Ruling — Darwin's Journey

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Darwin's Journeybg-322289-en-1e

Each of the game's five rounds consists of four phases completed in order.[1]

**Turn Structure**

1. On each player's turn, they must place a single worker from their personal board onto a location on the main board.[1]

2. During the Action Phase, players take turns placing workers in the order indicated by the Turn Order track on the main board.[1]

3. The player whose marker is in the left-most location on the Turn Order track places 1 worker and performs the location's actions in any order of their choice.[1]

4. The player whose marker is in the 2nd-left-most location on the Turn Order track takes their turn, and this continues from left to right until all players have placed 1 worker.[1]

5. Once every player has placed their first worker, the order is repeated until all workers have been placed.[1]

6. If a player no longer has any available workers, they must pass and take no more turns for the rest of the phase.[1]

**Actions**

The game includes various actions organized into four types: Board Actions, Special Actions, Crew Actions, and Objective Actions.[1]

* **Board Actions:** These appear on main board worker placement locations or on various tracks on the map at the bottom of the board.[1]

* **Special Actions:** These appear on Special Action tiles and Crew cards.[1]

* **Crew Actions:** These appear on Special Action tiles and Crew cards.[1]

* **Objective Actions:** These appear on Special Action tiles and Crew cards.[1]

**Specific Actions**

* **Deliver Specimen:** An active player with a Research token on a Specimen may deliver it to the Museum if its matching Museum tile is not already in the display.[2] The player places the tile on the corresponding location in the Museum display.[2] This may grant Coins or move the Evolution marker forward on the Theory of Evolution track.[2] A player may deliver up to 2 Specimens at once; the second specimen incurs a penalty of 3 Coins.[2]

* **Gain Victory Points:** The active player moves their marker up the victory point track.[1] If they exceed 50 points, they use a specific marker to track additional points.[1]

* **Gain Coins:** The active player gains the indicated number of Coins from the supply.[1]

**Solo Play (Alfred)**

In solo play, the player competes against an artificial opponent named Alfred.[3]

1. Alfred always takes the first turn during each round.[4]

2. Turns alternate between Alfred and the Player until all workers have been played.[4]

3. On each turn, Alfred sends one worker to a location on the main board or to the rest spot on Alfred's board.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook · p.11 · Round Structure · Action Phase · Modifier Icons · Board Actions · Gain Victory Points · Gain Coins

[2] RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook · p.16 · Deliver Specimen

[3] RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook · p.26 · Darwin's Journey Solo Rules · Select Alfred's Difficulty · Main Board · Player Setup · Gaining Crew Cards · Drafting Starting Personal Objective Tiles

[4] RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook · p.28 · Turn Order · Alfred's Board Tracks · Bonus Track · Coin Track · Alfred Turn Structure

