Ruling — Photosynthesis

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Photosynthesisbg-218603-en-1e

The goal of Photosynthesis is to maximize tree growth in the time it takes for the sun to circle the board three times.[1] Each round consists of two phases: The Photosynthesis Phase (collecting light points) and The Life Cycle Phase (taking actions using light points).[1]

Setup

1. Set the main board in the center of the table.[1]

2. Give each player 1 Player Board, 1 Light Point Tracker, 6 Seeds, and 14 Trees (8 small, 4 medium, and 2 tall).[1]

3. Stack Scoring Tokens in 4 piles by shade of green and number of leaves next to the board in descending order.[1]

4. Place 4 Seeds, 4 Small Trees, 3 Medium Trees, and 2 Large Trees on the corresponding open spaces on each Player Board, and set the Light Point Tracker to '0'.[1]

5. Place the remaining 2 Seeds, 4 Small Trees, and 1 Medium Tree alongside each Player Board.[1]

6. Place the Sun Segment on the sun symbol on the board.[1]

7. Set the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Revolution Counters on the edge of the board in numerical order.[1]

8. (For 2 players) Leave the 3 darkest green 4-leaf Scoring Tokens in the box; when collecting from the middle 4-leaf space, take tokens from the 3-leaf stack instead.[1]

9. The youngest player starts and takes the First Player Token.[1]

Gameplay

The Photosynthesis Phase

1. The player with the First Player Token moves the Sun Segment clockwise to the next angle on the hexagonal board.[2]

2. Players earn light points for each tree not in the shadow of another tree.[2]

3. Trees cast shadows on the side opposite the sun: Small Trees cast a 1-space shadow, Medium Trees cast a 2-space shadow, and Large Trees cast a 3-space shadow.[3]

4. A tree in shadow earns light points if it is taller than the tree casting the shadow.[2]

5. Players add light points to their Player Board by moving the Light Point Tracker.[2]

6. Once all light points are counted, the round continues clockwise with the player holding the First Player Token.[3]

The Life Cycle Phase

Players spend light points on actions, but cannot carry out more than one action on the same space on the main board during their turn.[3]

* Planting a seed: Players can plant a Seed around one or more trees using one light point per Seed.[3] A Seed from the available area can be planted at a distance determined by the tree it originates from: 1 space from a Small Tree, up to 2 spaces from a Medium Tree, or up to 3 spaces from a Tall Tree.[3] A player cannot plant more than one Seed originating from the same tree, nor can they grow a tree and then plant a Seed using that same tree as an origin in the same turn.[3]

* Growing a Tree: A seed or tree can be replaced only by a tree of the next size up.[4] Growing from a Seed to a Small Tree costs 1 light point, Small to Medium costs 2, and Medium to Large costs 3.[4] Players can only take a new tree from the available area to grow a tree on the board.[5]

* Buying: Players can use light points to purchase seeds or trees from their Player Boards, moving them to the available area.[3] They must buy from the bottom of the board up in any column (least to most expensive).[3]

* Collecting: Players can end the life-cycle of Large Trees to collect Scoring Tokens, costing 4 light points per Large Tree.[5] The Large Tree is moved to the topmost available space on the player's Player Board, and the player takes the token from the pile matching the soil type where the tree was rooted.[5] If a pile is empty, they take from the next pile.[5]

Ending the Game

1. After all players have taken a turn, the First Player Token passes clockwise and a new round starts.[5]

2. When the sun completes one revolution, the top token of the Sun Revolution Counter pile is placed in the box.[5]

3. The game ends when the sun completes three revolutions and the last Sun Revolution Counter is drawn.[5]

4. Players count points on Scoring Tokens and add 1 point for every 3 unused light points (0-2 points do not score extra).[5]

5. The player with the most points wins; ties are broken by the player with the most seeds and trees on the main board.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook · p.2 · set-up · playInG a round

[2] RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook · p.2 · 1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase:

[3] RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook · p.3 · 1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase: · Shadow sizes: · 2- The life CyCle Phase: · possIble actIons · · PlanTing a seed:

[4] RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook · p.3 · · growing a Tree:

[5] RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook · p.4 · · growing a Tree: · endInG a round · end of the Game · advanced varIatIon

The book has spoken.

