Ruling — Trekking Through History

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Trekking Through Historybg-353288-en-1e

Turn order is determined by the Pocket Watches on the Clock; the player whose Pocket Watch is on top goes first, and as play progresses, the player whose Pocket Watch is furthest behind on the Clock goes next.[1][2] If multiple Pocket Watches are tied for furthest behind, the player on top of the stack goes next.[1][2] A player may take multiple turns in a row if their Pocket Watch remains furthest behind after completing a turn.[1][2]

On your turn, perform the following steps in order:

1. Choose a Card: Decide which of the six historical events in the Departures Row you will visit (you may choose the top card of the deck), or alternatively, decide to visit one of your ancestors.[1][2]

2. Move Your Pocket Watch: Move your Pocket Watch on the Clock by the number of hours specified on the lower left of the chosen History card.[3] You may use Time Crystals already in your Crystal Tank to reduce the number of hours moved, with each crystal subtracting 1 hour, though you cannot make a card cost less than 1 hour.[3] You must stop at 12 o'clock if your movement would take you past it.[4]

3. Collect Benefits: Collect the benefits shown on the chosen card as well as the benefit shown on the playmat below the card.[3] Place gained Experience tokens on your Itinerary in the uppermost empty space of the matching color column (Experiences are wild and can be placed in any column).[3] If you gained Time Crystals, put them in your Crystal Tank.[3] If placing a token completes a row or covers an icon, immediately gain the indicated Victory Points or Time Crystal.[3] Move your wood Point marker on the score track to mark points gained.[3]

4. Place Card in Trek: If it is your first card, place it in front of you to start a Trek.[5] If the new card's year is later than the previous card in your Trek, stack it on top.[5] If the new card's year is earlier than the previous card, collapse your current Trek into a single stack, flip it over to show it is completed, and start a new Trek with the new card.[5] If you chose an Ancestor card, add it to your current Trek, and its date becomes the same as the previous card in that Trek.[5]

5. Slide and Refill History Cards: Slide the History cards in the Departures Row to the right to fill empty spaces, keeping them in the same order, and slide the top card of the Day deck to fill the leftmost empty space.[4]

The game consists of 3 rounds (days).[4][6] A day ends when all players are at 12 o'clock.[4] When a day ends, discard the current Day deck and all History cards in the Departures Row, place the next Day deck face up, draw 5 cards from it to fill the Departures Row, discard current Itineraries and Experience tokens on them, and have each player choose one remaining Itinerary for the upcoming day.[4] The next day begins with Pocket Watches in their current positions at 12 o'clock.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook · p.4 · Understanding Turn Order · 1 Choose a Card · About History Cards

[2] RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook · p.4

[3] RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook · p.5 · Move Your Pocket Watch 2 · Saving Time with Time Crystals · 3 Collect Benefits

[4] RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook · p.7 · Slide and Refill History Cards · End of Day · Hours in a Day · Punctuality Bonus · Movement Always Ends at 12

[5] RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook · p.6 · Place Card in Trek 4