🔧 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 93 ms · ask 6326 ms · total 8834 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 2413 ms · generation 6421 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 11, "score": 0.047883, "snippet": "Each of the game's five rounds consists of four phases completed in order. On each player's turn, they must place a single worker from their personal board onto a location on the main board. If a player no longer has any available workers, they must pass, and they take no more turns for the rest of ", "headingPath": "Round Structure · Action Phase · Modifier Icons · Board Actions · Gain Victory Points · Gain Coins", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 28, "score": 0.047163, "snippet": "The game is played as if there were 2 players, which means the Placement Penalty will be 3 coins. During each of the game's rounds, Alfred always takes the first turn. Alternate turns between Alfred and the Player until all workers have been played. The Turn Order Action area has been replaced by th", "headingPath": "Turn Order · Alfred's Board Tracks · Bonus Track · Coin Track · Alfred Turn Structure", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 26, "score": 0.046635, "snippet": "Darwin's Journey can be played solo, where the player competes against an artificial opponent named Alfred. Each player board has an Alfred opponent on its opposite side. There are several difficulty levels of Alfred that can be chosen: Select an Alfred difficulty level and place the associated boar", "headingPath": "Darwin's Journey Solo Rules · Select Alfred's Difficulty · Main Board · Player Setup · Gaining Crew Cards · Drafting Starting Personal Objective Tiles", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045541, "snippet": "Place one Coin to the right of each row of the Museum display. Place one cube of each player color on the red book at the start of the victory point track. From now on these cubes are referred to as victory point markers. Place one cube of each player color onto the large book at the start of the Th", "headingPath": "For your first game", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Place the main board with the side corresponding to the number of players face up. One side of the board is for one-, two- & three-player games , while the other side is for four-player games. Shuffle the 12 Special Action tiles, then draw 6 and place them face up on the corresponding Diary. Place t", "headingPath": "Main Board · For your first game", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 26, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Follow the standard 'Player Setup' instructions with the following changes: During step #1, ensure that the personal board is showing the Alfred side. Place Alfred's personal board directly above your own. Find the 2 Alfred Bonus Track cards of Alfred's color. Randomly place them above the two indic", "headingPath": "Alfred Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030366, "snippet": "Each player places in front of them the following items that match their player color: 1 Personal Board 2 remaining Explorers 5 Workers 5 Tents 6 Personal Lens Tokens 1 Cube 12 Stamps Place 4 workers onto worker spots on the bottom left of the personal board (2A). The 5 th worker (2B) will only ente", "headingPath": "Player Setup · Crew Cards Setup · Option 1: First Play Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 21, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "The player must have the indicated number of Regular Wax Seals of the indicated Wax Seal colors on their personal board. These Wax Seals do not have to be in the same row of their personal board. Special Wax Seals (purple) and Temporary Knowledge tokens may not be used to meet Wax Seal requirements ", "headingPath": "Objective Requirements · Objective Actions", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Round Structure · Action Phase · Modifier Icons · Board Actions · Gain Victory Points · Gain Coins", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 16, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Deliver Specimen", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 26, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Darwin's Journey Solo Rules · Select Alfred's Difficulty · Main Board · Player Setup · Gaining Crew Cards · Drafting Starting Personal Objective Tiles", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}, {"page": 28, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Turn Order · Alfred's Board Tracks · Bonus Track · Coin Track · Alfred Turn Structure", "sharpsignalDocId": 282}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 282 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 282 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 0.90742 of 2128 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 06:13

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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Round Structure · Action Phase · Modifier Icons · Board Actions · Gain Victory Points · Gain Coins	p.11	0.047883 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Turn Order · Alfred's Board Tracks · Bonus Track · Coin Track · Alfred Turn Structure	p.28	0.047163 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Darwin's Journey Solo Rules · Select Alfred's Difficulty · Main Board · Player Setup · Gaining Crew Cards · Drafting Starting Personal Objective Tiles	p.26	0.046635 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	For your first game	p.5	0.045541 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Main Board · For your first game	p.4	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
#6	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Alfred Setup	p.26	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
#7	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Player Setup · Crew Cards Setup · Option 1: First Play Setup	p.6	0.030366 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Objective Requirements · Objective Actions	p.21	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

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 42 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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Main Board · For your first game	p.4	#5	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
#2	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Darwin's Journey Solo Rules · Select Alfred's Difficulty · Main Board · Player Setup · Gaining Crew Cards · Drafting Starting Personal Objective Tiles	p.26	#3	0.046635 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Option 2: Standard Setup · Drafting Starting Personal Objective Tiles	p.7	#13	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
#4	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Deliver Specimen	p.16	#19	0.012821 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Round Structure · Action Phase · Modifier Icons · Board Actions · Gain Victory Points · Gain Coins	p.11	#1	0.047883 (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
#6	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	For your first game	p.5	#4	0.045541 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Turn Order · Alfred's Board Tracks · Bonus Track · Coin Track · Alfred Turn Structure	p.28	#2	0.047163 (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 Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Player Setup · Crew Cards Setup · Option 1: First Play Setup	p.6	#7	0.030366 (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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Round Structure · Action Phase · Modifier Icons · Board Actions · Gain Victory Points · Gain Coins	p.11	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Deliver Specimen	p.16	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Darwin's Journey Solo Rules · Select Alfred's Difficulty · Main Board · Player Setup · Gaining Crew Cards · Drafting Starting Personal Objective Tiles	p.26	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Darwin's Journey — Rulebook (corpus doc 282)	Turn Order · Alfred's Board Tracks · Bonus Track · Coin Track · Alfred Turn Structure	p.28	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 93 ms · first delta 2528 ms · total 8834 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 2413 ms · retrieval 93 ms · ask 6326 ms · gateway work 6421 ms · total 8834 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3842
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 597
tok/sec: 155.6 tok/sec — 597 output tokens in 3.836 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 39s 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 211), 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.