Ruling — Santorini

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Santorinibg-194655-en-1e

To setup the game, follow these steps:

Base Game Setup

1. Place the smaller side of the Cliff Pedestal on the Ocean Board, using the long and short tabs on the Cliff Pedestal to guide assembly.[1]

2. Place the Island Board on top of the Cliff Pedestal, using the long and short tabs to guide assembly.[1]

3. The youngest player is the Start Player, who begins by placing 2 Workers of their chosen color into any unoccupied spaces on the board.[1]

4. The other player(s) then place their Workers.[1]

God Powers Setup

If playing with God Powers, after setting up the Island using only step 1 and 2 from the 'Setup' section on page 1, perform the following:

1. The Challenger (determined by who is the most 'god-like') chooses God Powers equal to the number of players.[2]

2. If playing a 3-player or 4-player game, ensure all chosen God Powers are compatible with the number of players.[2]

3. The Challenger reads each selected God Power aloud from the rule book.[2]

4. In clockwise order, everyone chooses a God Power and places it in their area; the Challenger receives the last God Power.[2]

5. The Challenger chooses a Start Player (including themself).[2]

6. The Start Player places 2 Workers of their chosen color on any unoccupied spaces on the board.[2]

7. In clockwise order, the other players each place all their Workers.[2]

Golden Fleece Variant Setup

After setting up the Island using only step 1 and 2 from the 'Setup' section on page 1, perform the following:

1. Select a God Power showing the Golden Fleece icon in the top right, and place it beside the board.[3]

2. The oldest player starts by placing two Workers of their chosen color into any unoccupied spaces on the board.[3]

3. The other player then places their Workers.[3]

4. The player who placed Workers first places the Ram figure on any unoccupied space.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook · p.1 · Need Hel p? · Setup · How To Play · Winning the Game

[2] RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook · p.2 · Setup God Powers · God Power Setup

[3] RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook · p.5 · Golden Fleece Variant · Setup · Star t o f Any Turn · Using Hero Powers · 46. Ach i l l e s · 47. Adonis · …

So says the rulebook. So plays the table.

