Ruling — Cottage Garden

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Cottage Gardenbg-204027-en-1e

To play Cottage Garden, follow these procedures:

Setup

1. Build the Wheelbarrow by folding the front part of the body, then the sides, and finally the back, then insert the front wheel.[1]

2. Place the Nursery in the middle, showing the side with the same number of pawns as there are players on the starting Gardener Space.[1]

3. Fill the 16 Nursery spaces with random Flower Tiles (1 per space).[1]

4. Randomly place the remaining 20 Flower Tiles in a path next to the Nursery and place the Wheelbarrow at one end to mark the start of the Garden Path.[1]

5. Each player receives a Planting Table and places 3 orange and 3 blue Scoring Cubes on the Starting Space.[1]

6. Each player randomly draws 2 Flowerbeds, placing them next to their Planting Table with one showing the lighter side and one showing the darker side.[1]

7. Each player takes 2 Cats.[1]

8. Place one remaining Flowerbed (light side up), the Parasol, the remaining Cats, the Flower Pots, and the Beehives beside the Nursery.[1]

9. Place the Gardener with the 1 face showing (or 2 face for 1-2 players) on the Gardener Space in the Nursery corresponding to the number of players.[1]

Gameplay

1. Players take turns in a clockwise direction.[1]

2. A turn consists of four phases performed in order: Refilling Phase, Planting Phase, Scoring Phase, and Gardener Phase.[1]

3. Refilling Phase: Check the Nursery spaces in the Gardener Row indicated by the current position of the Gardener.[2] If 3 or 4 spaces are empty, fill them using Flower Tiles from the Garden Path by taking the tile directly in front of the Wheelbarrow and placing it on the empty space closest to the Gardener, then pushing the Wheelbarrow ahead; repeat until the row is filled or tiles run out.[2] If only 1 or 2 spaces are empty, you may refill the row by returning a Cat to the General Supply.[2]

4. Planting Phase: You must take one of two actions and may not pass: choose a Flower Tile from the Gardener Row and place it on one of your Flowerbeds, or take a Flower Pot from the General Supply and place it on one of your Flowerbeds.[2] Additionally, you can always place Cats from your reserve on an empty space of one of your Flowerbeds.[2]

5. Scoring Phase: Score a Flowerbed when there are no more free spaces visible on it.[3] You receive points for all visible Flower Pots and Garden Cloches on the completed Flowerbed.[3] Once completed, remove the Flowerbed from the game and exchange it for a new, unplanted one.[3]

6. Gardener Phase: At the end of your turn, move the Gardener Die one space further along the edge of the board in the direction of the arrows (clockwise).[4] Whenever you reach the Turning Space, immediately increase the number on the Gardener die by 1.[4] When the Gardener shows 6, the Final Round begins.[4]

Final Round

1. At the start of the Final Round, immediately give up all Flowerbeds with fewer than three Flower Tiles (Cats and Flower Pots do not count towards this total).[5]

2. Before each turn, lose 2 points by moving 1 orange cube back two spaces on its Scoring Track or 1 blue cube back 1 space (or 5-6 points if forced to move from a specific target space).[5]

3. On your turn, only perform the Gardener Phase.[5]

4. Continue playing with these rule changes until there are no Flowerbeds left in front of the players.[5]

Ending the Game

1. The game ends once all Flowerbeds have been removed from the game.[5]

2. Total your points.[5] The player with the most points is the winner.[5][3][6]

[1] RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook · p.3 · Before the First Game · Game board (Nursery) · Flower Tiles and Wheelbarrow (Garden Path) · Player Board Setup (Planting Table) · General Supply (Cats, etc.) · The green die (Gardener) · …

[2] RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook · p.4 · 1. Refilling Phase · Filling the Gardener Row: · Additional action - Ramble · 2. Planting Phase · a) Take a Flower Tile · b) Take a Flower Pot · …

[3] RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook · p.2 · Cottage Garden : · Goal of the game

[4] RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook · p.6 · Gardener Phase 4.

[5] RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook · p.7 · Final Round · End of the game

[6] RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook · p.7

One rule clearer, zero feelings hurt.

