Ruling — Bus — RuleSage

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You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Busbg-552-en-1e

Each round of the game comprises two phases: Select Actions, then Resolve Actions.[1]

**Setup and Initial Turn**

1. Attach the clock hand to the clock face on the board using the fastener.[1]

2. Place the gameboard in the middle of the table.[1]

3. Each player chooses a color and takes the Score disc, 5 buses, 20 Action markers, and 25 Bus Line markers of that color.[1]

4. Place the 5 Time stones on their spaces on the time-control device attached to the clock.[1]

5. Point the clock hand to the house.[1]

6. Place 4 passengers around Central Park: 1 passenger on each roundabout.[1]

7. Each player places their Score disc on space 0 of the Score track.[1]

8. Each player places 1 of their buses in the Buses area on the right side of the gameboard.[1]

9. The last person to ride a bus takes the Start bus and goes first (or choose randomly).[1]

10. Turn order is clockwise, starting with this player.[1]

11. One time around in turn order, each player places one of their Bus Line markers on any street.[1]

12. One time around in reverse turn order, each player places a second Bus Line marker continuing from one of the ends of their previous marker (placing it in an unoccupied street if possible).[1]

13. One time around in turn order, each player chooses 2 unoccupied, lowest-number construction sites and places a building on each (buildings can be Houses, Offices, or Pubs).[1]

**Phase 1: Select Actions**

1. In turn order, each player selects an action by placing one of their Action markers on a space along the right side of the gameboard.[2]

2. Players may continue in turn order, either dropping out of action selection or placing another Action marker (players can place as many as they like, but markers are spent and cannot be recovered).[2]

3. Once everyone has dropped out of action selection, proceed to the next phase.[2]

**Phase 2: Resolve Actions**

1. Resolve actions from top to bottom on the gameboard, starting with Line Expansion and ending with Starting Player.[3]

2. For multi-use actions, resolve them left to right, despite alphabetical order.[3]

3. When an Action marker is resolved, it must be resolved as fully as possible.[3]

4. Specific actions include:

* **Line Expansion:** Extend your bus line a number of streets equal to its action power (in a 5-player game, action power + 1 for Line Expansion only).[4] The line must be nonbranching and cannot overlap itself, though it can loop.[4]

* **Buildings:** Erect a number of buildings equal to the action power on the lowest-number unoccupied construction sites.[5]

* **Passengers:** Add a number of passengers equal to the action power to a train station of your choice.[5]

* **Clock:** Choose whether to pause time (take a Time stone, which is -1 point) or advance the clock to the next building type (house, office, pub).[6] If advancing, move all passengers from Building discs to an unoccupied Building disc of the type indicated by the clock hand.[6]

* **Vrrooomm!:** Use each bus to try to transport 1 passenger to their destination (an unoccupied Building disc of the type indicated by the clock hand).[7] Earn 1 point for each passenger transported.[7]

* **Starting Player:** If chosen, take the Start bus to be the starting player next round; if nobody chose this, pass the Start bus clockwise.[8]

5. Return all spent Action markers to the box.[5]

**End of the Game**

The game ends in one of three ways:

1. If all construction sites are occupied by buildings, the game ends at the end of the round.[8]

2. If only 1 player has Action markers at the end of the round, the game ends immediately.[8]

3. If the clock has no more Time stones, the game ends immediately.[8]

**Scoring and Winning**

1. Earn points by transporting passengers via the Vrrooomm! action.[7]

2. Each Time stone held is -1 point.[8]

3. The player with the most points wins.[8]

4. In a tie, the player with the most Time stones wins.[8]

5. If still tied, the player whose Score marker is lowest in its stack wins.[8]

[1] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.1 · route map · Assembly · Setting Up · First Bus Lines · First Buildings · Play

[2] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.1 · Phase 1: Select Actions · Beep! Beep! · Contents · Action: Line Expansion

[3] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.1 · Phase 2: Resolve Actions

[4] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.2 · The journey continues

[5] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.2 · Action: Passengers · Action: Buildings

[6] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.2 · Action: Clock · Only 1 passenger per building!

[7] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.2 · Action: Vrrooomm!

