Ruling — Raiders of Scythia

← Raiders of Scythia

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Raiders of Scythiabg-301880-en-1e

Setup

1. Place the Main Board in the centre of the playing area.[1]

2. Shuffle the Quests and place 1 faceup on each of the 2 spaces in the Scythian Village.[1]

3. Place 1 facedown Quest on each Raid Space in Cimmeria, Assyria, and Persia.[1]

4. Return any unused Quests to the Box unseen.[1]

5. Place all Plunder (Gold, Equipment, Wagons, and Livestock) into the Plunder Bag, mix, and randomly draw/place the required number onto each Raid Space as indicated by the blue Plunder icon.[1]

6. For Cimmeria, Assyria, and Persia, place this Plunder on top of each facedown Quest; for Greece, place Plunder directly onto the Main Board.[1]

7. Place any remaining Plunder from the bag into a Main Supply near the Main Board.[1]

8. Add all Silver, Kumis, Provisions, Wounds, and Dice to the Main Supply.[1]

9. Place 1 Worker of the indicated colour above each raid space.[1]

1/2. Place 1 Blue Worker on each of the 3 bottom-right locations in the Scythian Village (Town Centre, Meeting Tent, and Market).[1]

10. Give each player a Player Board in their chosen colour and 1 Score Marker, placed on the 0 VP space of the VP Track.[1]

11. Give each player 3 Silver, 1 Provision, and 1 Blue Worker from the Main Supply.[1]

12. Return any remaining, unused Workers to the Box.[1]

13. Shuffle the Hero, Crew, and Animal Cards into separate facedown Draw Piles.[2]

14. Place the Animal Draw Pile alongside the Main Board and reveal the top 3 Animal Cards faceup in a line.[2]

15. Reveal a number of Hero Cards faceup equal to the number of players, plus 1.[2]

16. Reveal 1 Crew Card faceup alongside each revealed Hero Card to create pairs.[2]

17. Randomly decide on a starting player.[2]

18. In reverse turn order (starting with the player to the right of the starting player and continuing counter-clockwise), have each player select 1 pair of Hero and Crew Card.[2]

19. Players place their chosen Hero Card faceup on the left-most space of their Player Board and their chosen Crew Card faceup to the right of their Hero.[2]

20. Return the unselected Hero Card and the Hero Draw Pile to the Box.[2]

21. Place the Crew Draw Pile alongside the Main Board and the unselected Crew Card next to it to form the Crew Discard Pile.[2]

22. Deal each player 5 Crew Cards; players select 3 to keep as a starting hand and 2 to discard.[2]

Gameplay

1. Proceeding clockwise from the starting player, each player takes their turn in full.[3]

2. On a turn, a player may choose to Work or Raid.[3]

3. Every turn follows the same pattern: Place a Worker and resolve its action, then pick up a different Worker and resolve its action.[3]

4. When Working, the player must first place the Worker from their Personal Supply onto any available Building in the Village (a Building is available if no Worker is already there).[3]

5. Immediately after placing the Worker, the player may use that Building's action once.[3]

6. After completing that action, the player must pick up a different Worker (one of the three that were in the Village at the start of their turn) and return it to their Personal Supply.[3]

7. After picking up the new Worker, the player may use that Building's action once.[3]

8. All Building actions are optional.[3]

End of the Game

1. The game ends when 1 of 2 conditions is met: there are only 2 Raid Spaces left, or 2 Quests (faceup or facedown) left on the Main Board.[4]

2. Once a condition is met, the current player finishes their turn, resolving any unfinished actions.[4]

3. Each player (including the current player) then has 1 final turn before the game ends.[4]

4. Once the game has ended, players may gain additional VP by adding points from Crew, Animals, Quests, and Plunder to their Score Marker on the VP Track.[4]

5. The player with the highest final score is the winner.[4]

6. In the case of a tie, the winner is the tied player with the most total Quests, Crew, and Animals

[1] RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook · p.3 · setup

[2] RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook · p.4 · setup

[3] RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook · p.5 · gamepla y overview · Working

[4] RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook · p.10 · end of the game · Scoring · gaining 50+ victory points

