Ruling — Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Sekigahara: The Unification of Japanbg-25021-en-1e

The game is played over seven weeks.[1][2] Each week consists of a sequence of steps:

1. Reinforcement Step: Each player discards half of their hand (rounding down).[1] Each player draws 5 cards.[1] The player controlling the most castles draws a 6th card.[1] Each player draws a number of blocks from their bag as written on the Recruitment Track (2 blocks in weeks 2, 3, and 4; 1 block in weeks 5, 6, and 7).[1] The player controlling more Resource Locations draws an additional block (both players draw an extra block in the case of a tie).[1] These blocks are placed in the player's Reinforcement Box.[1] This step is skipped on the first week.[1]

2. Turn Order Step: Players bid for turn order by placing a card from their hand face down; cards are revealed simultaneously.[1] The player with the higher number in the card's bottom corner wins and chooses who moves first for both turns in the week.[1] Both players must discard the card they played.[1] The Turn Marker is placed on the 'A' space of the Turn Track with the first player's color face up.[1]

3. Turns A and B: Each weekly cycle consists of two turns (A and B).[1]

* Turn A: The First Player conducts Movement and Combat, followed by the Second Player conducting Movement and Combat.[1]

* Turn B: The player who was first in Turn A is also first in Turn B.[1] The First Player conducts Movement and Combat, followed by the Second Player conducting Movement and Combat.[1]

* After Turn B, the Turn Marker advances to the next week.[1]

Movement and Combat Details:

* Movement: During the Movement Phase, a player may move none, some, or all stacks of blocks they control.[3] The number of stacks that can move is determined by the number of cards discarded (0 cards allows no movement or minimal movement; 1 card allows limited movement; 2 cards allows total movement).[3] A stack's movement rate can be increased by +1 if Leadership (a leader, castle, or capital) is present at the origin of the move.[4]

* Mustering: A player may Muster at most once per turn by placing blocks from the Recruitment Box onto the map at Recruitment locations.[3] A player can either muster all blocks of the same daimyo to a matching mon location or muster a single block of any daimyo to any friendly Recruitment location.[3] Mustered blocks cannot move in the same turn they are placed.[3]

* Combat and Losses: After a battle, both sides take losses based on the Impact delivered.[5] A side loses one block for every 7 Impact delivered by their opponent (rounding down).[5] The losing side also loses one additional block.[5] The attacker suffers damage first, then the defender.[5]

* Retreats: The loser must retreat their remaining force to a single adjacent location contiguous by road.[6] The attacker must retreat to a location from which some of their forces entered the battle (or a castle).[6] The defender retreats to a location with no enemy units if possible.[6]

* Ending the Game: The game ends after 7 weeks.[1]

[1] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.5 · 6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:

[2] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.5 · 5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE

[3] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.6 · 7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG

[4] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.6 · 7.3.4 Leadership

[5] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.9 · 8.5 InItIatIVE · 8.6.1 Procedure · 8.6.2 Loyalty and Special Attacks · 8.6.3 Loyalty and Double Cards · 8.7.1 How to Determine Losses · 8.7.2 Selecting Losses

[6] RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook · p.9 · 8.7.3 Effects of Losses · 8.8.1 Retreats in General · 8.8.2 When the Attacker Retreats · 8.8.3 When the Defender Retreats · 8.8.4 Retreats into a Castle · 8.8.5 Retreats into Combat

That settles it — whose turn was it?

