Ruling — Merchants & Marauders

← Merchants & Marauders

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Merchants & Maraudersbg-25292-en-1e

Setup

1. Each player selects a color and takes the 6 cubes and miniatures of that color.[1]

2. Each player takes one Treasure Chest for stashed Gold.[1]

3. Each player randomly draws a Captain from the Captain Card deck without revealing it.[1]

4. Each player secretly chooses a ship (Sloop or Flute) and places it in their hand.[1]

5. All players simultaneously reveal their Captain and chosen ship.[1]

6. Players take a Ship Card corresponding to their chosen ship and place it and their Captain Card on their Player Board.[1]

7. Players place their ship miniature in their Captain's home-port on the Game Board.[1]

8. Players draw a Glory Card.[1]

9. Players place cubes on the ship card's 'hit-location' values (e.g., 'Hull', 'Masts', etc.) based on the ship's toughness.[1]

10. Each player takes 10 Gold.[1]

11. The starting player is determined by drawing one Captain card from all players' Captain cards; turns proceed clockwise from that player.[1]

Turn Sequence

1. The start player draws an Event Card.[2]

2. If the card has NPC icons, these are resolved first.[2]

3. The text of the Event Card is read aloud, and its effects are carried out.[2]

4. The Event Card is placed in a discard pile unless stated otherwise.[2]

5. Players perform their actions in clockwise order.[2]

6. A new turn begins once all players have finished their actions.[2]

Player Actions

During a turn, a player may perform up to three actions from the following choices:[2][3]

1. Move: Move the ship miniature between adjacent Sea-Zones or to and from ports; each separate move counts as one action.[2][3]

2. Scout: Select a target in the same Sea-Zone (a Player Captain not in port, an NPC, or a Merchant) and roll the Captain's Scouting skill; a successful roll leads to a battle or Merchant Raid.[3]

3. Port: (Note: The specific mechanics for the "Port" action are not detailed in the provided text, only that it is an available action).[2][3]

Winning and Ending the Game

The game ends immediately if any of the following occur:[4][5]

1. A player reaches 10 Glory Points (including secret points for stashed Gold) and declares it; the game ends before the next Event Card is drawn.[4]

2. There are no more Event Cards at the beginning of a turn.[4][5]

3. A Captain dies and there are no more Captains left to draw.[5]

The winner is the player with the most Glory Points.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook · p.5 · The Player Board · Start Player · Merchant or Marauder?

[2] RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook · p.7 · Turn Sequence · Draw Event Card · Actions · Move

[3] RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook · p.7

[4] RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook · p.3 · Important Terms · Winning The Game

[5] RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook · p.4 · Time Limits and Game Length · Dice and Skill Checks

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 84 ms · ask 5830 ms · total 5915 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5915 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 5, "score": 0.048412, "snippet": "Each player gets a Player Board. The Player Board is used to keep track of Cards, Gold, Cargo, and the condition of your ship. At the start of play, each player follows the following steps: Select the color you wish to play and take the 6 cubes and miniatures of that color. Also take one of the Trea", "headingPath": "The Player Board · Start Player · Merchant or Marauder?", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.047163, "snippet": "You get a Glory Card whenever you get a Glory Point. As explained in 'Winning The Game' on page 3, you get Glory Points and thus Glory Cards for: Defeating a Player or NPC (Defined as surviving and winning naval- or crewcombat). Selling 3+ Cargo Cards at a port where the goods sold are 'in demand'. ", "headingPath": "Getting Glory Cards · Playing Glory Cards · Specialists · Non-Player Captains", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.044589, "snippet": "The game ends immediately if either of the following occurs: There are no more Event Cards at the beginning of a turn. A Captain dies, and there are no more Captains left to draw. In both cases, the winning player is the one who has the mostGlory Points. Resolve ties as explained in 'Winning The Gam", "headingPath": "Time Limits and Game Length · Dice and Skill Checks", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.044563, "snippet": "Player Board : The board where you put many of your cards, Ship Modifications and Gold. Sea-Zone : The large areas at sea in which you place your ships and move them around. There are 17 Sea-Zones on the Game Board. Bounties: An indication of how wanted you are. Mostcommonly, you get bounties by eng", "headingPath": "Important Terms · Winning The Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Draw Event Card. Player Actions (in turn). Once all players are finished, begin a new turn by drawing a new Event Card. The start player draws an Event Card. If the card has any NPC icons at the top, these are resolved first (see 'NPC Movement' on page 13). Then the text of the Event Card is read al", "headingPath": "Turn Sequence · Draw Event Card · Actions · Move", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "The Game Board is divided into 17 Sea-Zones . 16 of these have a port associated with them, represented by a national icon from one of the 4 nations in the game (Dutch, English, French and Spanish). MostSea-Zones have a unique advantage or disadvantage which is written in each Sea-Zone. This Sea-Zon", "headingPath": "The Game Board · Setting up the Game Board.", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Every time you have your turn you may perform up to three Actions, and have the following three actions to choose from: • M ove • S cout • Po rt You may combine different actions, allowing you for instance to spend two actions to “move” twice, and then the third action to “scout” for a ship. Move Us", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Select the 'scout' action to try to find and attack a ship present in your Sea-Zone. Announce which of the following you 'scout' for: A Player Captain in the same Sea-Zone (not in port) An NPC in the same Sea-Zone A Merchant in the same Sea-Zone (represented by a Merchant Token) Roll your Captain's ", "headingPath": "Scout", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The Player Board · Start Player · Merchant or Marauder?", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Turn Sequence · Draw Event Card · Actions · Move", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Important Terms · Winning The Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Time Limits and Game Length · Dice and Skill Checks", "sharpsignalDocId": 517}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 517 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 517 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 0.87740 of 1982 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 26, 2026 15:51 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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	The Player Board · Start Player · Merchant or Marauder?	p.5	0.048412 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Getting Glory Cards · Playing Glory Cards · Specialists · Non-Player Captains	p.12	0.047163 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Time Limits and Game Length · Dice and Skill Checks	p.4	0.044589 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Important Terms · Winning The Game	p.3	0.044563 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Turn Sequence · Draw Event Card · Actions · Move	p.7	0.032258 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	The Game Board · Setting up the Game Board.	p.6	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
#7	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)		p.7	0.03125 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Scout	p.7	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 47 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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	The Player Board · Start Player · Merchant or Marauder?	p.5	#1	0.048412 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Glory Cards During Combat · Special Weapons · Chain-shots & Grapeshots:	p.15	#9	0.02967 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Important Terms · Winning The Game	p.3	#4	0.044563 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Time Limits and Game Length · Dice and Skill Checks	p.4	#3	0.044589 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Bringing NPCs Into Play	p.12	#10	0.029387 (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
#6	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Turn Sequence · Draw Event Card · Actions · Move	p.7	#5	0.032258 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)		p.7	#7	0.03125 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Bringing NPCs Into Play	p.12	#11	0.028083 (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 Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	The Player Board · Start Player · Merchant or Marauder?	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Turn Sequence · Draw Event Card · Actions · Move	p.7	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)		p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Important Terms · Winning The Game	p.3	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Merchants & Marauders — Rulebook (corpus doc 517)	Time Limits and Game Length · Dice and Skill Checks	p.4	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 84 ms · first delta 2785 ms · total 5915 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 84 ms · ask 5830 ms · gateway work 5915 ms · total 5915 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3694
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 621
tok/sec: 201.5 tok/sec — 621 output tokens in 3.082 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 56s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 5s 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 449), 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.