RuleSage cited table rulings
← Imperial Struggle

You asked

How do I setup the game?

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

Asked with: Imperial Strugglebg-206480-en-1e

I looked through Imperial Struggle'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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook · p.9 · 4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1)
Nine Investment tiles from the Investment Tile Stack are turned face up and placed in the Available Investment Tile spaces on the Investment Tile Display. If there are insufficient Investment tiles in the Investment Tile Stack, make available all remaining tiles in the stack, then shuffle all of the
RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook · p.13 · 5.6.3 Build a Fort · 5.6.4 Repair a Fort · 5.6.5 Construct a New Squadron
The cost to build a Fort in a Fort space (and thereby flag it) is listed in the Fort space. To build a Fort, a player must control at least one Market, Naval space, or Territory connected to the Fort (and have done so at the start of the Action Round). An opposing Fort space cannot be taken during a
RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook · p.9 · 4.1.2 Debt Limit Increase Phase · 4.1.3 Award Phase · 4.1.4 Global Demand Phase · 4.1.5 Reset Phase (Peace)
On the first turn of the Empire and Revolution Eras increase both players' Debt Limits by four. On the first turn of a new Era, draw four Award tiles randomly and place them in the Award spaces on the board, one for each Region. Turn them face up after placing them. This will leave the other four fo
RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook · p.1 · TABLE OF CONTENTS
GMT Games, LLC · P.O. Box 1308, Hanford, CA 93232-1308 · www.GMTGames.com This is the 'Living Rules' document for the game. It includes updates and clarifications to the original rules. To aid readability, updates and clarifications are indicated in blue text.
RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook · p.15 · 7.2.1 Conquest Points · 7.2.1.1 Taking Control of a Fort, Market, or Naval Space
The theater may also indicate that Conquest Points (CPs) are awarded. Conquest Points are spent immediately (before resolving the next theater). Only Forts, Markets, Naval spaces, and Territories can be taken with CP (for 1 CP apiece, unless modified by a game effect such as #M-9 New World Huguenots
🔧 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 222 ms · ask 3722 ms · total 3946 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 3946 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 9, "score": 0.047712, "snippet": "Nine Investment tiles from the Investment Tile Stack are turned face up and placed in the Available Investment Tile spaces on the Investment Tile Display. If there are insufficient Investment tiles in the Investment Tile Stack, make available all remaining tiles in the stack, then shuffle all of the", "headingPath": "4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1)", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "The cost to build a Fort in a Fort space (and thereby flag it) is listed in the Fort space. To build a Fort, a player must control at least one Market, Naval space, or Territory connected to the Fort (and have done so at the start of the Action Round). An opposing Fort space cannot be taken during a", "headingPath": "5.6.3 Build a Fort · 5.6.4 Repair a Fort · 5.6.5 Construct a New Squadron", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "On the first turn of the Empire and Revolution Eras increase both players' Debt Limits by four. On the first turn of a new Era, draw four Award tiles randomly and place them in the Award spaces on the board, one for each Region. Turn them face up after placing them. This will leave the other four fo", "headingPath": "4.1.2 Debt Limit Increase Phase · 4.1.3 Award Phase · 4.1.4 Global Demand Phase · 4.1.5 Reset Phase (Peace)", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "GMT Games, LLC · P.O. Box 1308, Hanford, CA 93232-1308 · www.GMTGames.com This is the 'Living Rules' document for the game. It includes updates and clarifications to the original rules. To aid readability, updates and clarifications are indicated in blue text.", "headingPath": "TABLE OF CONTENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The theater may also indicate that Conquest Points (CPs) are awarded. Conquest Points are spent immediately (before resolving the next theater). Only Forts, Markets, Naval spaces, and Territories can be taken with CP (for 1 CP apiece, unless modified by a game effect such as #M-9 New World Huguenots", "headingPath": "7.2.1 Conquest Points · 7.2.1.1 Taking Control of a Fort, Market, or Naval Space", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The cost to deploy a Squadron into an empty Naval space is 1 . PLAY NOTE: This is an inefficient way to use a Minor Military Action! If the Naval space contains an opposing Squadron, the cost is as listed below: 3 if the deploying Squadron is in the Navy Box, or 2 if the deploying Squadron is on the", "headingPath": "5.6.6 Deploy a Squadron", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "If one player won every theater of the just-resolved War with the maximum possible Spoils of War, that player wins the game immediately. Otherwise, check the VP total in the same way as in a Peace Turn's Victory Check Phase. If neither player has won the game, the game continues. The players remove ", "headingPath": "7.4 Victory Check Phase · 7.5 Reset Phase (War) · 7.6 War Layout Phase · 8.0 Advantage Tiles · 8.1 Controlling an Advantage Tile", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "If the game reaches this phase on Turn 6, and neither France nor Britain has won the game, Final Scoring is carried out (see 11.0). After that, France wins if the VP total is 16 or more, and Britain wins if the VP total is 14 or less. If the VP total is 15, the player with more Available Debt wins. ", "headingPath": "4.1.14 Final Scoring Phase · 5.0 Action Rounds · 5.1 Select an Investment Tile · 5.2 Play an Event Card", "sharpsignalDocId": 464}]
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 464 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 464 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 8, 2026 07:22 UTC