[6] RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook · p.1

🔧 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 73 ms · ask 4843 ms · total 4918 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 4918 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.047875, "snippet": "The Pocket Watches on the Clock determine turn order. The player whose Pocket Watch is on top goes first. As play progresses, the player whose Pocket Watch is furthest behind on the Clock goes next. If multiple Pocket Watches are tied for furthest behind, the player who is on top of the stack goes n", "headingPath": "Understanding Turn Order · 1 Choose a Card · About History Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.047123, "snippet": "4 PLA YING THE GAME Understanding Turn Order The Pocket Watches on the Clock determine turn order. The player whose Pocket Watch is on top goes first. As play progresses, the player whose Pocket Watch is furthest behind on the Clock goes next. If multiple Pocket Watches are tied for furthest behind,", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046696, "snippet": "Players 2-4 Ages 10+ Minutes 30-60 You’re about to go on a 3-day tour of history, traveling thousands of years in a time machine to experience great moments from our past. Trekking through History takes place in three rounds, each representing one day of your trip. Each day, you’ll visit a series of", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Each player takes a wood Point marker matching their color and places it at 0 on the score track . Place the Clock beside the playmat. Players pick a Pocket Watch matching their color and stack them in random order at 12 o'clock. TIP stands for points you can score. You'll find these on your Itinera", "headingPath": "Game Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Place the Supply tray (with all Experience tokens and Time Crystals inside it) on the table. Place the playmat on the table. Place the stack of Ancestor cards . 2-players: Place 6 copies. 3-players: Place 9 copies. 4-players: Place 12 copies. The Day I deck of History cards has the roman numeral 'I'", "headingPath": "Game Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Slide the History cards in the Departures Row to the right to fill in any empty spaces, keeping them in the same order. Slide the top card of the Day deck to fill the leftmost empty space in the row. Players must always stop at 12 o'clock upon reaching it (see 'Clock Details' on this page). When all", "headingPath": "Slide and Refill History Cards · End of Day · Hours in a Day · Punctuality Bonus · Movement Always Ends at 12", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030118, "snippet": "At the end of the third day, players calculate their final scores. Your final score consists of the following: Points gained from History cards and Itineraries (counted during the game on the score track). 1 1 point per unspent Time Crystal. 2 Trek Scoring: Each Trek earns Victory Points based on th", "headingPath": "Final Scoring · The player with the most Victory Points wins! · Time Warps · Credits · Game Development · Creative Direction and Graphic Design · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Look at the number on the lower left of the History card you chose. That's the number of hours you'll spend visiting the historical event. Move your Pocket Watch that many hours on the Clock, stacking it on top of any opponent Pocket Watches on the space where it lands. Example: This red player choo", "headingPath": "Move Your Pocket Watch 2 · Saving Time with Time Crystals · 3 Collect Benefits", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Understanding Turn Order · 1 Choose a Card · About History Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Move Your Pocket Watch 2 · Saving Time with Time Crystals · 3 Collect Benefits", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Slide and Refill History Cards · End of Day · Hours in a Day · Punctuality Bonus · Movement Always Ends at 12", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Place Card in Trek 4", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 561}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 561 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 561 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 0.93128 of 2343 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 08:46

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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Understanding Turn Order · 1 Choose a Card · About History Cards	p.4	0.047875 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)		p.4	0.047123 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)		p.1	0.046696 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Game Setup	p.3	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
#5	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Game Setup	p.2	0.032258 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Slide and Refill History Cards · End of Day · Hours in a Day · Punctuality Bonus · Movement Always Ends at 12	p.7	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
#7	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Final Scoring · The player with the most Victory Points wins! · Time Warps · Credits · Game Development · Creative Direction and Graphic Design · …	p.8	0.030118 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Move Your Pocket Watch 2 · Saving Time with Time Crystals · 3 Collect Benefits	p.5	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

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 10 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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Game Setup	p.3	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Understanding Turn Order · 1 Choose a Card · About History Cards	p.4	#1	0.047875 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)		p.4	#2	0.047123 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Slide and Refill History Cards · End of Day · Hours in a Day · Punctuality Bonus · Movement Always Ends at 12	p.7	#6	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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Move Your Pocket Watch 2 · Saving Time with Time Crystals · 3 Collect Benefits	p.5	#8	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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Place Card in Trek 4	p.6	#9	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)		p.1	#3	0.046696 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Game Setup	p.2	#5	0.032258 (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 Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Understanding Turn Order · 1 Choose a Card · About History Cards	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)		p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Move Your Pocket Watch 2 · Saving Time with Time Crystals · 3 Collect Benefits	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Slide and Refill History Cards · End of Day · Hours in a Day · Punctuality Bonus · Movement Always Ends at 12	p.7	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)	Place Card in Trek 4	p.6	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Trekking Through History — Rulebook (corpus doc 561)		p.1	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 73 ms · first delta 1591 ms · total 4918 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 73 ms · ask 4843 ms · gateway work 4918 ms · total 4918 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3108
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 675
tok/sec: 205.4 tok/sec — 675 output tokens in 3.287 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 0s 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 493), 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.