🔧 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 132 ms · ask 6115 ms · total 6248 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6248 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Ê Set the main board in the center of the table. A Ê Give each player 1 Player Board, 1 Light Point Tracker, 6 Seeds, and 14 Trees: 8 small, 4 medium and 2 tall ones (matching the tree variety on their Player Board). B Ê Stack the Scoring T okens in 4 piles (according to their shade of green and num", "headingPath": "set-up · playInG a round", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "To grow a seed or tree on the board, players can only take a new tree from the available area. T rees and seeds that are replaced from the main board are then placed back on the Player Boards, on the topmost available space. If no corresponding spaces are open, the tree or seed is discarded into the", "headingPath": "· growing a Tree: · endInG a round · end of the Game · advanced varIatIon", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Author: Illustrator: Hjalmar Hach Sabrina Miramon 2 to 4 Players - 8 and up - 45-60 Minutes Several varieties of trees compete to grow and spread their seeds in the sunlight of this small, but fertile, forest. As each tree grows its leaves are touched by the sun's rays, collecting Light Points and c", "headingPath": "IntroductIon · Game components · object of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The player with the First Player T oken moves the Sun Segment clockwise to the next angle on the hexagonal board. Light points are then counted based on the new position of the sun. (Note: the sun doesn't need to be moved when starting the first round of a game). Players get light points for each tr", "headingPath": "1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase:", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Points accumulate from round to round and are scored as follows: Ê A Small Tree scores 1 point Ê A Medium Tree scores 2 points Ê A Large Tree scores 3 points No points are scored for seedlings. Each tree casts a shadow on side opposite the sun as follows: Ê Small T rees cast a 1 space shadow Ê Mediu", "headingPath": "1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase: · Shadow sizes: · 2- The life CyCle Phase: · possIble actIons · · PlanTing a seed:", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Giovanni Intini, Riccardo Sandroni, Karim Khadiri, Angela Lovat, Isabella Fattori, Lorenzo \"Lollo\" Cudicio, Chiara Pezzi, Gabriele Zuttion, Ivano Da Ronco, Pigiu, Roberto Pestrin, Federico Formentini, Davide Bardelli, Marco Piasentier, Filippo Bertolini, Carlo Burelli, Emanuele Degano, Quarta Dimens", "headingPath": "credIts:", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "A seed or tree can be replaced only by a tree that is the next size up. Ê Growing from a Seed to a Small Tree costs 1 light point Ê Growing from a Small Tree to a Medium Tree costs 2 light points Ê Growing from a Medium Tree to a Large Tree costs 3 light points", "headingPath": "· growing a Tree:", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "set-up · playInG a round", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase:", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase: · Shadow sizes: · 2- The life CyCle Phase: · possIble actIons · · PlanTing a seed:", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "· growing a Tree:", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "· growing a Tree: · endInG a round · end of the Game · advanced varIatIon", "sharpsignalDocId": 143}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 143 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 143 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 0.90513 of 3331 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 28, 2026 04:18 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 Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	set-up · playInG a round	p.2	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	· growing a Tree: · endInG a round · end of the Game · advanced varIatIon	p.4	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
#3	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	IntroductIon · Game components · object of the Game	p.1	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
#4	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase:	p.2	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
#5	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase: · Shadow sizes: · 2- The life CyCle Phase: · possIble actIons · · PlanTing a seed:	p.3	0.030769 (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 Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	credIts:	p.4	0.030303 (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 Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	· growing a Tree:	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))	261

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 7 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 Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	set-up · playInG a round	p.2	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	· growing a Tree: · endInG a round · end of the Game · advanced varIatIon	p.4	#2	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
#3	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	credIts:	p.4	#6	0.030303 (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 Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	· growing a Tree:	p.3	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase: · Shadow sizes: · 2- The life CyCle Phase: · possIble actIons · · PlanTing a seed:	p.3	#5	0.030769 (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 Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	IntroductIon · Game components · object of the Game	p.1	#3	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
#7	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase:	p.2	#4	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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	set-up · playInG a round	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase:	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	1- The PhoTosynThesis Phase: · Shadow sizes: · 2- The life CyCle Phase: · possIble actIons · · PlanTing a seed:	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	· growing a Tree:	p.3	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Photosynthesis — Rulebook (corpus doc 143)	· growing a Tree: · endInG a round · end of the Game · advanced varIatIon	p.4	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 132 ms · first delta 1168 ms · total 6248 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 132 ms · ask 6115 ms · gateway work 6248 ms · total 6248 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2738
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1020
tok/sec: 202.8 tok/sec — 1020 output tokens in 5.030 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 41s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 1s 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 65), 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.