Ruling — Britannia

You asked

How do I play?

Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below counted as honest abstain

Asked with: Britanniabg-240-en-1e

I looked through Britannia's rulebook and couldn't find a solid answer to that one — and I'd rather tell you so than guess at your table. Try asking it another way, or ask me about setup, turns, or how the game ends: those I know cold.

The closest rulebook passages are below — check them before ruling.

RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook · p.2 · Game Over view · Game Objective · Number of Players

Britannia is a board game for three to five players that broadly depicts the wars in, and migrations to, Britain in the centuries from the Roman invasions to the Norman Conquest. Each player controls several nations. Seventeen nations are included in the game, each representing a people that lived i

RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook · p.20 · Bidding for Sides

Some gaming groups or individual players believe that one combination of nations has a better chance of winning than others. To accommodate that point of view, players may wish to allocate nations by the bidding method described below. Note that players are still restricted to using the combination

RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook · p.19 · Saxons · Winning the Game · Strategy Notes · BRITANNIA with Three or Five Players · Three -Player Game

Regardless of whether these nations receive special reinforcements or not (because their leader is alive or dead), they still perform their Population Increase Phase normally. At the end of the game each player adds together the number of victory points that each of his nations has scored. The playe

RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook · p.20 · Bidding for Sides

Write these numbers down, and put the victory point tokens used for bidding in the main pile with the rest of the victory point tokens. Example (standard four-player game): Steve, Torben, Jim, and Roseanna sit around a table in that order. Steve is going to bid first. He takes the Nation Card for gr

RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook · p.6 · Angle Point Limit · The Nation Turn

In a scoring round, the total points that the Angles score for holding areas in Scotland may not be more than half the total points that the Angles score for holding areas in England. Any excess points from holding areas in Scotland are lost. The Angle point limit is summarized on its Nation Card as

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome

ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below

warm abstain

this ruling — W1 — generic warm abstain · receipt: none (generic)

corpus profile

live,vps

answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)

gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70

timings

search 122 ms · ask 3820 ms · total 3944 ms

single-flight (PR-5)

queued 0 ms · generation 3944 ms

retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read

[{"page": 2, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "Britannia is a board game for three to five players that broadly depicts the wars in, and migrations to, Britain in the centuries from the Roman invasions to the Norman Conquest. Each player controls several nations. Seventeen nations are included in the game, each representing a people that lived i", "headingPath": "Game Over view · Game Objective · Number of Players", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.046486, "snippet": "Some gaming groups or individual players believe that one combination of nations has a better chance of winning than others. To accommodate that point of view, players may wish to allocate nations by the bidding method described below. Note that players are still restricted to using the combination ", "headingPath": "Bidding for Sides", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.045635, "snippet": "Regardless of whether these nations receive special reinforcements or not (because their leader is alive or dead), they still perform their Population Increase Phase normally. At the end of the game each player adds together the number of victory points that each of his nations has scored. The playe", "headingPath": "Saxons · Winning the Game · Strategy Notes · BRITANNIA with Three or Five Players · Three -Player Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.045037, "snippet": "Write these numbers down, and put the victory point tokens used for bidding in the main pile with the rest of the victory point tokens. Example (standard four-player game): Steve, Torben, Jim, and Roseanna sit around a table in that order. Steve is going to bid first. He takes the Nation Card for gr", "headingPath": "Bidding for Sides", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.044796, "snippet": "In a scoring round, the total points that the Angles score for holding areas in Scotland may not be more than half the total points that the Angles score for holding areas in England. Any excess points from holding areas in Scotland are lost. The Angle point limit is summarized on its Nation Card as", "headingPath": "Angle Point Limit · The Nation Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.042509, "snippet": "Nation Reference. This area lists important information about the nation and special rules that apply on specific rounds. Nation Symbol: Each nation has a color (red, green, yellow, or blue) and symbol (spear, shield, axe, ship, or eagle). Together, these color-symbol combinations serve as a unique ", "headingPath": "Occupying Areas", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "There are four main ways for nations to score victory points. These are described in detail below, and summarized for each nation on its Nation Card. An astute player will refer to his Nation Cards and his opponents' Nation Cards frequently. If another player asks to see any Nation Card, the owner m", "headingPath": "Victory Points and the Nation Card · Holding Areas", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Nation Name. Generic Scoring Scroll. A Scoring Scroll with no symbol is used for special scoring situations. For example, the Romans get 6 points if the Belgae submit to them. 'Hold' Scoring Scroll. This scroll is marked with the Hold symbol (a closed fist). It shows that if the nation holds the lis", "headingPath": "Holding Areas", "sharpsignalDocId": 1073}]

citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show

[]

boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)

no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1073 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true

base rulebook doc 1073 boosted

answered-before recall

no past answered ruling for this game matched closely enough

similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)

debug row recorded

Sep 5, 2026 15:11 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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Game Over view · Game Objective · Number of Players	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
#2	RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Bidding for Sides	p.20	0.046486 (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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Saxons · Winning the Game · Strategy Notes · BRITANNIA with Three or Five Players · Three -Player Game	p.19	0.045635 (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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Bidding for Sides	p.20	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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Angle Point Limit · The Nation Turn	p.6	0.044796 (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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Occupying Areas	p.5	0.042509 (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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Victory Points and the Nation Card · Holding Areas	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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Holding Areas	p.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))	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 73 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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Five -Player Game · Game V ariants and Optional Rules	p.19	#27	0.014286 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Shorter Three -Player V ariant	p.19	#19	0.023575 (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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Bidding for Sides	p.20	#4	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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Angle Point Limit · The Nation Turn	p.6	#5	0.044796 (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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Game Over view · Game Objective · Number of Players	p.2	#1	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
#6	RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Bidding for Sides	p.20	#2	0.046486 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Phase I : Population Increase	p.7	#14	0.025397 (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 Britannia — Rulebook (corpus doc 1073)	Two -Player Scenarios · Early Invaders vs. Inhabitants of Britain · Germanic Invaders vs. Inhabitants of Britain	p.19	#11	0.028139 (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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 122 ms · first delta 3792 ms · total 3944 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 122 ms · ask 3820 ms · gateway work 3944 ms · total 3944 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3327
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 9
tok/sec: 176.5 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.051 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 32s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 24h, checked 5s 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: ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
abstain rationale: I don't have enough information.
BOILERPLATE, not reasoning: this is the answerer's fixed abstention phrase, the same sentence it emits whenever it declines. It records THAT the answerer declined and never why — no per-ruling reason was captured, because none was sent. Hostile corpus/LLM text, rendered escaped

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 1003), 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.