Ruling — Boonlake

← Boonlake

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Boonlakebg-343905-en-1e

For a standard game:

1. Put the gameboard on the table.[1]

2. Sort the 42 building tiles by their backs.[1]

3. Stack the 7 building tiles showing a cattle pasture on both sides and put them next to the gameboard.[1]

4. Keep the vases, the coins, and the levers next to the gameboard as a supply.[1]

5. Shuffle the project cards and form a pile that you put next to the gameboard.[1]

6. Each player draws 6 cards and takes them into their hand.[1]

7. Lay the action board next to the gameboard.[1]

8. Mix the 7 action strips and put them on the action board, in random order.[1]

9. Place building tiles on the gameboard according to the number of players:

* 1 or 2 players: Mix the 6 building tiles showing the symbol on the back, and put them face up on the 6 spaces on the gameboard with the matching symbol; remove the 4 building tiles showing one of the symbols or from the game.[1]

* 3 players: Mix the 8 building tiles showing one of the symbols or on the back, and put them face up on the 8 spaces on the gameboard with one of the matching symbols; remove the 2 building tiles showing the symbol from the game.[1]

* 4 players: Mix the 10 building tiles showing one of the symbols or or on the back, and put them face up on the 10 spaces on the gameboard with one of the matching symbols; you don't have to put a tile on a space that shows the same symbol.[1]

10. Mix the building tiles with the gray backs and put them out ready as a face-down mound.[1]

11. Add one region marker to each of the 4 regions.[1]

12. Each player takes one player board and puts it in front of them with the side facing up.[2]

13. Take the 4 scoring markers, the 100-/200-marker of your color, and 4 production sites (1 of each type) and put them next to your player board.[2]

14. Everybody chooses one color and takes the color-matching wooden pieces: 6 houses, 4 settlements, and 5 cattle; these parts must cover the appropriate recesses in the player board.[2]

For Solo mode (playing against the Wise Eminence):

1. Set the game up as usual for a two-player game.[3]

2. Take the back of a player board and lay it out for the Wise Eminence.[3]

3. Choose a color for the Wise Eminence and place the cattle, the houses, and the settlements on the appropriate spaces of their board.[3]

4. Put a marker of their color on the first space of the cactus track and another marker of their color on space '0' of the victory-point track.[3]

5. The Wise Eminence has no markers on the income tracks.[3]

6. Put the Wise Eminence's ship next to your ship on the starting space of the two-player game.[3]

7. Give the Wise Eminence the starting player token (which means you start with 7 coins).[3]

8. Put the 100-/200-marker next to their board.[3]

9. During set-up, reveal a random scoring tile for the Wise Eminence.[3]

10. Choose a difficulty level and randomly remove the respective number of tiles of the given type(s) from the 10 solo tiles:

* Easy: Remove 4 B-tiles.[3]

* Medium: Remove 1 A-tiles and 3 B-tiles.[3]

* Challenge: Remove 2 A-tiles and 2 B-tiles.[3]

* Difficult: Remove 3 A-tiles and 1 B-tiles.[3]

* Very difficult: Remove 4 A-tiles.[3]

11. Mix the remaining 6 solo tiles in a random orientation of the backs and put them face down next to the Wise Eminence's board.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook · p.2

[2] RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook · p.3 · SET-UP OF THE GAME

[3] RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook · p.15 · Solo mode · Set-up of the Game

🔧 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 71 ms · ask 8854 ms · total 8928 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 8928 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.048172, "snippet": "SET-UP OF THE GAME 2 Put the gameboard on the table. Sort the 42 building tiles by their backs. Stack the 7 building tiles showing a cattle pasture on both sides and put them next to the gameboard. Keep the vases, the coins, and the levers next to the gameboard as a supply. Shuffle the project cards", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "You can also play Boonlake alone. In this case, you play against a legend of Boonlake: the Wise Eminence. Set the game up as usual - as for the two-player game. However, the set-up for the Wise Eminence is a bit different. For the Wise Eminence, take the back of a player board and lay it out for the", "headingPath": "Solo mode · Set-up of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047183, "snippet": "9. Each player takes one player board and puts it in front of them with the side facing up as shown below. The back side is used in the solo game only. Then take the 4 scoring markers and the 100-/200-marker of your color , plus 4 production sites (1 of each type), and put them next to your player b", "headingPath": "SET-UP OF THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "3 inhabitants are placed on the ranch at the bottom left of the player board, 2 inhabitants are placed in the two applicable recesses next to the houses, 5 inhabitants are put in the supply. 1 ship , to be placed on the first space (with 1-2 players) or third space (with 3-4 players) of the river on", "headingPath": "b) 10 inhabitants :", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "The Wise Eminence and you alternate turns. The Wise Eminence begins and carries out the first action. Every time the Wise Eminence has a turn, you reveal the top tile from the solo stack for them and orient it in an upright position (so that the numbers can be read correctly). Then you carry out 2 e", "headingPath": "Course of the Game · Choosing a location", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Finally, you have arrived at Boonlake. The abandoned region along the shore of the lake of the same name almost seems uninhabited; there is only a small group of people, watching over nature and trying to develop life according to their own ideas. The land has hardly been explored, but the gorgeous ", "headingPath": "What to do before the first game · GAME MATERIALS", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Your 2 boats also make resources available to you - each boat gives you 1 resource of the type next to the canal space where it currently is. At any time , you may move your boats any number of steps downstream (to the right) or upstream (to the left) in order to change their positions (and thereby,", "headingPath": "Special effects: Play a CARd, Explore, Develop, Upgrade", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029437, "snippet": "• If you are supposed to get something from the supply that is no longer available there, please make do with something else. Only the wooden pieces are limited; in this case, you go away empty-handed. If you are allowed to put a house on the gameboard and you have none left on your player board but", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SET-UP OF THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}, {"page": 15, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Solo mode · Set-up of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 491}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 491 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 491 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 0.88600 of 2658 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 12, 2026 02:34

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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)		p.2	0.048172 (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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Solo mode · Set-up of the Game	p.15	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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	SET-UP OF THE GAME	p.3	0.047183 (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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	b) 10 inhabitants :	p.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))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Course of the Game · Choosing a location	p.15	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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	What to do before the first game · GAME MATERIALS	p.1	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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Special effects: Play a CARd, Explore, Develop, Upgrade	p.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))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)		p.6	0.029437 (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 39 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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)		p.2	#1	0.048172 (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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Solo mode · Set-up of the Game	p.15	#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
#3	RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Explore	p.8	#9	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
#4	RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Special effects: Play a CARd, Explore, Develop, Upgrade	p.7	#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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Cattle-breeding	p.11	#15	0.013889 (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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Course of the game · Phase A: Choose 1 action and carry it out	p.4	#14	0.014085 (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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Course of the Game · Choosing a location	p.15	#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
#8	RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	SET-UP OF THE GAME	p.3	#3	0.047183 (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 Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)		p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	SET-UP OF THE GAME	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Boonlake — Rulebook (corpus doc 491)	Solo mode · Set-up of the Game	p.15	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 71 ms · first delta 2392 ms · total 8928 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 71 ms · ask 8854 ms · gateway work 8928 ms · total 8928 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3077
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 917
tok/sec: 141.4 tok/sec — 917 output tokens in 6.485 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 35s 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): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 422), 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.