RuleSage cited table rulings
← Terra Mystica

You asked

How does building the Dragonlords' Stronghold change the normal Power token rules?

Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below counted as honest abstain

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

I looked through Terra Mystica'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.

RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.12 · detAils · power viA structures
Upgrading a Trading house to a Stronghold costs a number of Workers and Coins depending on the faction. After building its Stronghold, each faction gains a specific special ability (see Appendix VI, page 20) . If the current Scoring tile depicts a Stronghold, get 5 Victory points for this upgrade. U
RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.20 · CULTISTS · ENGINEERS · DWARVES · MERMAIDS · SWARMLINGS
Ability: Whenever at least one of your opponents decides to take Power due to your building activity, advance 1 space on a Cult track of your choice. (You only get to advance 1 space in total regardless of the number of opponents taking Power. If all of your opponents refuse to take Power, do not ad
RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.20 · Appendix v: the town tiles · Ability: - · WITCHES · ALCHEMISTS · DARKLINGS · HALFLINGS
This section provides further details on the 14 factions, their special abilities, and the rewards for building their Stronghold. The factions are sorted by Home terrain. Some factions gain an Action token after building their Stronghold. This token may already be used on the same round. stronghold:
RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.20 · CHAOS MAGICIANS · GIANTS · FAKIRS · NOMADS · Magicians have placed their only Dwelling).
Ability: You start the game with only one Dwelling. You may only place this Dwelling after all the other players have build all of theirs (if necessary, after the Nomads have placed their third one, see setup on page 5) . You get 2 Favor tiles instead of 1 whenever you build a Temple or your Sanctua
RULEBOOK Terra Mystica — Rulebook · p.12 · detAils · the price of power
You do not gain Power for your own Structures. Power can only be gained when an opponent builds Structures. Beginning with the player to the left of the active player and in clockwise order, each affected opponent needs to decide whether to actually gain the Power or not. (The next section explains
🔧 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 85 ms · ask 2394 ms · total 2480 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 2480 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 12, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Upgrading a Trading house to a Stronghold costs a number of Workers and Coins depending on the faction. After building its Stronghold, each faction gains a specific special ability (see Appendix VI, page 20) . If the current Scoring tile depicts a Stronghold, get 5 Victory points for this upgrade. U", "headingPath": "detAils · power viA structures", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.031754, "snippet": "Ability: Whenever at least one of your opponents decides to take Power due to your building activity, advance 1 space on a Cult track of your choice. (You only get to advance 1 space in total regardless of the number of opponents taking Power. If all of your opponents refuse to take Power, do not ad", "headingPath": "CULTISTS · ENGINEERS · DWARVES · MERMAIDS · SWARMLINGS", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.031258, "snippet": "This section provides further details on the 14 factions, their special abilities, and the rewards for building their Stronghold. The factions are sorted by Home terrain. Some factions gain an Action token after building their Stronghold. This token may already be used on the same round. stronghold:", "headingPath": "Appendix v: the town tiles · Ability: - · WITCHES · ALCHEMISTS · DARKLINGS · HALFLINGS", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.030777, "snippet": "Ability: You start the game with only one Dwelling. You may only place this Dwelling after all the other players have build all of theirs (if necessary, after the Nomads have placed their third one, see setup on page 5) . You get 2 Favor tiles instead of 1 whenever you build a Temple or your Sanctua", "headingPath": "CHAOS MAGICIANS · GIANTS · FAKIRS · NOMADS · Magicians have placed their only Dwelling).", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.03031, "snippet": "You do not gain Power for your own Structures. Power can only be gained when an opponent builds Structures. Beginning with the player to the left of the active player and in clockwise order, each affected opponent needs to decide whether to actually gain the Power or not. (The next section explains ", "headingPath": "detAils · the price of power", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.029644, "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}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.02901, "snippet": "To ensure the first condition is met, you are allowed to transform one unoccupied Terrain space into your Home terrain immediately before building a Dwelling . Place a Terrain tile of your color on that space. Transformation has its price: Each step between the source and destination terrain on the ", "headingPath": "trAnsforming A terrAin spAce · detAils on building dwellings", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.028595, "snippet": "Freely choose which one of the three available Bonus cards you want to take. (You may not immediately take the card that you have just returned.) You may wish to put the newly taken Bonus card face-down in front of you to indicate that you have already passed. There is no limitation for how many res", "headingPath": "detAils · founding A town", "sharpsignalDocId": 161}]
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 161 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 161 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 19:01

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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161) detAils · power viA structures p.12 0.032787 (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) CULTISTS · ENGINEERS · DWARVES · MERMAIDS · SWARMLINGS p.20 0.031754 (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) Appendix v: the town tiles · Ability: - · WITCHES · ALCHEMISTS · DARKLINGS · HALFLINGS p.20 0.031258 (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) CHAOS MAGICIANS · GIANTS · FAKIRS · NOMADS · Magicians have placed their only Dwelling). p.20 0.030777 (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) detAils · the price of power p.12 0.03031 (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 — Rulebook (corpus doc 161) 7 - speciAl Actions · 8 - pAssing And new stArting plAyer p.14 0.029644 (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) trAnsforming A terrAin spAce · detAils on building dwellings p.10 0.02901 (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) detAils · founding A town p.14 0.028595 (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 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.

one thing that looks wrong and is not: a row a floor seated can carry a fused rank LARGER than the pool size above it. The floors draw from the whole fused list, not only from the passages the re-ranker scored — so a rank past the pool is a floor reaching down for something the re-ranker would never have seen, which is exactly what the floors are for.

read atdocumentheadingpage fused rankfused RRF scorecarried byhow it got its slot
#1 RULEBOOK Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook (corpus doc 868) THE VOLCANO FACTIONS · Stronghold: · ACOLYTES p.4 #9 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 guaranteed a slot by the base-rulebook floor
#2 RULEBOOK Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook (corpus doc 868) Stronghold: · RIVERWALKERS p.4 #10 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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161) Appendix v: the town tiles · Ability: - · WITCHES · ALCHEMISTS · DARKLINGS · HALFLINGS p.20 #3 0.031258 (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 Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice — Rulebook (corpus doc 868) Stronghold: · Ability: p.3 #11 0.014706 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161) 7 - speciAl Actions · 8 - pAssing And new stArting plAyer p.14 #6 0.029644 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161) gAme And cult boArd · CHANGES IN THE MAIN GAME · scoring tiles · bonus cArds p.6 #16 0.013158 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161) CHAOS MAGICIANS · GIANTS · FAKIRS · NOMADS · Magicians have placed their only Dwelling). p.20 #4 0.030777 (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 Terra Mystica — Rulebook (corpus doc 161) CULTISTS · ENGINEERS · DWARVES · MERMAIDS · SWARMLINGS p.20 #2 0.031754 (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

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
timing split
retrieval 85 ms · first delta 2352 ms · total 2480 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 85 ms · ask 2394 ms · gateway work 2480 ms · total 2480 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
4223
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
9
tok/sec
166.7 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.054 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
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
decision
NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

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.