You asked
How do I play?
Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below counted as honest abstainAsked with: Arboreabg-371077-en-1e
I looked through Arborea'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.
Each player takes a Player Board, Player Aid, and all components of their colour: 8 Wooden cubes , placed on their designated Sage Gift spaces, 2 Elder Villagers , placed in your Supply. 1 Young Villager , placed in your Supply, In a 2-player game: 1 Veteran is placed in your supply instead. 2 Young
Choose 1 Pilgrimage Track, and push both pieces of the track 1 space towards the centre of the board. Villagers on a Pilgrimage Track move along with it when it moves. The Pilgrimage Track consists of two separate pieces, but is considered a single track that moves as a single unit. After a Pilgrima
As Feronia is the 2nd player, she adds a Villager to a track before you do, as part of the setup process. Draw the first card from the Solo Deck, place a Villager from Feronia's supply to the track labeled '1' on this Solo card (as explained on the next page), then advance this track 1 step". After
On each of Feronia's turns, follow the turn structure shown below, which is slightly different than a player's turn: Draw 1 card from her Solo Deck and place it face up. Add up to 2 Villagers to tracks. Activate all Villagers on trails. Complete 1 Ecosystem card (if possible) . Update the Biome Rese
Do this in counter-clockwise order: The first player in turn order should place their Villager last. You may choose which Villager to place, either 1 Elder or Young Villager. Players may choose the same track that another player has already placed a Villager on; when doing so, the Track will advance
🔧 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 90 ms · ask 2841 ms · total 35110 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 32177 ms · generation 2933 ms
- retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
- [{"page": 5, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Each player takes a Player Board, Player Aid, and all components of their colour: 8 Wooden cubes , placed on their designated Sage Gift spaces, 2 Elder Villagers , placed in your Supply. 1 Young Villager , placed in your Supply, In a 2-player game: 1 Veteran is placed in your supply instead. 2 Young", "headingPath": "P LA Y ER SET U P", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Choose 1 Pilgrimage Track, and push both pieces of the track 1 space towards the centre of the board. Villagers on a Pilgrimage Track move along with it when it moves. The Pilgrimage Track consists of two separate pieces, but is considered a single track that moves as a single unit. After a Pilgrima", "headingPath": "Advance 1 Pilgrimage Track:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "As Feronia is the 2nd player, she adds a Villager to a track before you do, as part of the setup process. Draw the first card from the Solo Deck, place a Villager from Feronia's supply to the track labeled '1' on this Solo card (as explained on the next page), then advance this track 1 step\". After ", "headingPath": "Placing Starting VIllagers", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "On each of Feronia's turns, follow the turn structure shown below, which is slightly different than a player's turn: Draw 1 card from her Solo Deck and place it face up. Add up to 2 Villagers to tracks. Activate all Villagers on trails. Complete 1 Ecosystem card (if possible) . Update the Biome Rese", "headingPath": "Feronia's Turn Structure · Feronia's Turn Step 1: Deal a New Card", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Do this in counter-clockwise order: The first player in turn order should place their Villager last. You may choose which Villager to place, either 1 Elder or Young Villager. Players may choose the same track that another player has already placed a Villager on; when doing so, the Track will advance", "headingPath": "P LA Y ER SET U P", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "When the Sun Tracker is placed on the last spot of the Sun Track the game ends after each player takes 2 more complete turns (then proceed to end-game scoring.) To keep track that all players have taken 2 additional turns: When the Sun Tracker is placed on the last spot of the Sun Track, the current", "headingPath": "GAME END · ENDGAME SCORING", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}, {"page": 22, "score": 0.029877, "snippet": "Icons Biome Icon: You must advance the top half of the corresponding Biome tile 1 space on the Biome Reserve. Train Villager: Move the shown Villager from its Reserve into your Supply. Place 1 Villager on a Pilgrimage Track: When activating this icon, you can choose to ignore this effect. See page 6", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "You must either: Additionally, you may lose Spirit (based on player count) to choose and perform either one of these options again once during your turn. In a 2-player game , you lose 2 Spirit; In a 3-5 Player game , you lose 3 Spirit. Take any Villager from your Supply and place it on the square be", "headingPath": "ST E P 1 OF Y OUR T URN : P ILGRIMAGE · Place 1 Villager on a Pilgrimage Track. · Place 1 Villager on a Pilgrimage Track:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1178}]
- 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 1178 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1178 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 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 Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | P LA Y ER SET U P | p.5 | 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 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | Advance 1 Pilgrimage Track: | p.6 | 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 |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | Placing Starting VIllagers | p.19 | 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 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | Feronia's Turn Structure · Feronia's Turn Step 1: Deal a New Card | p.20 | 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 |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | P LA Y ER SET U P | 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 |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | GAME END · ENDGAME SCORING | p.12 | 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 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | p.22 | 0.029877 (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 Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | ST E P 1 OF Y OUR T URN : P ILGRIMAGE · Place 1 Villager on a Pilgrimage Track. · Place 1 Villager on a Pilgrimage Track: | p.6 | 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 53 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 Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | P LA Y ER SET U P | p.5 | #1 | 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 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | p.22 | #7 | 0.029877 (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 Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | Attract a Creature : · Gift a Sage: · Sage Rewards · Season icon | p.23 | #26 | 0.012658 (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 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | END OF T URN : ADD CARDS & CREATURES TO Y OUR ECOS Y ST EM · Adding cards to your Ecosystem · Habitat edges must align: · You may cover cards: · You may rotate freely: · You cannot completely cover a card: · … | p.9 | #30 | 0.011628 (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 Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | P LA Y ER SET U P | p.5 | #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)) | vector + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | Solo Mode Components · Base Solo Mode Setup · Components for Feronia · Feronia's Ecosystem Cards | p.19 | #15 | 0.025526 (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 Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | ST E P 1 OF Y OUR T URN : P ILGRIMAGE · Place 1 Villager on a Pilgrimage Track. · Place 1 Villager on a Pilgrimage Track: | p.6 | #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)) | vector + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Arborea — Rulebook (corpus doc 1178) | Advance 1 Pilgrimage Track: | p.6 | #2 | 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 |
chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited
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.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 90 ms · first delta 2820 ms · total 35110 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
- full breakdown
- queued 32177 ms · retrieval 90 ms · ask 2841 ms · gateway work 2933 ms · total 35110 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3713
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 9
- tok/sec
- 187.5 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.048 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 56s ago)
- answerer host (measured by rulesage)
- reachable (for 23h, checked 7s 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 1108), 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.