🔧 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 117 ms · ask 3803 ms · total 3922 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 3922 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "Once you've played a few 2-player games using only the rules on the front page of the rule book, we suggest you try God Powers . God Powers are cards that provide you with a powerful ability A that can be used throughout the game. Many God Powers change the way Workers move and build . After setting", "headingPath": "Setup God Powers · God Power Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "Video Tutorial s More of a visual learner? We've got you covered! Head over to roxley.com/santorini-video for video tutorials on how to play, as well as complete visual demonstrations of all God Powers ! Santorini Ap p Can't decide which God Powers to match up? Head over to Google Play Store or the ", "headingPath": "Need Hel p? · Setup · How To Play · Winning the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.047371, "snippet": "Santorini is best as a 2-player game. However, we when you really want to play with more people. have included rules for 3 and 4-players for those times When playing with 3 or 4 players, all of the 2-player rules apply, with the following adjustments: For 3 and 4-player games, you must play with God", "headingPath": "3 & 4 Players · Setup · 3 Players · 4 Players (Team Game) · Glo s s ary", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.046696, "snippet": "Normal Rule s and conditions still apply to you when using a God Power , with the exception of the specific changes described by the God Power . You mu st obey all God Power text that says you 'cannot' or 'must' , otherwise you lose the game. Domes are not block s. If the God Power description state", "headingPath": "Using God Powers · Addition al Win Condition s are · God Of Music · Goddess of the Hunt", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.046402, "snippet": "Golden Fleece variant provides a different 2-player experience where the Ram figure grants the blessing of a single God Power to whomever is touching it. After setting up the Island using only step 1 and 2 from ' Setup ' section on page 1, perform the following: Select a God Power showing the Golden", "headingPath": "Golden Fleece Variant · Setup · Star t o f Any Turn · Using Hero Powers · 46. Ach i l l e s · 47. Adonis · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.04598, "snippet": "Any Move: If an opponent Worker starts its turn neighboring one of your Workers , its last move must one of your Workers . be to a space neighboring End of Your Turn: You may remove an unoccupied block (not dome ) neighboring your unmoved Worker . Y ou also remove any Tokens on the block . Setup: Pl", "headingPath": "Goddess of Love · God of War · Goddess of Violence · Primordial Nothingne s s · 15. Ch aron · 16 . Chronu s · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045475, "snippet": "End of Your Turn: If possible, your Workers build in lower neighboring spaces that are occupied by opponent Workers , removing the opponent Workers from the game. Video Tutorials Available - Learn these Gods at roxley.com/santorini-video God of Dreams Start of Y our Turn: Place a block or dome on yo", "headingPath": "Petrifying Gorgon · 25. Morpheu s · Goddess of Spring Growth · 27. Po se idon · 28. Sel ene · God of the Wave s · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "God of the Abyss Setup: Take the Map A , Shield B , and Abyss Token . Place your Workers fi rst. After all players' Workers are placed, hide the Map behind the Shield and secretly place your Abyss Token on an unoccupied space. This space is the Abyss. Lose Condition: If any player's Worker enters th", "headingPath": "43. Tar t aru s · 44. Terp si c hore · Muse of Astronomy", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Need Hel p? · Setup · How To Play · Winning the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setup God Powers · God Power Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Golden Fleece Variant · Setup · Star t o f Any Turn · Using Hero Powers · 46. Ach i l l e s · 47. Adonis · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 421}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 421 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 421 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 0.90701 of 1527 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 7, 2026 11:29 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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Setup God Powers · God Power Setup	p.2	0.04866 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Need Hel p? · Setup · How To Play · Winning the Game	p.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))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	3 & 4 Players · Setup · 3 Players · 4 Players (Team Game) · Glo s s ary	p.6	0.047371 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Using God Powers · Addition al Win Condition s are · God Of Music · Goddess of the Hunt	p.2	0.046696 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Golden Fleece Variant · Setup · Star t o f Any Turn · Using Hero Powers · 46. Ach i l l e s · 47. Adonis · …	p.5	0.046402 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Goddess of Love · God of War · Goddess of Violence · Primordial Nothingne s s · 15. Ch aron · 16 . Chronu s · …	p.3	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
#7	RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Petrifying Gorgon · 25. Morpheu s · Goddess of Spring Growth · 27. Po se idon · 28. Sel ene · God of the Wave s · …	p.3	0.045475 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	43. Tar t aru s · 44. Terp si c hore · Muse of Astronomy	p.4	0.029412 (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 13 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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Setup God Powers · God Power Setup	p.2	#1	0.04866 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Golden Fleece Variant · Setup · Star t o f Any Turn · Using Hero Powers · 46. Ach i l l e s · 47. Adonis · …	p.5	#5	0.046402 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	38. Harpie s · 39. Hecate · 40. Moerae · Goddess of Retribution · 42. Siren	p.4	#9	0.028814 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Need Hel p? · Setup · How To Play · Winning the Game	p.1	#2	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
#5	RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	43. Tar t aru s · 44. Terp si c hore · Muse of Astronomy	p.4	#8	0.029412 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Banned Matchup s · 31. Aeolu s · 32. Charybdis · 33. Cl io · 34. Europa & Talu s · 35. Gaea · …	p.4	#11	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
#7	RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	3 & 4 Players · Setup · 3 Players · 4 Players (Team Game) · Glo s s ary	p.6	#3	0.047371 (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 Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Goddess of Love · God of War · Goddess of Violence · Primordial Nothingne s s · 15. Ch aron · 16 . Chronu s · …	p.3	#6	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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Need Hel p? · Setup · How To Play · Winning the Game	p.1	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Setup God Powers · God Power Setup	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Santorini — Rulebook (corpus doc 421)	Golden Fleece Variant · Setup · Star t o f Any Turn · Using Hero Powers · 46. Ach i l l e s · 47. Adonis · …	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 117 ms · first delta 1524 ms · total 3922 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 117 ms · ask 3803 ms · gateway work 3922 ms · total 3922 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3905
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 453
tok/sec: 200.2 tok/sec — 453 output tokens in 2.263 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 45s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, 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: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 350), 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.