Ruling — Istanbul

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Istanbulbg-148949-en-1e

To play, follow these steps in clockwise order, beginning with the Start player:[1]

1. Movement: Move your Merchant and the stack of Assistants under him (if any) by 1 or 2 Places.[1] You cannot move diagonally and must end on a different Place than where you started.[1] (Note: If you are at the Sultan's Palace, you move your Merchant stack by 3 or 4 Places instead of 1 or 2 [2]).

2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any):

* If there are other Merchants at the Target Place, you must pay each of them 2 Lira.[1] Your turn ends immediately if you cannot or do not want to pay, unless you are at the Fountain, where you do not have to pay other Merchants.[1]

* If you encounter a neutral Merchant, pay 2 Lira into the general supply, then roll both dice to determine and place a new position for that neutral Merchant.[1]

3. Action: If your Merchant is accompanied by at least 1 of your Assistants (except at the Fountain), you may carry out the action that the Target Place provides.[3]

* If you arrive at a Place with an Assistant, you may either add that Assistant to your stack or remove an Assistant from the bottom of your stack and leave them at the Target Place.[1]

* If you cannot or refuse to leave an Assistant behind, your turn ends immediately (except at the Fountain).[1]

* After your action, if other players' Family members are at the Target Place, you must catch them and send them to the Police Station to receive a reward of 1 Bonus card or 3 Lira from the general supply for each member caught.[3]

4. Bonus Cards and Mosque Abilities: During your turn, you may use any number of Bonus cards and the special abilities of your Mosque tiles.[1] You may play any number of Bonus cards whenever you like.[2]

Ending the Game

The game ends after the current round is completed once the first player collects 5 Rubies (or 6 Rubies in a 2-player game).[4][1] After the final round, players may use leftover Bonus cards that provide goods or money.[4] The player with the most Rubies wins, with ties broken by most leftover Lira, then most leftover goods on the Wheelbarrow, then most leftover Bonus cards.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook · p.3 · FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …

[2] RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook · p.3 · BONUS CARDS

[3] RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook · p.3 · 3. Action · … other Family members · … the Governor · … the Smuggler

[4] RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook · p.5 · END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS

Rule found, game on.

🔧 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 156 ms · ask 5810 ms · total 5970 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5970 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 3, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Beginning with the Start player you take turns in clockwise order. When the first player has collected 5 Rubies (in a 2-player game: 6 Rubies) on the appropriate spaces of his Wheelbarrow, you complete the current round. After this round the game ends. A turn consists of 4 phases but, most of the ti", "headingPath": "FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.048131, "snippet": "This layout offers a lot of variety: shuffle the Place tiles and lay them out in a 4x4 grid. The challenge is to find out which paths are the most efficient in the given layout, which is different from play to play. Please note: even with a random layout, it is recommended that you use the following", "headingPath": " Random layout", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "The first player to collect 5 Rubies (in a 2-player game: 6 Rubies) triggers the end of the game. When this happens, complete the current round. Then each player may use his leftover Bonus cards that provide goods or money. This may matter for the tie-breaker. The player with the most Rubies wins. T", "headingPath": "END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046394, "snippet": "2-5 players  aged 10 and up  playing time: 40-60 minutes Hustle and bustle in the bazaar district of Istanbul: merchants and their assistants are hurrying through the narrow alleys attempting to be more successful than their competitors. Good organization is key: wheelbarrows have to be filled wit", "headingPath": "INTRODUCTION · GAME IDEA", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045455, "snippet": "On your turn, you may play any number of Bonus cards whenever you like:  After you resolve the Bonus card, place it on the face-up discard pile on the Caravansary 6 .  When taking a Bonus card, draw it from the face-down draw pile (exception: Caravansary 6 , see p. 6).  Shuffle the discard pile t", "headingPath": "BONUS CARDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.045235, "snippet": "Numbers: used in the various Place tile layouts. The big number is also used to denote the new Place for a token when rolling the dice. Place symbol (at some places): These symbols are referred to on a number of Bonus cards and Mosque tiles. Name of the Place Available action Rubies (at some Places)", "headingPath": "PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "and place your Merchant disc on top of this stack. Then place these stacks on the Fountain 7 . Place the 5th Assistant of each player easily accessible next to the game board. 10 Place your Family members on the Police Station 12 . place them face-up in a stack on the Large Market 10 . Repeat this p", "headingPath": "Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "If your Merchant is accompanied by at least 1 of your Assistants (Exception: Fountain 7 , see p. 6), you may carry out the action that the Target Place provides (see p. 6-7). Example: The red player has to pay 2 Lira to the yellow and the green player, otherwise his turn ends immediately. After your", "headingPath": "3. Action · … other Family members · … the Governor · … the Smuggler", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "BONUS CARDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3. Action · … other Family members · … the Governor · … the Smuggler", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 124 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 124 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 0.91364 of 1760 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 24, 2026 20:52 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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …	p.3	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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	 Random layout	p.5	0.048131 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS	p.5	0.047643 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	INTRODUCTION · GAME IDEA	p.1	0.046394 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	BONUS CARDS	p.3	0.045455 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine	p.2	0.045235 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and	p.2	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
#8	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	3. Action · … other Family members · … the Governor · … the Smuggler	p.3	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

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 11 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 — not 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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	BONUS CARDS	p.3	#5	0.045455 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	 Random layout	p.5	#2	0.048131 (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
#3	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS	p.5	#3	0.047643 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	3. Action · … other Family members · … the Governor · … the Smuggler	p.3	#8	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	Wainwright · Fabric/Spice/Fruit Warehouse · Post Office · Caravansery · Fountain · Black Market · …	p.4	#9	0.014493 (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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	INTRODUCTION · GAME IDEA	p.1	#4	0.046394 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and	p.2	#7	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …	p.3	#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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	BONUS CARDS	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	3. Action · … other Family members · … the Governor · … the Smuggler	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124)	END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 156 ms · first delta 2016 ms · total 5970 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 156 ms · ask 5810 ms · gateway work 5970 ms · total 5970 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3270
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 522
tok/sec: 134.1 tok/sec — 522 output tokens in 3.892 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 59s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 8s 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: 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 46), 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.