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 86 ms · ask 6756 ms · total 9056 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 2212 ms · generation 6844 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Shuffle the Hero, Crew and Animal Cards into separate facedown Draw Piles. Return the AI Scheme and AI Crew Cards to the Box, as they are only for Solo Play (See pages 16-19). Place the Animal Draw Pile alongside the Main Board, and reveal the top 3 Animal Cards from the top of the Pile, placing the", "headingPath": "setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.046175, "snippet": "In this Solo Play variant, you will be competing against a rival Chieftain, aiming to score higher than them. Your turns will function entirely the same, except that the AI Chieftain will block 1 Village Building each turn. On their turn, your opponent will simply turn over the top AI Scheme Card an", "headingPath": "solo pla y - overview · solo pla y - setup · solo pla y - opponent turns", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.045688, "snippet": "Once players have hired enough Crew and collected Provisions, they may choose to raid on their turn. To raid a Settlement (Cimmeria, Assyria, Persia or Greece), players need to meet 3 requirements. They must have: The required Worker colour. A large enough Crew. Enough Provisions and Wagons. Each Se", "headingPath": "Raiding", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.044343, "snippet": "When using the Stables, players may either spend 2 Silver to gain any 1 Eagle, or 1 Equipment to gain any 1 Horse. In either case, players may only choose from the 3 faceup Animal Cards alongside the Main Board. Any time players take an Animal, they should immediately reveal the top card from the An", "headingPath": "St ables", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "After paying any Provisions and Wagons to raid a Settlement, players always need to roll Dice. How many Red and White Dice to roll is indicated along the left-side of the Main Board, for each civilization. The number of Yellow Dice to roll depends on how many Raid Spaces in the chosen Settlement hav", "headingPath": "Rolling dice · Strength", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Proceeding clockwise from the starting player, each player takes their turn in full. On their turn, players may choose to Work or Raid . Players continue to take turns until 1 of the 2 end-game conditions have been met (See page 10). Regardless of their choice, each turn will always follow the same ", "headingPath": "gamepla y overview · Working", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "The game end is triggered when there is either only 2 Raid Spaces, or 2 Quests (faceup or facedown) left on the Main Board. Once 1 of these conditions has been met, the current player finishes their turn, resolving any unfinished actions. Each player (including the current player) then has 1 final t", "headingPath": "end of the game · Scoring · gaining 50+ victory points", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030679, "snippet": "To set up Raiders of Scythia, follow these steps: Place the Main Board in the centre of the playing area. Shuffle the Quests and place 1 faceup on each of the 2 spaces in the Scythian Village (top-left area of the Main Board). Of the remaining Quests, place 1 facedown on each Raid Space in Cimmeria,", "headingPath": "setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "gamepla y overview · Working", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "end of the game · Scoring · gaining 50+ victory points", "sharpsignalDocId": 492}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 492 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 492 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 0.89669 of 3204 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 5, 2026 15:08 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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	setup	p.4	0.048916 (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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	solo pla y - overview · solo pla y - setup · solo pla y - opponent turns	p.16	0.046175 (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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	Raiding	p.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))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	St ables	p.11	0.044343 (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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	Rolling dice · Strength	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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	gamepla y overview · Working	p.5	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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	end of the game · Scoring · gaining 50+ victory points	p.10	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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	setup	p.3	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 20 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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	gamepla y overview · Working	p.5	#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
#2	RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	setup	p.3	#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))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	solo pla y - AI crew cards · solo pla y - blocked buildings	p.19	#12	0.028039 (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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	Chief's Tent · Town centre	p.13	#9	0.030366 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	end of the game · Scoring · gaining 50+ victory points	p.10	#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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	Meeting Tent · Market	p.14	#15	0.013889 (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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	setup	p.4	#1	0.048916 (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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	solo pla y - overview · solo pla y - setup · solo pla y - opponent turns	p.16	#2	0.046175 (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 Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	setup	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	setup	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	gamepla y overview · Working	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Raiders of Scythia — Rulebook (corpus doc 492)	end of the game · Scoring · gaining 50+ victory points	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 86 ms · first delta 1638 ms · total 9056 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 2212 ms · retrieval 86 ms · ask 6756 ms · gateway work 6844 ms · total 9056 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3264
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 200.9 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 5.096 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 2s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 23h, checked 4s 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 423), 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.