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 rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 4.1.6 Deal Cards Phase · 4.1.7 Ministry Phase · 4.1.8 Initiative Phase (skip on Turn 1) p.9 0.047712 (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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 5.6.3 Build a Fort · 5.6.4 Repair a Fort · 5.6.5 Construct a New Squadron p.13 0.046642 (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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 4.1.2 Debt Limit Increase Phase · 4.1.3 Award Phase · 4.1.4 Global Demand Phase · 4.1.5 Reset Phase (Peace) p.9 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
#4 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) TABLE OF CONTENTS p.1 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)) 260
#5 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 7.2.1 Conquest Points · 7.2.1.1 Taking Control of a Fort, Market, or Naval Space p.15 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
#6 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 5.6.6 Deploy a Squadron p.13 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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 7.4 Victory Check Phase · 7.5 Reset Phase (War) · 7.6 War Layout Phase · 8.0 Advantage Tiles · 8.1 Controlling an Advantage Tile p.16 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
#8 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 4.1.14 Final Scoring Phase · 5.0 Action Rounds · 5.1 Select an Investment Tile · 5.2 Play an Event Card p.10 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 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 62 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 atdocumentheadingpage fused rankfused RRF scorecarried byhow it got its slot
#1 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 4.1.14 Final Scoring Phase · 5.0 Action Rounds · 5.1 Select an Investment Tile · 5.2 Play an Event Card p.10 #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
#2 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 5.2 Play an Event Card p.11 #22 0.012987 (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
#3 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 7.4 Victory Check Phase · 7.5 Reset Phase (War) · 7.6 War Layout Phase · 8.0 Advantage Tiles · 8.1 Controlling an Advantage Tile p.16 #7 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
#4 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) p.1 #36 0.01087 (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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) p.1 #34 0.011111 (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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 5.6.3 Build a Fort · 5.6.4 Repair a Fort · 5.6.5 Construct a New Squadron p.13 #2 0.046642 (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 Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) p.1 #21 0.013158 (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
#8 RULEBOOK Imperial Struggle — Rulebook (corpus doc 464) 8.2 Advantage Tile Usage · 9.1 Using Treaty Points · 9.2 Loss of Treaty Points · 10.0 USA Flags · 11.0 Final Scoring Phase p.17 #11 0.025625 (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

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.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
timing split
retrieval 222 ms · first delta 3844 ms · total 3946 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 222 ms · ask 3722 ms · gateway work 3946 ms · total 3946 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
2955
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 45s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage)
reachable (for 24h, 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.
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
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

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 394), 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.