RuleSage cited table rulings
← Zenith

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Zenithbg-424219-en-1e

For a 2-player game:
1. Place the Planet board between you and your opponent.[1]
2. Place 1 Influence disc of each color on the corresponding spaces in the middle of the board.[1]
3. Assemble the Technology board using all 3 pieces (use the S.U.N. configuration for your first game).[1]
4. Place the 6 Tech markers on their starting spaces (3 black, 3 white).[1]
5. Place 1 Bonus token, randomly and face up, on each of the 5 spaces on the Planet board and each of the 3 spaces on the Technology board.[1]
6. Shuffle all the Agent cards to make a deck.[2]
7. Each player takes 12 Credits and 1 Zenithium.[2]
8. Each player draws 4 Agent cards to make their starting hand.[2]
9. Each player takes a random player aid, which determines who will play first.[2]
10. The second player immediately gains 1 Terra Influence (moving the Terra Influence disc 1 space towards their control zone).[2]
11. (Optional) Before starting, each player may decide to discard all or part of their hand (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 cards) and then draw the same number of cards.[2]
For a 4-player team mode (2 VS 2):
1. Form 2 teams of 2 players, with teammates sitting side-by-side.[3]
2. Use the 4-player side of the Diplomacy board.[3]
3. Distribute the player aids, team side up.[3]
4. The team playing second starts with 1 Influence on Mars and 1 Influence on Venus, instead of 1 on Terra.[3]
[1] RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook · p.4
[2] RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook · p.5 · Each player · Tip for New Players · Forming your Starting Hand
[3] RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook · p.10 · 4-Player Team Mode (2 VS 2) · Setup · Specific Rules · Turn Overview · A. Recruit an Agent on an Authorized Planet

That's the page. Back to the table.

🔧 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 94 ms · ask 3673 ms · total 3770 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 3770 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 4, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Setup Planet board Place the Planet board between you and your opponent. Place 1 Influence disc of each color on the corresponding spaces in the middle of the board. Technology board Assemble the Technology board using all 3 pieces. During your first game, use the S.U.N. configuration. During future", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.045805, "snippet": "For games with 4 players, form 2 teams of 2 players. Teammates side side-by-side. Use the 4-player side of the Diplomacy board. Distribute the player aids, team side up. The team playing second starts with 1 Influence on Mars and 1 Influence on Venus, instead of 1 on Terra. Resources (Credits and Ze", "headingPath": "4-Player Team Mode (2 VS 2) · Setup · Specific Rules · Turn Overview · A. Recruit an Agent on an Authorized Planet", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Each player takes 12 Credits and 1 Zenithium. Shuffle all the Agent cards to make a deck. Each player draws 4 Agent cards to make their starting hand. Each player takes a random player aid, which determines who will play first. Their opponent will play second and immediately gains 1 Terra Influence ", "headingPath": "Each player · Tip for New Players · Forming your Starting Hand", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Resolve the following steps, in order: Discard 1 card from your hand to develop a Technology of the corresponding Factions (Human , Robot , Animod ). Pay the Zenithium cost of the next level (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) of the corresponding Technology. Move your Tech marker to the next level. Apply the effect", "headingPath": "B. DEVELOP A TECHNOLOGY · Level 2 Bonus · Row Bonus", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Whoever received the corresponding player aid plays first. Then players alternate taking turns until someone meets 1 of the three victory conditions. On your turn, you must: Play 1 card from your hand to take 1 of the three following actions: Recruit an Agent Develop a Technology Become the Leader R", "headingPath": "Turn Overview · then · Agent Cards · A. RECRUIT AN AGENT · Bonus Tokens", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Place Influence discs gained this way on the edge of the Diplomacy board (within the notches). This lets all players keep an eye on the game progress. The Influence System Each Influence track has 9 spaces: • 1 middle space • 6 spaces (3 on each side of the middle space) • 2 control zones (1 for eac", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Discard 1 card from your hand to take the associated Faction actions (Animod , Human , Robot ). Robot : Take the Leader badge and gain 1 Zenithium. Human : Take the Leader badge and gain 3 Credits. Animod : Take the Leader badge and mobilize 2 cards. Example: Esteban wants to take the Leader badge, ", "headingPath": "C. BECOME THE LEADER · Leader Badge · 1. Refill your hand · 2. Refresh the Planet board · End of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "A game by Grégory Grard & Mathieu Roussel Illustrated by Naïade for 2 players (or 4 in teams), ages 10 and up, for games of around 30 minutes. In the far-off future, the solar system is inhabited by 3 Factions: Humans, Robots, and Animods. Civilization runs off of Zenithium, a clean and renewable en", "headingPath": "Rules · Overview · Goal of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Each player · Tip for New Players · Forming your Starting Hand", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "4-Player Team Mode (2 VS 2) · Setup · Specific Rules · Turn Overview · A. Recruit an Agent on an Authorized Planet", "sharpsignalDocId": 575}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 575 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 575 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 0.86161 of 1120 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until
Nov 17, 2026 15:38 UTC

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 Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) p.4 0.048916 (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 Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) 4-Player Team Mode (2 VS 2) · Setup · Specific Rules · Turn Overview · A. Recruit an Agent on an Authorized Planet p.10 0.045805 (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 Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Each player · Tip for New Players · Forming your Starting Hand p.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)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) B. DEVELOP A TECHNOLOGY · Level 2 Bonus · Row Bonus p.8 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
#5 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Turn Overview · then · Agent Cards · A. RECRUIT AN AGENT · Bonus Tokens p.7 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
#6 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) p.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)) 300
#7 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) C. BECOME THE LEADER · Leader Badge · 1. Refill your hand · 2. Refresh the Planet board · End of the Game p.9 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
#8 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Rules · Overview · Goal of the Game p.1 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 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 15 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 atdocumentheadingpage fused rankfused RRF scorecarried byhow it got its slot
#1 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) p.4 #1 0.048916 (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 Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) 4-Player Team Mode (2 VS 2) · Setup · Specific Rules · Turn Overview · A. Recruit an Agent on an Authorized Planet p.10 #2 0.045805 (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 Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Note: p.3 #13 0.013699 (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 Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) C. BECOME THE LEADER · Leader Badge · 1. Refill your hand · 2. Refresh the Planet board · End of the Game p.9 #7 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
#5 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Turn Overview · then · Agent Cards · A. RECRUIT AN AGENT · Bonus Tokens p.7 #5 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
#6 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Rules · Overview · Goal of the Game p.1 #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
#7 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) p.6 #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
#8 RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Each player · Tip for New Players · Forming your Starting Hand p.5 #3 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

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 Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) p.4 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) Each player · Tip for New Players · Forming your Starting Hand p.5 no quote on the wire
[3] RULEBOOK Zenith — Rulebook (corpus doc 575) 4-Player Team Mode (2 VS 2) · Setup · Specific Rules · Turn Overview · A. Recruit an Agent on an Authorized Planet p.10 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 94 ms · first delta 1832 ms · total 3770 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 94 ms · ask 3673 ms · gateway work 3770 ms · total 3770 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
2648
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
392
tok/sec
206.1 tok/sec — 392 output tokens in 1.902 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 16s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child)
schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage)
reachable (for 60h, checked 4s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask)
node1
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
NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched
SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question)
setup

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 507), 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.