necessary. -But if you increased your civil ", "headingPath": "deCLare a revoLution · pLay an aCtion Card · ... your turn · BuiLd a miLitary unit · upGrade a miLitary unit", "sharpsignalDocId": 242}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029857, "snippet": "For every available military action you have left, draw one military card from the current age military deck. -Limitation: You may draw at most 3 cards this way. -In Age IV, there is no military deck and you draw no cards. -Note: On the first round, players have no available military actions and thu", "headingPath": "draw miLitary Cards · reset your aCtions · disBand a miLitary unit · pLay a taCtiC · Copy a taCtiC", "sharpsignalDocId": 242}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game Boards · deCk setup · in the Box · preparinG the event deCk · startinG pLayer · initiaL aCtions · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 242}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Selecting Leaders and Wonders\b · Round 1 · Later Rounds · End of Age I", "sharpsignalDocId": 897}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Secret Mix\b · Public Mix\b · Proxy Cards\b · Leader and Wonder Boards\b", "sharpsignalDocId": 897}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 242 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 242 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 0.89412 of 2059 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 24, 2026 15:15 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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	Game Boards · deCk setup · in the Box · preparinG the event deCk · startinG pLayer · initiaL aCtions · …	p.2	0.048916 (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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	Code of Laws	p.1	0.048147 (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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	pLayer Components · pLayer Board · ratinG markers · points Counters · taCtiCs standard	p.2	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
#4	RULEBOOK Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook (corpus doc 897)	Secret Mix · Public Mix · Proxy Cards · Leader and Wonder Boards	p.4	0.031025 (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 Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook (corpus doc 897)	Selecting Leaders and Wonders · Round 1 · Later Rounds · End of Age I	p.5	0.030835 (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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	BuiLd a staGe of a wonder · deveLop a teChnoLoGy · deCLare a revoLution	p.5	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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	deCLare a revoLution · pLay an aCtion Card · ... your turn · BuiLd a miLitary unit · upGrade a miLitary unit	p.6	0.03031 (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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	draw miLitary Cards · reset your aCtions · disBand a miLitary unit · pLay a taCtiC · Copy a taCtiC	p.6	0.029857 (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 63 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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	Game Boards · deCk setup · in the Box · preparinG the event deCk · startinG pLayer · initiaL aCtions · …	p.2	#1	0.048916 (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 Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook (corpus doc 897)	Selecting Leaders and Wonders · Round 1 · Later Rounds · End of Age I	p.5	#5	0.030835 (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 Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook (corpus doc 897)	Secret Mix · Public Mix · Proxy Cards · Leader and Wonder Boards	p.4	#4	0.031025 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook (corpus doc 897)	End of Age II · Other Variants	p.5	#13	0.02753 (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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	make taCtiCs avaiLaBLe · prepare an event	p.4	#25	0.012048 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	BLue and yeLLow tokens	p.10	#17	0.013514 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	resiGn	p.4	#11	0.028694 (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 Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	Code of Laws	p.1	#2	0.048147 (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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization — Rulebook (corpus doc 242)	Game Boards · deCk setup · in the Box · preparinG the event deCk · startinG pLayer · initiaL aCtions · …	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook (corpus doc 897)	Selecting Leaders and Wonders · Round 1 · Later Rounds · End of Age I	p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders — Rulebook (corpus doc 897)	Secret Mix · Public Mix · Proxy Cards · Leader and Wonder Boards	p.4	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 206 ms · first delta 4336 ms · total 9447 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 206 ms · ask 9239 ms · gateway work 9447 ms · total 9447 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4585
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 659
tok/sec: 131.2 tok/sec — 659 output tokens in 5.021 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 7s 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 168), 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.