Ruling — Regicide

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Regicidebg-307002-en-1e

Regicide is a cooperative game where players work together to defeat 12 powerful enemies.[1] The players win when the last King is defeated.[1]

Setup

1. Shuffle the 4 Kings and put them facedown in a pile on the table.[1]

2. Shuffle the 4 Queens and put them facedown on top of the Kings.[1]

3. Shuffle the 4 Jacks and put them facedown on top of the Queens; this is the Castle deck.[1]

4. Turn the top card of the Castle deck face up to reveal the current enemy.[1]

5. Shuffle all cards numbered 2 to 10, the 4 Animal Companions, and a number of Jesters (based on the number of players) to form the Tavern deck.[1]

6. Place the Castle deck in the centre of the table.[1]

7. Deal cards to each player up to their maximum hand size.[1]

8. The player who most recently committed regicide goes first.[1]

A Turn

Each turn consists of four steps:[2]

1. Step 1 - Play a card or yield: A player plays a card from their hand onto the table to attack the enemy.[2] The card's number determines the attack value.[2] Players can also pair an Animal Companion with one other card (except the Jester),[3] or combine sets of 2, 3, or 4 cards of the same number if the total value is 10 or less.[3] Alternatively, a player may choose to yield by saying "Yield," which skips Steps 2 and 3 (provided not every other player yielded on their last turn).[4] The Jester can also be played on its own during this step to negate the enemy's suit immunity.[4]

2. Step 2 - Activate the suit power: The suit of the played card provides a power.[1] Red suit powers are resolved immediately, while black suit powers take effect in later steps.[2]

3. Step 3 - Deal damage and check to see if the enemy is defeated: Damage equal to the attack value of the played card is dealt to the enemy.[5] Clubs deal double damage.[2] If the total damage dealt by all players meets or exceeds the enemy's health, the enemy is defeated.[5] If defeated, the enemy is placed in the discard pile (or on top of the Tavern deck if damage was exactly equal to health), played cards are discarded, the next card of the Castle deck is revealed, and the player who defeated the enemy starts a new turn at Step 1.[5]

4. Step 4 - Suffer damage from the enemy: If the enemy is not defeated, the current player must discard cards from their hand with a total value at least equal to the enemy's attack value.[3] Spades played against the enemy can reduce this attack value.[5] If a player cannot discard enough cards to satisfy the damage, they die and all players lose.[3] After this, the next player in clockwise order begins their turn.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook · p.1 · AIM OF THE GAME · SETUP · HOW TO PLAY

[2] RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook · p.1 · Each turn has four steps: · HEARTS · DIAMONDS · CLUBS

[3] RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook · p.2 · STEP FOUR · ANIMAL COMPANIONS · COMBOS

[4] RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook · p.2 · ENEMY IMMUNITY · PLAYING THE JESTER · DRAWING A DEFEATED ENEMY · YIELDING

[5] RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook · p.1 · SPADES · STEP FOUR

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 89 ms · ask 4284 ms · total 19953 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 15579 ms · generation 4374 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 1, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "Step 1 - Play a card or yield Step 2 - Activate the suit power Step 3 - Deal damage to the enemy and check Step 4 - Suffer damage from the enemy STEP ONE Play a card from hand to attack the enemy Play a card from your hand onto the table in front of you. The number of the card determines the attack ", "headingPath": "Each turn has four steps: · HEARTS · DIAMONDS · CLUBS", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "Players may not communicate to the other players any information which may reveal or suggest the contents of their hand. They may however remind other players of any public information such as how many cards they have in their hand. Some examples of allowed communication are: 'I have two cards in ha", "headingPath": "COMMUNICATION · GAME END · SOLO PLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "Each enemy is immune to the suit powers of cards played against them which match their suit. For example, players will not draw cards when a diamond is played against the Jack of Diamonds (however the number is still added to the damage total). The Jester can be played to cancel an enemy's immunity.", "headingPath": "ENEMY IMMUNITY · PLAYING THE JESTER · DRAWING A DEFEATED ENEMY · YIELDING", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "DESIGN PAUL ABRAHAMS LUKE BADGER ANDY RICHDALE ART SKETCHGOBLIN Regicide is a cooperative game where players work together to defeat 12 powerful enemies. Players take turns to play cards to the table to attack the enemy and once enough damage is dealt, the enemy is defeated. The players win when the", "headingPath": "AIM OF THE GAME · SETUP · HOW TO PLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.046394, "snippet": "The current player must discard cards from their hand with a total value at least equal to the enemy's attack value. Discard the cards one at a time, faceup to the discard pile. Animal Companions (A) have a value of 1 and the Jester a value of 0 when discarded to cover damage. If the player cannot d", "headingPath": "STEP FOUR · ANIMAL COMPANIONS · COMBOS", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.045688, "snippet": "Shield against enemy attack: During Step 4, reduce the attack value of the current enemy by the attack value played. The shield effects of spades are cumulative for all spades played against this enemy by any player, and remain in effect until the enemy is defeated. Suit powers are mandatory and can", "headingPath": "SPADES · STEP FOUR", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "AIM OF THE GAME · SETUP · HOW TO PLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Each turn has four steps: · HEARTS · DIAMONDS · CLUBS", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "STEP FOUR · ANIMAL COMPANIONS · COMBOS", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "ENEMY IMMUNITY · PLAYING THE JESTER · DRAWING A DEFEATED ENEMY · YIELDING", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SPADES · STEP FOUR", "sharpsignalDocId": 533}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 533 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 533 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 0.89930 of 2135 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 29, 2026 18:56 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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	Each turn has four steps: · HEARTS · DIAMONDS · CLUBS	p.1	0.04866 (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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	COMMUNICATION · GAME END · SOLO PLAY	p.2	0.048387 (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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	ENEMY IMMUNITY · PLAYING THE JESTER · DRAWING A DEFEATED ENEMY · YIELDING	p.2	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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	AIM OF THE GAME · SETUP · HOW TO PLAY	p.1	0.046898 (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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	STEP FOUR · ANIMAL COMPANIONS · COMBOS	p.2	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
#6	RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	SPADES · STEP FOUR	p.1	0.045688 (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 6 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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	AIM OF THE GAME · SETUP · HOW TO PLAY	p.1	#4	0.046898 (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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	COMMUNICATION · GAME END · SOLO PLAY	p.2	#2	0.048387 (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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	ENEMY IMMUNITY · PLAYING THE JESTER · DRAWING A DEFEATED ENEMY · YIELDING	p.2	#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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	SPADES · STEP FOUR	p.1	#6	0.045688 (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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	STEP FOUR · ANIMAL COMPANIONS · COMBOS	p.2	#5	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
#6	RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	Each turn has four steps: · HEARTS · DIAMONDS · CLUBS	p.1	#1	0.04866 (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 Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	AIM OF THE GAME · SETUP · HOW TO PLAY	p.1	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	Each turn has four steps: · HEARTS · DIAMONDS · CLUBS	p.1	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	STEP FOUR · ANIMAL COMPANIONS · COMBOS	p.2	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	ENEMY IMMUNITY · PLAYING THE JESTER · DRAWING A DEFEATED ENEMY · YIELDING	p.2	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Regicide — Rulebook (corpus doc 533)	SPADES · STEP FOUR	p.1	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 89 ms · first delta 1025 ms · total 19953 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 15579 ms · retrieval 89 ms · ask 4284 ms · gateway work 4374 ms · total 19953 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2895
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 661
tok/sec: 202.6 tok/sec — 661 output tokens in 3.262 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 43s 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 465), 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.