RuleSage cited table rulings
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You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Catan: Seafarersbg-325-en-1e

Because the sources provide different setup instructions for various game variations (e.g., 3- or 4-player variable setup, The Fog Islands, The Four Islands, Through the Desert, Cloth Trade, etc.), the setup depends on the specific map and rules being used:
**Variable Setup (3- or 4-player)**
1. Set up the frame for a 3- or 4-player game.[1]
2. Place sea hexes as shown on the map.[1]
3. Gather the land hexes and number discs and place them randomly in the four island areas, ensuring forests and pastures do not get low value number discs (2, 3, 11, and 12).[1]
4. You may also randomize the ports.[1]
5. Shuffle the port tokens and place them on the port locations shown on the map.[1]
6. Place the robber on the hex with the number 12 disc and the pirate on the indicated location.[1]
**Variable Setup (Main Island/Unexplored Regions)**
1. Set up the frame for a 3- or 4-player game.[2]
2. Place the 3 desert hexes as shown on the map.[2]
3. Gather the main island land hexes, number discs, and ports, and place them randomly in the area shown on the map.[2]
4. Place the sea hexes within the frame.[2]
5. Gather the unexplored regions' hexes and number discs and place them randomly in the remaining spaces within the frame.[2]
6. Place the robber and the pirate as shown.[2]
**The Fog Islands (Fixed Setup)**
1. Set up the game as shown by the appropriate map.[3]
2. Leave white spaces empty.[3]
3. Randomize the facedown hexes from the component list and place them in a facedown stack next to the board.[3]
4. Randomize the facedown number discs from the component list and place them in a facedown stack next to the board.[3]
5. Place the robber and the pirate on the indicated locations.[3]
6. Place starting settlements with roads/ships on one island or two different islands.[3]
**The Four Islands (Fixed Setup)**
1. Set up the game as shown by the appropriate map.[4]
2. Place the robber and the pirate on the indicated locations.[4]
3. Place starting settlements with roads/ships on one island or two different islands.[4]
**Through the Desert (Fixed Setup)**
1. Set up the game as shown by the appropriate map.[5]
2. Place the robber and the pirate on the indicated locations.[5]
3. Place starting settlements with roads/ships on the main island.[5]
**Heading for New Shores (Fixed Setup)**
1. Set up the game as shown by the appropriate map.[6]
2. Place the robber and the pirate on the indicated locations.[6]
3. Place starting settlements with roads/ships on the main island.[6]
**Cloth Trade (Variable Setup)**
1. Set up the frame, the four small islands, and sea hexes as shown.[7]
2. Set up the villages by placing the number discs and cloth tokens as shown.[7]
3. Gather the land hexes and number discs for the large islands and place them randomly in the empty hex areas.[7]
4. Randomly place ports on the locations shown.[7]
5. Players choose which hex with a number 12 disc should start the game with the robber.[7]
6. Place the pirate on the indicated location.[7]
**General Setup (Alternative)**
1. Gather the hexes listed and randomly place them face up within the frame.[8]
2. Gather the number discs listed and randomly place them on the land hexes; if 2 red number discs end up on adjacent hexes, swap one with an adjacent black number hex so all red number discs are separated.[8]
3. Players take turns placing a random port face up on the board, placing tokens on edges between a land and sea hex or between a land hex and a frame piece, staying at least one edge away from all other port tokens.[8]
4. Place the robber and pirate on the indicated locations.[8]
5. Place starting settlements with roads/ships on one island or two different islands.[8]
[1] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.7 · VARIABLE SETUP
[2] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.11 · VARIABLE SETUP · MAIN ISLAND · UNEXPLORED REGIONS
[3] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.8 · THE FOG ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP
[4] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.6 · THE FOUR ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP
[5] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.10 · THROUGH THE DESERT · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME
[6] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.4
[7] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.15 · VARIABLE SETUP · CLOTH TRADE · SHIP MOVEMENT · PIRATE AND ROBBER · WINNING THE GAME
[8] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook · p.20 · SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME · FURTHER SETUP OPTIONS

