Ruling — Terra Mystica

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Terra Mysticabg-120677-en-1e · Terra Mystica: Fire & Icebg-161317-en-1e

To set up the game, follow these steps:

1. Put the Game board in the middle of the table and the Cult board next to it.[1]

2. If using the variable turn order option, place the Turn Order board next to the game board.[2]

3. (If using variable turn order) Place Faction tokens in a cloth bag, shuffle them, and draw a number equal to the number of players; place these tiles next to the game board.[2]

4. (If using variable turn order) For each drawn faction, place a Marker on space 40 of the Victory point track.[2]

5. (If using variable turn order) Determine the first bidder randomly and conduct an auction where players bid using Victory points; the highest bidder chooses a Faction token, places it on a free space on the left side of the Turn Order board, and moves their faction's Marker back on the Victory point track by the amount of their bid.[2]

6. (If using variable turn order) Continue the auction process clockwise until each player has a faction.[2]

7. Randomly select which Bonus cards and Scoring tiles to use.[3]

8. Shuffle the Scoring tiles and place them face-up on spaces 1–6 of the Game board, starting from space 6 and moving to space 1; if a tile with a Spade on its left side is drawn for spaces 5 or 6, shuffle it back and draw another.[3]

9. Cover the right half of the Scoring tile on space 6 with the Game end token.[3]

10. Shuffle the required number of Bonus cards (5 for 2 players, 6 for 3 players, 7 for 4 players, or 8 for 5 players) and place them face-up next to one another.[3]

11. Assign factions: The starting player chooses a faction and takes its Faction board, then players take turns clockwise choosing a remaining Faction board and side.[4] (Alternatively, factions may be randomly assigned).[4]

12. For each chosen faction, distribute the recommended factions among players based on player count: 2 players (Witches and Nomads), 3 players (Witches, Nomads, and Alchemists), 4 players (Witches, Nomads, Halflings, and Mermaids), or 5 players (Witches, Nomads, Halflings, Mermaids, and Giants).[1]

13. For each player's faction, take all tokens in that faction's color (Priests, Structures, Markers, and Bridges).[1]

14. Put the 7 Priests and 3 Bridges next of your Faction board (forming your 'supply').[1]

15. Put the Structures on the corresponding spaces on your Faction board.[1]

16. Distribute the 7 Markers of your color: place one on the leftmost space of the Shipping track (value 0, unless playing as Mermaids), one on the bottommost space of the Exchange track, and one on space 20 of the Victory point track.[1]

17. Distribute the remaining 4 Markers on space 0 of each of the 4 Cult tracks on the Cult board.[1]

18. (If using variable turn order) Each player places their Faction token on the topmost free space on the left side of the Turn Order board, starting with the Starting player and moving clockwise.[2]

19. (If using specific faction setup) Distribute Power tokens between Bowls I and II as indicated on your Faction board.[5]

20. (If using specific faction setup) Move the corresponding Marker on the Cult board up one space for each Cult symbol shown on your Faction board.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.4 · SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup

[2] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook · p.5 · THE NEW GAME OPTIONS · VARIABLE TURN ORDER · Example: · FACTIONS FOR AUCTION

[3] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.6 · gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds

[4] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.6 · choosing A fAction boArd

[5] RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.5 · cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd

🔧 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 99 ms · ask 7871 ms · total 7973 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7973 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 6, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "The Bonus cards and setup for a 2-player game. The Bonus cards and setup for a 5-player game. The Bonus cards and setup for a 3-player game. Note: Each faction (but one) has two special abilities: one from the beginning of the game on, the other one once its Stronghold has been built. These abilitie", "headingPath": "gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.048172, "snippet": "The Starting player chooses a faction and takes its Faction board . In clockwise order, each other player takes one of the remaining Faction boards and chooses which side to use. Note: Alternatively, randomly assign the factions. (Take one Dwelling of each color and randomly distribute them among th", "headingPath": "choosing A fAction boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046402, "snippet": "This section consists of two parts. For your first play, please follow the instructions of the static introductory game. Add the changes for the variable main game in your second play at the earliest. Put the Game board in the middle of the table and the Cult board next to it. For your first game, w", "headingPath": "SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045291, "snippet": "Your Faction board depicts some Cult symbols next to the starting resources. For each such symbol, move the corresponding Marker on the Cult board up one space . The Nomads (yellow) start on space 1 in the Cults of Fire and Earth, the Halflings (brown) start on space 1 in the Cults of Earth and Air,", "headingPath": "cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Collect your starting resources. They are depicted at the top right corner of your Faction board, under your faction's name: Take the depicted resources and place them on your Faction board. (On top of these starting resources, you will get your income for the first round. See page 8.) The Witches g", "headingPath": "stArting resources", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031514, "snippet": "The following game options can be used on their own or in combination with each other. During setup, place the Turn Order board next to the game board. Beginning with the Starting player and in clockwise order, each player places his Faction token on the topmost free space on the left side of the Tu", "headingPath": "THE NEW GAME OPTIONS · VARIABLE TURN ORDER · Example: · FACTIONS FOR AUCTION", "sharpsignalDocId": 868}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030536, "snippet": "Skip this section when reading for the first time. In the introductory game, the first Structures are placed on predefined spaces. Beginning with the Starting player and in clockwise order, place one of your Dwellings on an existing Home terrain . Then, beginning with the last player and in counterc", "headingPath": "plAcing the first structures · detAils · FLOW OF PLA Y OVER SIX ROUNDS · PHASE I : INCOME", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.029857, "snippet": "Each Special action may be taken only once per round . Special actions, like Power actions, are indicated by orange octagons and can be gained in a variety of ways. Some factions unlock a Special action when building their Stronghold . (These are explained in Appendix VI on page 20.) After building ", "headingPath": "7 - speciAl Actions · 8 - pAssing And new stArting plAyer", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "THE NEW GAME OPTIONS · VARIABLE TURN ORDER · Example: · FACTIONS FOR AUCTION", "sharpsignalDocId": 868}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "choosing A fAction boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 161 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 161 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 0.90504 of 2601 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 12, 2026 18:51

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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds	p.6	0.048652 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	choosing A fAction boArd	p.6	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
#3	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup	p.4	0.046402 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd	p.5	0.045291 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	stArting resources	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 Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook (corpus doc 868)	THE NEW GAME OPTIONS · VARIABLE TURN ORDER · Example: · FACTIONS FOR AUCTION	p.5	0.031514 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	plAcing the first structures · detAils · FLOW OF PLA Y OVER SIX ROUNDS · PHASE I : INCOME	p.8	0.030536 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	7 - speciAl Actions · 8 - pAssing And new stArting plAyer	p.14	0.029857 (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 54 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 — 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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup	p.4	#3	0.046402 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	plAcing the first structures · detAils · FLOW OF PLA Y OVER SIX ROUNDS · PHASE I : INCOME	p.8	#7	0.030536 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	CHAOS MAGICIANS · GIANTS · FAKIRS · NOMADS · Magicians have placed their only Dwelling).	p.20	#10	0.028259 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd	p.5	#4	0.045291 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook (corpus doc 868)	Details	p.5	#12	0.014925 (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 Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook (corpus doc 868)	THE NEW GAME OPTIONS · VARIABLE TURN ORDER · Example: · FACTIONS FOR AUCTION	p.5	#6	0.031514 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds	p.6	#1	0.048652 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	choosing A fAction boArd	p.6	#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))	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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	SETUP · Assignment of fActions · components in fAction colors · fAction setup	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook (corpus doc 868)	THE NEW GAME OPTIONS · VARIABLE TURN ORDER · Example: · FACTIONS FOR AUCTION	p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	choosing A fAction boArd	p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161)	cult AdvAncements · bowls of power · gAme And cult boArd	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 99 ms · first delta 2541 ms · total 7973 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 99 ms · ask 7871 ms · gateway work 7973 ms · total 7973 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3393
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 805
tok/sec: 149.6 tok/sec — 805 output tokens in 5.380 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 31s 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 83), 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.