🔧 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 95 ms · ask 5859 ms · total 5956 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5956 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 9, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "To play alone, use the 2-player rules with the following changes: Set the Gardener die to the number 2 and place it on the Gardener Space for 1-2 players. For the whole game, you only need three Flowerbeds: you receive two Flowerbeds, one with the lighter side and one with the darker side up. Place ", "headingPath": "Solo Rules · Additions to the Game Setup · Additions to Gameplay · The Goal of the Solo Game · Playing Cottage Garden with small children · Additionally ...", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.04598, "snippet": "At the start of the Final Round, you must immediately give up all Flowerbeds with fewer than three (0, 1 or 2) Flower Tiles. Cats and Flower Pots do not count towards this total. Continue to play with the following rule changes until there are no Flowerbeds left in front of the players. Before each ", "headingPath": "Final Round · End of the game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.045285, "snippet": "Final Round At the start of the Final Round, you must immediately give up all Flowerbeds with fewer than three (0, 1 or 2) Flower Tiles. Cats and Flower Pots do not count towards this total. Continue to play with the following rule changes until there are no Flowerbeds left in front of the players. ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Carefully remove all the cardboard components from their punchboards, then build the Wheelbarrow. First, fold up the front part of the body, then the sides, and finally, the back. Then insert the front wheel. Place the Nursery in the middle, showing the side with the same number of pawns as there ar", "headingPath": "Before the First Game · Game board (Nursery) · Flower Tiles and Wheelbarrow (Garden Path) · Player Board Setup (Planting Table) · General Supply (Cats, etc.) · The green die (Gardener) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Use the arrow symbols on the movement spaces around the border of the Nursery to determine which Gardener Row will be available on your next turn. n In a 4-player game , you will have the same arrow for the whole game. The Starting player will always visit rows with the arrow. The second player has ", "headingPath": "The Next Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "At the end of your turn, you must move the Gardener Die one space further along the edge of the board , in the direction of the arrows (clockwise). In a 2-player or 4-player game, the Turning Space is the same as the Gardener Space . In a 3-player game, the Turning Space is two spaces before the Gar", "headingPath": "Gardener Phase 4.", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Check the Nursery spaces in the row or column (or diagonal in a 4-player game) indicated by the current position of the Gardener. (Let's call this the ' Gardener Row '.) If 3 or 4 of the spaces in the Gardener Row are empty , you must fill those spaces using Flower Tiles from the Garden Path. From t", "headingPath": "1. Refilling Phase · Filling the Gardener Row: · Additional action - Ramble · 2. Planting Phase · a) Take a Flower Tile · b) Take a Flower Pot · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Red Line Starting Space The first player to move a cube onto the Target Space receives the Bonus tile with two Beehives . The second player to do so receives the tile with one Beehive . A single player can not receive both tokens. Place it next to your Planting Table and score at the end. Each Beehi", "headingPath": "3. Scoring Phase · Beehives · Special rules for the Planting Table", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Before the First Game · Game board (Nursery) · Flower Tiles and Wheelbarrow (Garden Path) · Player Board Setup (Planting Table) · General Supply (Cats, etc.) · The green die (Gardener) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. Refilling Phase · Filling the Gardener Row: · Additional action - Ramble · 2. Planting Phase · a) Take a Flower Tile · b) Take a Flower Pot · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Cottage Garden : · Goal of the game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Gardener Phase 4.", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Final Round · End of the game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1106}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1106 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1106 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 0.90708 of 2895 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 5, 2026 12:18 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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Solo Rules · Additions to the Game Setup · Additions to Gameplay · The Goal of the Solo Game · Playing Cottage Garden with small children · Additionally ...	p.9	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
#2	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Final Round · End of the game	p.7	0.04598 (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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)		p.7	0.045285 (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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Before the First Game · Game board (Nursery) · Flower Tiles and Wheelbarrow (Garden Path) · Player Board Setup (Planting Table) · General Supply (Cats, etc.) · The green die (Gardener) · …	p.3	0.032787 (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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	The Next Turn	p.8	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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Gardener Phase 4.	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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	1. Refilling Phase · Filling the Gardener Row: · Additional action - Ramble · 2. Planting Phase · a) Take a Flower Tile · b) Take a Flower Pot · …	p.4	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
#8	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	3. Scoring Phase · Beehives · Special rules for the Planting Table	p.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))	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 14 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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Final Round · End of the game	p.7	#2	0.04598 (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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Gardener Phase 4.	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
#3	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	The Next Turn	p.8	#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
#4	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Cottage Garden : · Goal of the game	p.2	#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
#5	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	1. Refilling Phase · Filling the Gardener Row: · Additional action - Ramble · 2. Planting Phase · a) Take a Flower Tile · b) Take a Flower Pot · …	p.4	#7	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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Before the First Game · Game board (Nursery) · Flower Tiles and Wheelbarrow (Garden Path) · Player Board Setup (Planting Table) · General Supply (Cats, etc.) · The green die (Gardener) · …	p.3	#4	0.032787 (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 Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)		p.7	#3	0.045285 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Solo Rules · Additions to the Game Setup · Additions to Gameplay · The Goal of the Solo Game · Playing Cottage Garden with small children · Additionally ...	p.9	#1	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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Before the First Game · Game board (Nursery) · Flower Tiles and Wheelbarrow (Garden Path) · Player Board Setup (Planting Table) · General Supply (Cats, etc.) · The green die (Gardener) · …	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	1. Refilling Phase · Filling the Gardener Row: · Additional action - Ramble · 2. Planting Phase · a) Take a Flower Tile · b) Take a Flower Pot · …	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Cottage Garden : · Goal of the game	p.2	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Gardener Phase 4.	p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)	Final Round · End of the game	p.7	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Cottage Garden — Rulebook (corpus doc 1106)		p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 95 ms · first delta 1528 ms · total 5956 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 95 ms · ask 5859 ms · gateway work 5956 ms · total 5956 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3223
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 864
tok/sec: 200.0 tok/sec — 864 output tokens in 4.320 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 9s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 23h, checked 0s 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 1036), 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.