Strategy guides → — community tips, kept separate from rulings

🔧 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 87 ms · ask 8034 ms · total 8124 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 8124 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 20, "score": 0.031498, "snippet": "Gather the hexes listed and randomly place them face up within the frame. Players may take this opportunity to agree to shift the setup of the hexes if they would like to change the number or size of islands. Gather the number discs listed and randomly place them on the land hexes. If 2 red number d", "headingPath": "SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME · FURTHER SETUP OPTIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.030679, "snippet": "Set up the frame, the four small islands, and sea hexes as shown. Set up the villages by placing the number discs and cloth tokens as shown. Gather the land hexes and number discs for the large islands and place them randomly in the empty hex areas. Randomly place ports on the locations shown. Playe", "headingPath": "VARIABLE SETUP · CLOTH TRADE · SHIP MOVEMENT · PIRATE AND ROBBER · WINNING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.030331, "snippet": "The Desert Island is named after both the large desert that splits it and its infamous lack of resources. You will need to be resourceful and find supplies by either exploring the neighboring islands to the east or risk a journey across the desert. Set up the game as shown by the appropriate map. Pl", "headingPath": "THROUGH THE DESERT · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.029643, "snippet": "After the pirate fleet was defeated, peace returned to the island. The many years of prosperity that followed brought forth a new ambition to create the greatest structure in Catanian history, thus beginning the race to build the first 'Wonder of Catan.' Set up the game as shown by the map. Your sta", "headingPath": "THE WONDERS OF CATAN · FIXED SETUP · BUILDING ON SMALL ISLANDS · BUILDING THE WONDERS OF CATAN · WINNING THE GAME · VARIABLE SETUP · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029631, "snippet": "A heavy fog separates these islands, making it difficult for their inhabitants to communicate with one another. You'll need a brave seafarer to explore the passage and map out what lies within. Set up the game as shown by the appropriate map. The white spaces are left empty. Randomize the facedown h", "headingPath": "THE FOG ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029287, "snippet": "Set up the frame for a 3- or 4-player game. Then place sea hexes as shown on the map. Gather the land hexes and number discs and place them randomly in the four island areas. Make sure forests and pastures do not get low value number discs (2, 3, 11, and 12). You may also randomize the ports. Shuffl", "headingPath": "VARIABLE SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029052, "snippet": "Set up the frame for a 3- or 4-player game. Place the 3 desert hexes as shown on the map. Gather the main island land hexes, number discs, and ports. Place them randomly in the area shown on the map. Then place the sea hexes within the frame. Gather the unexplored regions' hexes and number discs. Pl", "headingPath": "VARIABLE SETUP · MAIN ISLAND · UNEXPLORED REGIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.02885, "snippet": "Seafaring can be very dangerous, and not all expeditions make it back. Such was the case for the forgotten tribe. Fortunately, after years of searching, you finally found them and learned that they are alive and well. Many of them are happy to stay, but others want to return home and have asked for ", "headingPath": "THE FORGOTTEN TRIBE · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · VP TOKENS · DEVELOPMENT CARDS · PORTS · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "VARIABLE SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "VARIABLE SETUP · MAIN ISLAND · UNEXPLORED REGIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "THE FOG ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "THE FOUR ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "THROUGH THE DESERT · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 15, "quote": null, "headingPath": "VARIABLE SETUP · CLOTH TRADE · SHIP MOVEMENT · PIRATE AND ROBBER · WINNING THE GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}, {"page": 20, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME · FURTHER SETUP OPTIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 216}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; no base-rulebook boost — this ask EXCLUDED the base book, so its rulebook was never resolved and no id for it went on the wire (boosting it would have put that book back into a scope the reader took it out of); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
no base-rulebook boost — this ask EXCLUDED the base book, so its rulebook was never resolved and no id for it went on the wire (boosting it would have put that book back into a scope the reader took it out of)
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 0.88889 of 3051 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until
Nov 16, 2026 05:53

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 TWO-ARM fuse (full-text + vector), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.03279 — both arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). Measured healthy band on this fuse: 0.016–0.033. 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 Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME · FURTHER SETUP OPTIONS p.20 0.031498 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP · CLOTH TRADE · SHIP MOVEMENT · PIRATE AND ROBBER · WINNING THE GAME p.15 0.030679 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 300
#3 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THROUGH THE DESERT · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME p.10 0.030331 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THE WONDERS OF CATAN · FIXED SETUP · BUILDING ON SMALL ISLANDS · BUILDING THE WONDERS OF CATAN · WINNING THE GAME · VARIABLE SETUP · … p.18 0.029643 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 300
#5 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THE FOG ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP p.8 0.029631 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 300
#6 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP p.7 0.029287 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 300
#7 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP · MAIN ISLAND · UNEXPLORED REGIONS p.11 0.029052 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 300
#8 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THE FORGOTTEN TRIBE · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · VP TOKENS · DEVELOPMENT CARDS · PORTS · … p.12 0.02885 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) 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 45 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 — not 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. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read atdocumentheadingpage fused rankfused RRF scorecarried byhow it got its slot
#1 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP p.7 #6 0.029287 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text the re-ranker chose it
#2 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THE FOG ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP p.8 #5 0.029631 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text the re-ranker chose it
#3 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THE FOUR ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP p.6 #9 0.028778 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text the re-ranker chose it
#4 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THROUGH THE DESERT · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME p.10 #3 0.030331 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text the re-ranker chose it
#5 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) p.4 #16 0.02748 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text the re-ranker chose it
#6 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP · MAIN ISLAND · UNEXPLORED REGIONS p.11 #7 0.029052 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text the re-ranker chose it
#7 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP · CLOTH TRADE · SHIP MOVEMENT · PIRATE AND ROBBER · WINNING THE GAME p.15 #2 0.030679 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text the re-ranker chose it
#8 RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME · FURTHER SETUP OPTIONS p.20 #1 0.031498 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) vector + full-text 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
[1] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP p.7 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP · MAIN ISLAND · UNEXPLORED REGIONS p.11 no quote on the wire
[3] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THE FOG ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP p.8 no quote on the wire
[4] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THE FOUR ISLANDS · FIXED SETUP p.6 no quote on the wire
[5] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) THROUGH THE DESERT · FIXED SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME p.10 no quote on the wire
[6] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) p.4 no quote on the wire
[7] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) VARIABLE SETUP · CLOTH TRADE · SHIP MOVEMENT · PIRATE AND ROBBER · WINNING THE GAME p.15 no quote on the wire
[8] RULEBOOK Catan: Seafarers — Rulebook (corpus doc 216) SETUP · ADDITIONAL RULES · WINNING THE GAME · FURTHER SETUP OPTIONS p.20 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 87 ms · first delta 3411 ms · total 8124 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 87 ms · ask 8034 ms · gateway work 8124 ms · total 8124 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
2521
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
948
tok/sec
203.4 tok/sec — 948 output tokens in 4.660 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 50s 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
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
decision
SERVED — setup-shaped and this game's approved setup checklist is offered above
pattern that matched
SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question)
setup

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1), 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.