Ruling — Ark Nova

← Ark Nova

You asked

How do I set up Ark Nova for 4 players?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Ark Novabg-342942-en-1e

1. Place the game board in the center of the table.[1]

2. Take the Break token and place it on the start space of the Break track that corresponds to your player count.[1]

3. Shuffle the Zoo cards to create a face-down deck on the game board on the space marked with an icon.[1]

4. Deal 6 face-down cards from the deck to the spaces provided on the game board (this is the display).[1]

5. Shuffle the 9 Bonus tiles and place a random Bonus tile face up on each of the 4 blank yellow Bonus spaces on the board; return the remaining 5 tiles to the box.[1]

6. Place the 2 organizers next to the game board as the general supply.[1]

7. Place the Association board next to the game board, leaving enough room for one row of cards above and one row of cards below the board.[2]

8. Place 1 partner zoo of each continent and 1 university kind on the spaces provided on the Association board.[2]

9. Shuffle the Base Conservation Project cards and place them face-down as a deck next to the Association board; in a 4-player game, place the 4 topmost cards face up below the board.[2]

10. Shuffle the Final Scoring cards and place them face down next to the Association board.[2]

11. Randomly determine a start player; turn order is clockwise.[2]

12. Choose a color and take all components of this color.[2]

13. Place the counters for appeal, conservation, and reputation on the first spaces of their tracks on the game and place your counters on the Appeal track according to turn order: the start player starts on space 0; the second player starts on space 1; third on space 2; and fourth on space 3.[2]

14. Take 7 of the player tokens in your color and place them on the designated spaces at the left edge of your zoo map, keeping the remaining player tokens next to your zoo map for later use.[2]

15. Take the 4 association workers and place 1 on the notepad of your zoo map as the active worker, and the remaining 3 lying down on the designated spaces below the notepad.[2]

16. Take 25 money from the supply and put it on the notepad of your zoo map.[2]

17. Draw 2 Final Scoring cards and place them next to your zoo map (you may look at them but must keep them hidden from other players).[2]

18. Draw 8 Zoo cards, choose 4 to keep as hand cards, and discard the remaining 4 to a face-up discard pile on the discard space on the board.[2]

[1] RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.4 · Other · Global Setup

[2] RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.5 · Personal Setup

🔧 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 236 ms · ask 10534 ms · total 16701 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 5920 ms · generation 10781 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 20, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "If you play Ark Nova on your own, modify the rules as follows: Lay out 3 basic Conservation Project cards and do not place any tokens of a different color on them (i. e. like a 3-player setup). Do not use the Break token. Instead, place 7 player tokens of any unused color on the spaces in the left c", "headingPath": "SOLO GAME · Setup · Turn / Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.046244, "snippet": "33 More Tiles & TokensMore Tiles & Tokens Wooden ComponentsWooden Components 4 each 4 each front front back back 20 partner zoos 12 universities 15 unique buildings 9 Bonus tiles 70 money tokens 20 X-tokens 8 Venom tokens 8 Constriction tokens8 Multiplier tokens 1 Break token Components in 4 player ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.045541, "snippet": "back 128 Animal cards 64 Sponsor cards back front The reverse side shows a different orientation of the card spaces. Use the side that suits you better. 28x 1-space enclosure empty occupied 24x 2-space enclosure empty occupied 15x 3-space enclosure occupied empty 13x 4-space enclosure occupied empty", "headingPath": "ARK NOVA · 212 Zoo cards · 12 Base Conservation Project cards · 1 game board · Tiles & Tokens 90 Standard Enclosures in various sizes · 34 Kiosk / Pavilion tiles · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Ark Nova does not play in formal rounds; instead, players simply take turns (in clockwise order) taking one turn at a time until the end of the game is triggered. In addition, there are so-called breaks in between, when the game is put on hold for an administration phase. During these breaks you wil", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "B 4 1 Place the game board in the center of the table. Take the Break token and place it on the start space of the Break track that corresponds to your player count. If there are three players, place the Break token on the space marked 3 . 2 3 Shuffle the Zoo cards to create a face-down deck on the ", "headingPath": "Other · Global Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "5 Place the Association board next to the game board, leaving enough room for one row of cards above and one row of cards below the board. 5a Place 1 partner zoo of each continent and 1 university kind on the spaces provided on the Association board. of each Shuffle the Base Conservation Project car", "headingPath": "Personal Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "F Draw 8 Zoo cards. Choose 4 of them to keep as hand cards and discard the remaining 4 cards to a face-up discard pile on the discard space on the board. Make sure to keep your hand cards hidden from the other players. A face-up discard pile is easier to distinguish from the other card piles. This p", "headingPath": "Personal Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "front 20 partner zoos 4 each 20 X-tokens back 12 universities 4 each 8 Multiplier tokens 10x 5 10x 10 9 Bonus tiles front 8 Venom tokens 25 player tokens In Ark Nova you plan and build a modern, scientifically managed zoo. You build enclosures according to the animals' way of life and support conser", "headingPath": "70 money tokens · 1 Break token · 4 association workers · INTRODUCTION & GOAL OF THE GAME · Other", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Other · Global Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Personal Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 247 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 247 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)
debug row retained until: Nov 10, 2026 18:25

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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	SOLO GAME · Setup · Turn / Cards	p.20	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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)		p.3	0.046244 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	ARK NOVA · 212 Zoo cards · 12 Base Conservation Project cards · 1 game board · Tiles & Tokens 90 Standard Enclosures in various sizes · 34 Kiosk / Pavilion tiles · …	p.2	0.045541 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	GAMEPLAY	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
#5	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Other · Global Setup	p.4	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
#6	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Personal Setup	p.5	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
#7	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Personal Setup	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
#8	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	70 money tokens · 1 Break token · 4 association workers · INTRODUCTION & GOAL OF THE GAME · Other	p.3	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

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 44 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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	SOLO GAME · Setup · Turn / Cards	p.20	#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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Personal Setup	p.5	#7	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
#3	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	70 money tokens · 1 Break token · 4 association workers · INTRODUCTION & GOAL OF THE GAME · Other	p.3	#8	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Personal Setup	p.5	#6	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Other · Global Setup	p.4	#5	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	ARK NOVA · 212 Zoo cards · 12 Base Conservation Project cards · 1 game board · Tiles & Tokens 90 Standard Enclosures in various sizes · 34 Kiosk / Pavilion tiles · …	p.2	#3	0.045541 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)		p.3	#2	0.046244 (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 Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	GAMEPLAY	p.6	#4	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

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Other · Global Setup	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247)	Personal Setup	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 236 ms · first delta 6548 ms · total 16701 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 5920 ms · retrieval 236 ms · ask 10534 ms · gateway work 10781 ms · total 16701 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2883
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 589
tok/sec: 141.5 tok/sec — 589 output tokens in 4.162 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 23s 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 173), 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.