[8] RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook · p.2 · End of the Game · Action: Starting Player · Credits · Tested by (thank you very much!):

🔧 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 95 ms · ask 6288 ms · total 6385 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6385 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 1, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "October 1999 Before your first game, attach the clock hand to the clock face on the board using the fastener. 4 One time around in turn order, each player places one of their Bus Line markers on any street - even if another Bus Line marker is already on it. Then, one time around in reverse turn orde", "headingPath": "route map · Assembly · Setting Up · First Bus Lines · First Buildings · Play", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "The game can end in 1 of 3 ways: If all construction sites are occupied by buildings, the game ends at the end of the round. Green has 2 buses, and there are multiple passengers (1 at A, 4 at the train station) eager to ride the green line. Unfortunately, the only available office on the green line ", "headingPath": "End of the Game · Action: Starting Player · Credits · Tested by (thank you very much!):", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "In turn order, each player selects an action by placing one of their Action markers on a space along the right side of the gameboard (the actions are explained in Phase 2: Resolve Actions ). The actions Buses , Clock , and Starting Player each have only 1 space. The other actions have spaces labeled", "headingPath": "Phase 1: Select Actions · Beep! Beep! · Contents · Action: Line Expansion", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "In this strange universe, someone with a scientific bent, but little regard for cosmic consequences has created a device that can stretch time. They're thrilled to demonstrate it for anyone curious, even the local bus companies! When you resolve your Action marker here, you choose whether to pause t", "headingPath": "Action: Clock · Only 1 passenger per building!", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Resolve the actions from top to bottom on the gameboard, starting with Line Expansion and ending with Starting Player . For multi-use actions, resolve them left to right , despite alphabetical order. This means that for Line Expansion and Buildings , the last person to select it will resolve it firs", "headingPath": "Phase 2: Resolve Actions", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "New passengers stream into the city by train. The train stations bustle with passengers rushing home, or to work, or out for a drink.... Passengers is an action with dwindling action power . A is on the left, so the first to resolve the action gets to do it the most. Each time you resolve an Action ", "headingPath": "Action: Passengers · Action: Buildings", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Run your buses along your bus line, transporting passengers where they need to go right now, and earning you points! Each time you resolve an Action marker here, you must try to use each of your buses to transport 1 passenger to their destination (an umpty building of the type indicated by the clock", "headingPath": "Action: Vrrooomm!", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "In other words, you can transport a waiting passenger on your bus line to an empty building of the right type on your bus line. Note: You do not actually move your bus pieces on the map. If it helps you to do so, you could, but put them back in the Buses area after your turn. the Example 1: The pers", "headingPath": "Only 1 passenger per bus! · Action: Buses", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "route map · Assembly · Setting Up · First Bus Lines · First Buildings · Play", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Phase 1: Select Actions · Beep! Beep! · Contents · Action: Line Expansion", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Phase 2: Resolve Actions", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The journey continues", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Action: Passengers · Action: Buildings", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Action: Clock · Only 1 passenger per building!", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Action: Vrrooomm!", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "End of the Game · Action: Starting Player · Credits · Tested by (thank you very much!):", "sharpsignalDocId": 457}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 457 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 457 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 0.89229 of 3296 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 14, 2026 07:24

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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	route map · Assembly · Setting Up · First Bus Lines · First Buildings · Play	p.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))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	End of the Game · Action: Starting Player · Credits · Tested by (thank you very much!):	p.2	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
#3	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Phase 1: Select Actions · Beep! Beep! · Contents · Action: Line Expansion	p.1	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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Clock · Only 1 passenger per building!	p.2	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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Phase 2: Resolve Actions	p.1	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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Passengers · Action: Buildings	p.2	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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Vrrooomm!	p.2	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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Only 1 passenger per bus! · Action: Buses	p.2	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 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 9 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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	route map · Assembly · Setting Up · First Bus Lines · First Buildings · Play	p.1	#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
#2	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Phase 1: Select Actions · Beep! Beep! · Contents · Action: Line Expansion	p.1	#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
#3	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	End of the Game · Action: Starting Player · Credits · Tested by (thank you very much!):	p.2	#2	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Phase 2: Resolve Actions	p.1	#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
#5	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Vrrooomm!	p.2	#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
#6	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Clock · Only 1 passenger per building!	p.2	#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
#7	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	The journey continues	p.2	#9	0.014493 (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 Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Passengers · Action: Buildings	p.2	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	route map · Assembly · Setting Up · First Bus Lines · First Buildings · Play	p.1	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Phase 1: Select Actions · Beep! Beep! · Contents · Action: Line Expansion	p.1	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Phase 2: Resolve Actions	p.1	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	The journey continues	p.2	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Passengers · Action: Buildings	p.2	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Clock · Only 1 passenger per building!	p.2	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	Action: Vrrooomm!	p.2	no quote on the wire
[8]	RULEBOOK Bus — Rulebook (corpus doc 457)	End of the Game · Action: Starting Player · Credits · Tested by (thank you very much!):	p.2	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 95 ms · first delta 1418 ms · total 6385 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 95 ms · ask 6288 ms · gateway work 6385 ms · total 6385 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4292
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1005
tok/sec: 204.6 tok/sec — 1005 output tokens in 4.911 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 24s 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: 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 387), 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.