RuleSage cited table rulings
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You asked

Can I play a development card on the same turn I bought it?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Catanbg-13-en-1e

You may not play a card that you bought during the same turn,[1][2] except for a victory point card.[1]

[1] RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook · p.5 · b) Playing Development Cards Y
[2] RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook · p.7 · development Cards

Strategy guides → — community tips, kept separate from rulings

🔧 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 105 ms · ask 3596 ms · total 3706 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 3706 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 5, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "At any time during your turn, you may play 1 development card (put it face up on the table). That card, however, may not be a card you bought during the same turn (except for a victory point card, as described below)!", "headingPath": "b) Playing Development Cards Y", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "There are 3 different kinds of cards: Knight Cards Y , Progress Cards Y , and Victory Point Cards Y . development When you buy a development card, take the top card of the draw pile into your hand. Keep your development cards hidden until you play them. This keeps the other players in the dark. You ", "headingPath": "development Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "When you buy a development card, draw the top card from the deck. There are 3 different kinds of these cards: knight Y , progress Y , and victory point Y . Each has a different effect (see 4.b, below). Development cards never go back into the supply, and you cannot buy development cards if the suppl", "headingPath": "d) Buying a Development Card Y Requires: Ore, Wool, & Grain", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Progress cards are a type of development card. They have green frames. There are 2 each of 3 varieties: ROAD BUILDING Road Building: If you play this card, you may immediately place 2 free roads on the board (according to normal building rules). Year of Plenty: If you play this card you may immediat", "headingPath": "proGress Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Unless you're using the Starting Set-Up for Experienced Players, the oldest player goes first. On your turn, you can do the following in the order listed: Illustration C Illustration D You must roll for resource production Y (the result applies to all players). You may trade Y resource cards with ot", "headingPath": "turn overview", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "You may build on your turn after you have rolled for resource production and finished trading. To build, you must turn in the specified combinations of resource cards (see the Building Costs Cards Y ). Return the resource cards to the supply stacks. You can build as many items and buy as many cards ", "headingPath": "Build (BuildinG)", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "After you roll for resource production, you may trade with other players (domestic trade Y ) or with the bank (maritime trade Y ). You may trade as long as you have resource cards. If you decide not to trade during your turn, no one can trade. You may trade with another player between your turns, bu", "headingPath": "trade", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "When you play a 'Knight' development card during your turn, you must immediately move the robber Y . Place the knight card face up in front of you. You must move the robber away from its current spot and onto the number token of any other terrain hex or on the desert. You then steal 1 resource card ", "headingPath": "KniGht Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "b) Playing Development Cards Y", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "development Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 43}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 43 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 43 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 0.87059 of 85 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until
Nov 12, 2026 01:18

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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) b) Playing Development Cards Y p.5 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) 217
#2 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) development Cards p.7 0.048387 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) d) Buying a Development Card Y Requires: Ore, Wool, & Grain p.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)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) proGress Cards p.10 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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) turn overview p.4 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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) Build (BuildinG) p.6 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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) trade p.14 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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) KniGht Cards p.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)) 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 74 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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) b) Playing Development Cards Y p.5 #1 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#2 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) proGress Cards p.10 #4 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
#3 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) turn overview p.4 #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
#4 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) trade p.14 #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
#5 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) viCtory point Cards p.14 #10 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
#6 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) Game play p.8 #14 0.013514 (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 Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) d) Buying a Development Card Y Requires: Ore, Wool, & Grain p.5 #3 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
#8 RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) development Cards p.7 #2 0.048387 (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

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
[1] RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) b) Playing Development Cards Y p.5 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Catan — Rulebook (corpus doc 43) development Cards p.7 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 105 ms · first delta 3473 ms · total 3706 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 105 ms · ask 3596 ms · gateway work 3706 ms · total 3706 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
1571
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
29
tok/sec
138.1 tok/sec — 29 output tokens in 0.210 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 20s 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.
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
decision
NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1), 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.