Ruling — Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition

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How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Axis & Allies Anniversary Editionbg-35052-en-1e

Axis & Allies can be played by up to six players.[1] If there are more than two players, they should be split into the Axis side and the Allies side.[1] The Allied powers include the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union, while the Axis powers include Germany, Japan, and Italy.[1]

Setup

1. Assign a power or powers to each player; if a player controls multiple powers, they must be on the same side and the player must keep each power's resources separate.[2]

2. In a six-player game, Italy should have its own dedicated player; in a game with fewer than six players, the player playing Germany should also play Italy.[2]

3. Take the national setup chart and all control markers and plastic pieces belonging to your power.[2]

Turn Sequence

Each power's turn consists of seven phases in a fixed sequence:[3]

1. Research & Development (Optional Rule): Players may attempt to develop improved military technology by buying researcher tokens.[3]

2. Purchase Units.[3]

3. Combat Move: Move attacking units into hostile spaces.[3][1]

4. Conduct Combat: Resolve attacks using dice rolls.[3][1]

5. Noncombat Move: Move units that did not take part in combat.[3][1]

6. Mobilize New Units.[3]

7. Collect Income: Collect income for the turn, including income gained from any newly conquered territories.[3][1]

Winning the Game

At the end of the United States player's turn, check for victory.[3] A side wins if they control enough victory city tokens to achieve the victory condition decided upon at the start of the game.[4] Possible victory conditions include:

* Playing to 13 victory city tokens for a shorter game.[5]

* Playing to a complete victory of all 18 victory city tokens for a longer game.[5]

* The Axis or Allies side collectively holds 15 victory city tokens at the end of a complete round of play.[1]

If neither side has won, begin a new round of play.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook · p.5 · A Note About The Cover Art · ARTIST BIO - JIM BUTCHER · Summary of Play · How to Win

[2] RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook · p.10 · SETUP · 1941 Scenario

[3] RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook · p.12 · ORDER OF PLAY · 1941 Scenario · 1942 Scenario · Turn Sequence · Phase 1: Research & Development · Research & Development Sequence · …

[4] RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook · p.21 · Capturing and Liberating Capitals · Capturing a Victory City

[5] RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook · p.5 · Adjusting Game Length

Rule found, game on.