🔧 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 96 ms · ask 13792 ms · total 13890 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 13890 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 5, "score": 0.047712, "snippet": "Each player receives new cards and blocks, as follows: Each player discards half (round down) of their hand. Example: if you have 7 cards you would discard 3. Each player draws 5 cards. The player who controls the most castles draws a 6th card. Each player draws at random from their bag a number of ", "headingPath": "6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.046751, "snippet": "Set the turn counter to Week \u0018. Shuffle the two decks separately. Each player draws 5 cards from his deck. (This small starting hand represents the limited organizational capacity of each army in the early stages.) Separate the blocks with setup symbols in the lower right corner, and put the remaini", "headingPath": "5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.045921, "snippet": "The Ishida player (gold blocks) plays two cards during his Movement Phase to allow all his stacks to move. This allows him one Muster action which he does first. He can muster one block of any designation to any friendly recruitment location, or he can muster all blocks that match a mon to the recru", "headingPath": "EXAMPLE OF MOVEMENT", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045037, "snippet": "Some blocks represent a daimyo (leader). These are marked with a nobori (banner). Most nobori have a single dot, but the protagonists of the campaign, Ishida Mitsunari and Tokugawa Ieyasu, are marked with nobori of three dots. Cards represent the allegiance of each player's armies. The greater the n", "headingPath": "3.2 BloCks · 3.3 Cards · 3.4 othEr ComPonEnts", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.043364, "snippet": "SEKIGAHARA - Rules of Play \u0018 GMT Games, LLC © 2013 GMT Games, LLC", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "During the Movement Phase a player may move none, some, or all of the stacks of blocks they control on the board. A stack is all of the blocks in a single location. The number of stacks that can be moved is determined by the number of cards spent for movement. Mustering and Overruns can also occur i", "headingPath": "7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "A location is a place on the map (typically a city) connected by roads to other locations. It is represented by a circle, and may include a castle. Any number of blocks may occupy a location. Blocks on the map begin and end every turn in a location. Resource Locations are wealth-producing zones, pop", "headingPath": "4.1 loCatIons In GEnEral · 4.2 rEsourCE loCatIons · 4.3 CastlEs · 4.4 rECruItmEnt BoxEs · 4.5 CaPItals", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030679, "snippet": "Combat occurs after all movement. Combat must be declared in every location on the board where opposing pieces appear together. These declarations are made one at a time by the phasing player, with combat resolved immediately following each declaration. Combat will be a battle or a siege, the latter", "headingPath": "8.1 GEnEral rulE · 8.2.1 Battle Procedure · 8.2.2 Cards and Deployment · 8.2.3 Deployment Procedure · 8.2.4 Initial Deployment of a Leader Block · 8.3.1 Impact in General", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "7.3.4 Leadership", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "8.5 InItIatIVE · 8.6.1 Procedure · 8.6.2 Loyalty and Special Attacks · 8.6.3 Loyalty and Double Cards · 8.7.1 How to Determine Losses · 8.7.2 Selecting Losses", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "8.7.3 Effects of Losses · 8.8.1 Retreats in General · 8.8.2 When the Attacker Retreats · 8.8.3 When the Defender Retreats · 8.8.4 Retreats into a Castle · 8.8.5 Retreats into Combat", "sharpsignalDocId": 340}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 340 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 340 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 0.89868 of 2507 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 28, 2026 09:59 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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:	p.5	0.047712 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE	p.5	0.046751 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	EXAMPLE OF MOVEMENT	p.7	0.045921 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	3.2 BloCks · 3.3 Cards · 3.4 othEr ComPonEnts	p.3	0.045037 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)		p.1	0.043364 (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))	65
#6	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG	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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	4.1 loCatIons In GEnEral · 4.2 rEsourCE loCatIons · 4.3 CastlEs · 4.4 rECruItmEnt BoxEs · 4.5 CaPItals	p.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))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	8.1 GEnEral rulE · 8.2.1 Battle Procedure · 8.2.2 Cards and Deployment · 8.2.3 Deployment Procedure · 8.2.4 Initial Deployment of a Leader Block · 8.3.1 Impact in General	p.8	0.030679 (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 46 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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:	p.5	#1	0.047712 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE	p.5	#2	0.046751 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	8.5 InItIatIVE · 8.6.1 Procedure · 8.6.2 Loyalty and Special Attacks · 8.6.3 Loyalty and Double Cards · 8.7.1 How to Determine Losses · 8.7.2 Selecting Losses	p.9	#10	0.029287 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG	p.6	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	8.7.3 Effects of Losses · 8.8.1 Retreats in General · 8.8.2 When the Attacker Retreats · 8.8.3 When the Defender Retreats · 8.8.4 Retreats into a Castle · 8.8.5 Retreats into Combat	p.9	#14	0.02619 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.3.4 Leadership	p.6	#19	0.014085 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	design notes	p.19	#13	0.027693 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	EXAMPLE OF MOVEMENT	p.7	#3	0.045921 (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 Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	6.2 rEInForCEmEnt stEP · 6.3 turn ordEr stEP · 6.4 turns a and B · Turn A: · Turn B:	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	5.1 ProCEdurE · 5.2.1 Blocks with Specific Locations · 5.2.2 Randomly Placed Blocks · 5.2.3 Reinforcement Blocks · 6. Weekly Cycle · 6.1 turn sEquEnCE outlInE	p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.1 In GEnEral · 7.2 mustErInG	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	7.3.4 Leadership	p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	8.5 InItIatIVE · 8.6.1 Procedure · 8.6.2 Loyalty and Special Attacks · 8.6.3 Loyalty and Double Cards · 8.7.1 How to Determine Losses · 8.7.2 Selecting Losses	p.9	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan — Rulebook (corpus doc 340)	8.7.3 Effects of Losses · 8.8.1 Retreats in General · 8.8.2 When the Attacker Retreats · 8.8.3 When the Defender Retreats · 8.8.4 Retreats into a Castle · 8.8.5 Retreats into Combat	p.9	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 96 ms · first delta 10177 ms · total 13890 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 96 ms · ask 13792 ms · gateway work 13890 ms · total 13890 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3802
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 718
tok/sec: 199.4 tok/sec — 718 output tokens in 3.601 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 39s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 24h, 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 268), 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.