You asked
Welcome Components The Shattered Empire Icon
Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below counted as honest abstainAsked with: Twilight Imperium: Third Editionbg-12493-en-1e · Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empirebg-22821-en-1e
I looked through Twilight Imperium: Third Edition's rulebook and couldn't find a solid answer to that one — and I'd rather tell you so than guess at your table. Try asking it another way, or ask me about setup, turns, or how the game ends: those I know cold.
The closest rulebook passages are below — check them before ruling.
The victory point system of TI, as written, rewards players that seek a balance of planning and flexibility. Some players, however, may desire that the victory objectives of TI be more predictable (which was the case in the two previous editions of TI) so that they may form a more stable long term s
After the galaxy has been created, all players place their "setup units" (as indicated by their Race Sheets) on their Home Systems. If a Home System contains several planets, any Space Dock, Ground Forces, and PDS may be placed among them according to the player's wishes. All players then find and p
Unlike every other unit type, players are allowed to build more Fighter and Ground Force units than supplied with the game. To build these additional units, players must use the Fighter or Ground Force Supplement Counters. These counters are neutral, can be used by any player, and are governed by th
Leader Tokens Artwork: Brian Schomburg, Scott Schomburg, Tyler Walpole Fiction and Twilight Imperium Universe: Christian T. Petersen Production Administration: Darrell Hardy Publisher: Christian T. Petersen 1st Edition Creative Input: Morten Nyhus Hornsleth and Peter Mork. 2nd Edition Creative Input
Before you start playing, follow the steps below: Separate the 10 Home Systems from the other hexagonal gameboard pieces. Randomize the Home Systems face down and allow every player to draw one at random. This process determines which race a player will control throughout the game. All players then
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
- warm abstain
-
- this ruling — W1 — generic warm abstain · receipt: none (generic)
- corpus profile
- live,vps
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
- timings
- search 75 ms · ask 3259 ms · total 3335 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 3335 ms
- retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
- [{"page": 33, "score": 0.031319, "snippet": "The victory point system of TI, as written, rewards players that seek a balance of planning and flexibility. Some players, however, may desire that the victory objectives of TI be more predictable (which was the case in the two previous editions of TI) so that they may form a more stable long term s", "headingPath": "GAME OPTION: AGE OF EMPIRE · GAME OPTION: DISTANT SUNS", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030622, "snippet": "After the galaxy has been created, all players place their \"setup units\" (as indicated by their Race Sheets) on their Home Systems. If a Home System contains several planets, any Space Dock, Ground Forces, and PDS may be placed among them according to the player's wishes. All players then find and p", "headingPath": "REINFORCEMENTS · The Game Round", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.029572, "snippet": "Unlike every other unit type, players are allowed to build more Fighter and Ground Force units than supplied with the game. To build these additional units, players must use the Fighter or Ground Force Supplement Counters. These counters are neutral, can be used by any player, and are governed by th", "headingPath": "THE FIGHTER AND GROUND FORCE SUPPLEMENT COUNTERS", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}, {"page": 36, "score": 0.028958, "snippet": "Leader Tokens Artwork: Brian Schomburg, Scott Schomburg, Tyler Walpole Fiction and Twilight Imperium Universe: Christian T. Petersen Production Administration: Darrell Hardy Publisher: Christian T. Petersen 1st Edition Creative Input: Morten Nyhus Hornsleth and Peter Mork. 2nd Edition Creative Input", "headingPath": "Credits · 1. THE INITIATIVE STRATEGY", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.028543, "snippet": "Before you start playing, follow the steps below: Separate the 10 Home Systems from the other hexagonal gameboard pieces. Randomize the Home Systems face down and allow every player to draw one at random. This process determines which race a player will control throughout the game. All players then ", "headingPath": "Game Setup · REINFORCEMENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.028139, "snippet": "Before every game of TI, players will create a unique game board by connecting the provided hexagon map pieces. Each individual piece is called a \"system.\" The systems of TI each represent an area of space, its planets, and/or other elements of interest. Systems that contain an interior yellow outli", "headingPath": "The Map Hexes · The Planet Cards · The Technology Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.027746, "snippet": "every player will pick an available Strategy Card before the Action Phase begins. Note that being farther clockwise from the Speaker gives a player an increasingly limited choice of Strategy Cards (i.e., the player to the immediate right of the Speaker will only have three cards to choose from). Aft", "headingPath": "Creating the Galaxy · A BONUS COUNTER · THE ACTION PHASE · The Player Action", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.026754, "snippet": "The Status Phase, when compared to either the Strategy or Action Phase, is a straightforward experience. It is during the Status Phase that many of the game functions are \"reset,\" such as players refreshing Planet Cards, discarding Command Counters from the board, etc. It is also during the Status P", "headingPath": "THE STATUS PHASE · 1) QUALIFY FOR PUBLIC/SECRET OBJECTIVES · The 'Imperium Rex' Objective Card", "sharpsignalDocId": 351}]
- citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
- []
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 351 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 351 boosted
- answered-before recall
-
no past answered ruling for this game matched closely enough
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 12, 2026 18:53
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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | GAME OPTION: AGE OF EMPIRE · GAME OPTION: DISTANT SUNS | p.33 | 0.031319 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | REINFORCEMENTS · The Game Round | p.7 | 0.030622 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | THE FIGHTER AND GROUND FORCE SUPPLEMENT COUNTERS | p.19 | 0.029572 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | Credits · 1. THE INITIATIVE STRATEGY | p.36 | 0.028958 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | Game Setup · REINFORCEMENTS | p.6 | 0.028543 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | The Map Hexes · The Planet Cards · The Technology Cards | p.4 | 0.028139 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | Creating the Galaxy · A BONUS COUNTER · THE ACTION PHASE · The Player Action | p.9 | 0.027746 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | THE STATUS PHASE · 1) QUALIFY FOR PUBLIC/SECRET OBJECTIVES · The 'Imperium Rex' Objective Card | p.14 | 0.026754 (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 80 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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empire — Rulebook (corpus doc 884) | Welcome · Expansion Overview · Components | p.4 | #10 | 0.016129 (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 re-ranker chose it |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empire — Rulebook (corpus doc 884) | Component Descriptions · New Systems · New Race Sheets · New Plastic Game Units · New Strategy Cards and the Variant Imperial Strategy Card · New Technology Cards · … | p.5 | #11 | 0.015873 (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 |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empire — Rulebook (corpus doc 884) | New Optional Rules and Variants · Option 1: The Variant Imperial Strategy Card · Option 2: The Variant Strategy Cards | p.9 | #14 | 0.015152 (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 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empire — Rulebook (corpus doc 884) | Credits · Index | p.17 | #13 | 0.015385 (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 |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empire — Rulebook (corpus doc 884) | p.2 | #21 | 0.0125 (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 Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empire — Rulebook (corpus doc 884) | New Technology Cards · The 7- and 8-Player Games · STRATEGY CARDS IN THE 7- AND 8-PLAYER GAMES | p.8 | #16 | 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 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Twilight Imperium: Third Edition — Rulebook (corpus doc 351) | Welcome · The Object of the Game · Game Contents and Preparation · Component Overview | p.4 | #43 | 0.009709 (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 |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Twilight Imperium: Third Edition – Shattered Empire — Rulebook (corpus doc 884) | The Shattered Empire Icon · REPLACEMENT CARDS · TECHNOLOGY CARDS · ACTION CARDS · POLITICAL CARDS | p.4 | #9 | 0.016393 (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 re-ranker chose it |
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 |
|---|
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 75 ms · first delta 3205 ms · total 3335 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 75 ms · ask 3259 ms · gateway work 3335 ms · total 3335 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3862
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 9
- tok/sec
- 155.2 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.058 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 2s 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
- ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
- abstain rationale
-
I don't have enough information.
the answerer's own words, verbatim — hostile corpus/LLM text, rendered escaped
setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render
- decision
- NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
this game registers NO errata cards (edition 279), 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.