🔧 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 112 ms · ask 5087 ms · total 15501 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 10300 ms · generation 5201 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 5, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "We wanted the Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition to stand out in every way possible. So we knew we needed to have illustrator/artist Jim Butcher, who created the artwork for the original Axis & Allies box cover, create the cover for this version too. Besides having done the original artwork for the g", "headingPath": "A Note About The Cover Art · ARTIST BIO - JIM BUTCHER · Summary of Play · How to Win", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.04741, "snippet": "If you want a shorter game, play to 13 victory city tokens. If you are up for a longer game, play to a complete victory of all 18 victory city tokens. If you opt for one of these alternatives, be sure all players agree to it before you start the game.", "headingPath": "Adjusting Game Length", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.047123, "snippet": "Assign a power or powers to each player. If a single player plays multiple powers, each of those powers needs to be on the same side (Axis or Allies). In a six-player game, Italy should have its own dedicated player. In a game with less than six players, the player who is playing Germany should also", "headingPath": "SETUP · 1941 Scenario", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "Axis & Allies is played in rounds. One round consists of each power taking a turn. The order that players take turns depends on the scenario: Germany Soviet Union Japan United Kingdom Italy United States Japan Soviet Union Germany United Kingdom Italy United States If you control more than one power", "headingPath": "ORDER OF PLAY · 1941 Scenario · 1942 Scenario · Turn Sequence · Phase 1: Research & Development · Research & Development Sequence · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "Roll one die for each attacking unit with an attack value that did not fire or submerge in step 2. Roll for units with the same attack value at the same time. For example, roll all units with an attack value of '3' at the same time. An attacking unit scores a hit if you roll its attack value or less", "headingPath": "Step 3. Attacking Units Fire · Step 4. Defending Units Fire · Step 5. Remove Defender's Casualties · Step 6. Press Attack or Retreat · Condition A-Attacker and/or Defender Loses All Units", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.044337, "snippet": "The Axis players begin with 8 victory city tokens, and the Allies begin with 10. | POWER | STARTING VICTORY CITY TOKENS | STARTING IPCS | | Germany | Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw | 37 | | Japan | Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Manila | 31 | | Italy | Rome | 10 | | United States | Washington, San Franc", "headingPath": "1942 Scenario", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.044002, "snippet": "The battle board has two sides, labeled 'Attacker' and 'Defender.' Place all your attacking units and all defending units from the battle onto their respective sides, in the numbered columns that contain those units' names and silhouettes. The number in a unit's column identifies that unit's attack ", "headingPath": "Step 1. Place Units on Battle Board · Step 2. Submarine Surprise Strike or Submerge (sea battles only)", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Units can move between adjacent spaces (those that share a common border). The game board wraps around horizontally. Territories and sea zones on the right edge of the board are adjacent to territories and sea zones on the left edge. (Note that Western Canada connects to Eastern Canada; Central Unit", "headingPath": "Movement Between Spaces · Islands · Canals · Victory Cities", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A Note About The Cover Art · ARTIST BIO - JIM BUTCHER · Summary of Play · How to Win", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · 1941 Scenario", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "ORDER OF PLAY · 1941 Scenario · 1942 Scenario · Turn Sequence · Phase 1: Research & Development · Research & Development Sequence · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 21, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Capturing and Liberating Capitals · Capturing a Victory City", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Adjusting Game Length", "sharpsignalDocId": 1158}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1158 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1158 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 0.89758 of 1572 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 7, 2026 03:06 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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	A Note About The Cover Art · ARTIST BIO - JIM BUTCHER · Summary of Play · How to Win	p.5	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Adjusting Game Length	p.5	0.04741 (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))	251
#3	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	SETUP · 1941 Scenario	p.10	0.047123 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	ORDER OF PLAY · 1941 Scenario · 1942 Scenario · Turn Sequence · Phase 1: Research & Development · Research & Development Sequence · …	p.12	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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Step 3. Attacking Units Fire · Step 4. Defending Units Fire · Step 5. Remove Defender's Casualties · Step 6. Press Attack or Retreat · Condition A-Attacker and/or Defender Loses All Units	p.20	0.046452 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	1942 Scenario	p.10	0.044337 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Step 1. Place Units on Battle Board · Step 2. Submarine Surprise Strike or Submerge (sea battles only)	p.19	0.044002 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Movement Between Spaces · Islands · Canals · Victory Cities	p.8	0.029851 (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 59 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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Adjusting Game Length	p.5	#2	0.04741 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	ORDER OF PLAY · 1941 Scenario · 1942 Scenario · Turn Sequence · Phase 1: Research & Development · Research & Development Sequence · …	p.12	#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
#3	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	A Note About The Cover Art · ARTIST BIO - JIM BUTCHER · Summary of Play · How to Win	p.5	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	ANNIVERSARY EDITION DESIGNER NOTES:	p.3	#18	0.022254 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Capturing and Liberating Capitals · Capturing a Victory City	p.21	#27	0.012346 (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
#6	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Special Abilities	p.31	#11	0.02782 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)		p.4	#17	0.023158 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	SETUP · 1941 Scenario	p.10	#3	0.047123 (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 Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	A Note About The Cover Art · ARTIST BIO - JIM BUTCHER · Summary of Play · How to Win	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	SETUP · 1941 Scenario	p.10	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	ORDER OF PLAY · 1941 Scenario · 1942 Scenario · Turn Sequence · Phase 1: Research & Development · Research & Development Sequence · …	p.12	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Capturing and Liberating Capitals · Capturing a Victory City	p.21	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 1158)	Adjusting Game Length	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 112 ms · first delta 2841 ms · total 15501 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 10300 ms · retrieval 112 ms · ask 5087 ms · gateway work 5201 ms · total 15501 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2826
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 457
tok/sec: 202.4 tok/sec — 457 output tokens in 2.258 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 23s 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 1088), 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.