You asked
How do I set up the game?
Answered counted as answeredTo set up the game, follow these steps: 1. Lay out the 16 Place tiles in a 4x4 grid to create the game board [1][2]. (When playing for the first time, it is recommended to use the 'Short paths' layout, where tiles are laid out according to their blue numbers [2]). 2. If playing with 2 players, place the Merchant discs of the unused colors on the Mosques and the Gemstone Dealer [2]. 3. Place your Merchant disc on top of your stack of Assistants [3]. 4. Place your 5th Assistant easily accessible next to the game board [3]. 5. Place your Family members face-up in a stack on the Large Market [3]. 6. Repeat the procedure for the Small Market using the light Demand tiles [3]. 7. Determine the starting Places of the Governor and the Smuggler by rolling both dice for each and placing their tokens on the Place tile with the appropriate number [3]. 8. Shuffle the Bonus cards and place them face-down in a stack [3]. 9. Place the coins and dice next to the game board [3]. 10. Sort the Mosque tiles by color and then by their number of goods symbols into 4 stacks (ensuring the top tile of each stack shows 2 symbols) and place them on the two Mosques [3]. 11. Place 1 Ruby per player on each of the Mosques (for 5 players, only place 4 Rubies on each Mosque) [3]. 12. Adjust tiles based on player count: for 3 players, remove tiles with 5 symbols; for 2 players, remove tiles with 3 and 5 symbols [3]. 13. Per player, place 1 Ruby and 3 Wheelbarrow extensions on the Wainwright [2]. 14. Place Rubies on the Gemstone Dealer and the Sultan's Palace beginning with the top space on the right, continuing for the appropriate number of players, and leaving remaining spaces empty [2]. 15. Place the Mail indicators in the top row of the Post Office [2]. 16. Assign Lira to players: The Start player receives 2 Lira and the Starting player marker; each subsequent player (in clockwise order) receives 1 more Lira than the player to his right [2]. 17. Each player draws a Bonus card from the top of the stack [2].
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- corpus profile
- live
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
- timings
- search 248 ms · ask 6805 ms · total 7068 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 7068 ms
- retrieval refs (raw)
- [{"page": 5, "score": 0.032266, "snippet": "The first player to collect 5 Rubies (in a 2-player game: 6 Rubies) triggers the end of the game. When this happens, complete the current round. Then each player may use his leftover Bonus cards that provide goods or money. This may matter for the tie-breaker. The player with the most Rubies wins. T", "headingPath": "END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031054, "snippet": "Numbers: used in the various Place tile layouts. The big number is also used to denote the new Place for a token when rolling the dice. Place symbol (at some places): These symbols are referred to on a number of Bonus cards and Mosque tiles. Name of the Place Available action Rubies (at some Places)", "headingPath": "PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.016393, "snippet": "and place your Merchant disc on top of this stack. Then place these stacks on the Fountain 7 . Place the 5th Assistant of each player easily accessible next to the game board. 10 Place your Family members on the Police Station 12 . place them face-up in a stack on the Large Market 10 . Repeat this p", "headingPath": "Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.016129, "snippet": "Beginning with the Start player you take turns in clockwise order. When the first player has collected 5 Rubies (in a 2-player game: 6 Rubies) on the appropriate spaces of his Wheelbarrow, you complete the current round. After this round the game ends. A turn consists of 4 phases but, most of the ti", "headingPath": "FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.015625, "snippet": "This layout offers a lot of variety: shuffle the Place tiles and lay them out in a 4x4 grid. The challenge is to find out which paths are the most efficient in the given layout, which is different from play to play. Please note: even with a random layout, it is recommended that you use the following", "headingPath": " Random layout", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.015385, "snippet": "On your turn, you may play any number of Bonus cards whenever you like: After you resolve the Bonus card, place it on the face-up discard pile on the Caravansary 6 . When taking a Bonus card, draw it from the face-down draw pile (exception: Caravansary 6 , see p. 6). Shuffle the discard pile t", "headingPath": "BONUS CARDS", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.015152, "snippet": "2-5 players aged 10 and up playing time: 40-60 minutes Hustle and bustle in the bazaar district of Istanbul: merchants and their assistants are hurrying through the narrow alleys attempting to be more successful than their competitors. Good organization is key: wheelbarrows have to be filled wit", "headingPath": "INTRODUCTION · GAME IDEA", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.014706, "snippet": "Pay 7 Lira into the general supply to take a Wheelbarrow extension from the Wain- wright and place it in your Wheelbarrow. If you add 3 Wheelbarrow extensions to your Wheelbarrow, take a Ruby from the Wainwright and place it on your Wheelbarrow. Move the Goods indicator of the respective good as far", "headingPath": "Wainwright · Fabric/Spice/Fruit Warehouse · Post Office · Caravansery · Fountain · Black Market · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}]
- citations (raw)
- [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": " Random layout", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and", "sharpsignalDocId": 124}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it)
- 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)
- debug row retained until
- Oct 31, 2026 13:59
retrieval — what the search arm returned
score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. How many arms fused this ruling was NOT RECORDED (it predates the boost trail, ran on the path that stored none, or stored one that could not be read), and the ceiling depends on that count (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60): 2 arms top out at 0.03279; 3 arms top out at 0.04918. So a score above 0.03279 here is not an anomaly: it is arithmetic proof a boost arm voted, and the measured band 0.016–0.033 (taken on two-arm asks) is what does not apply. 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 Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | END OF THE GAME · VARIANT (FOR 2-4 PLAYERS) · CREDITS · VARIATIONS FOR PLACE TILE LAYOUTS | p.5 | 0.032266 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 300 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine | p.2 | 0.031054 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 300 |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and | p.2 | 0.016393 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 300 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | FLOW OF PLAY · YOUR TURN · 1. Movement · a) There is already one of your Assistants at that Place · b) There is none of your Assistants at the Target Place · 2. Encounters with other Merchants (if any) · … | p.3 | 0.016129 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) | 300 |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | Random layout | p.5 | 0.015625 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 300 |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | BONUS CARDS | p.3 | 0.015385 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 300 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | INTRODUCTION · GAME IDEA | p.1 | 0.015152 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 300 |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | Wainwright · Fabric/Spice/Fruit Warehouse · Post Office · Caravansery · Fountain · Black Market · … | p.4 | 0.014706 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) | 300 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | Random layout | p.5 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | PLACES · WHEELBARROWS · SYMBOLS · SETUP · Randomly determine | p.2 | no quote on the wire |
| [3] | RULEBOOK Istanbul — Rulebook (corpus doc 124) | Stack your 4 Assistant discs · Shuffle the 5 dark Demand tiles and | p.2 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 248 ms · first delta 3140 ms · total 7068 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 248 ms · ask 6805 ms · gateway work 7068 ms · total 7068 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3341
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 521
- tok/sec
- 134.0 tok/sec — 521 output tokens in 3.887 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 44s ago)
- 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)
-
set up
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
this game registers NO errata cards (edition 46), 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.