Ruling — New Frontiers

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: New Frontiersbg-255692-en-1e

### Setup

1. Put the two development mats in the center of the table and place the developments on them: for the first game, place the 8 large development tiles on their mat in their indicated spaces with their white square sides face up, and place 1, 2, or 3 each of the small development tiles (depending on player count) on their mat in their indicated spaces with their white and white square sides face up.[1]

2. For later games, flip a coin for each large development and each stack of small developments in the right two columns; if "tails," flip the tile or stack to its reverse side.[1]

3. Place the 7 action tiles in a row between the two development mats, leaving space for them to be slid down halfway.[1]

4. For the first game, use the "Retreat into Isolation" action tile side.[1]

5. For later games with optional goals, flip the "Retreat into Isolation" tile to its "Chart Galactic Goals" side, shuffle the 8 Goal tiles face down, and stack them below it.[1]

6. Give each player a stockpile mat.[1]

7. Use 12 VPs per player in 1-VP and 5-VP chips for a common supply, and set 10-VP chips aside for the final round.[1]

8. Place 12 colonist pieces per player on the colonists mat to form the supply.[1]

9. Place goods cubes and credit chips nearby to form a supply.[1]

10. Place the world tiles in the bag and mix them thoroughly.[1]

11. After players select colors, randomly determine initial player order by placing one disk for each player on the priority track, keeping the first space clear (in a 2-player game, place the second disks for both players on the track after their first disks in the same order).[2][1]

12. Give each player 3 credits; the last player receives 4 credits, and in 4 or 5 player games, the second-to-last player also receives 4 credits.[2][1]

13. Randomly shuffle the 8 empire mats and deal one to each player.[2]

14. For the first game, players use the sides with numbers in white squares; in later games, players choose a home colony from the two sides of their empire mat.[2]

15. In games with 3 or more players, players mark their colors by placing their second disk on the numbered circle of their empire mat (in 2-player games, second disks mark the players' second actions).[2]

16. Give each player 1 colonist to place on the preprinted home colony of their empire mat.[2]

17. If a home colony has a colored "halo," place a matching good on it.[2]

### Gameplay

A game typically consists of 12 to 15 rounds.[3]

**A Turn/Round:**

1. The first player selects an action tile in the center, shifting it part way down in its slot and sliding their turn order disk halfway to the priority track's first space.[3]

2. Each player, in order as shown on the priority track, performs that action, with the first player receiving its bonus.[3]

3. After the action is done by all players, the first player shifts their disk the remaining way to occupy the first space of the priority track.[3]

4. The next player in order selects an action tile not yet selected this round and shifts their turn order disk forward halfway to the next vacant space.[3]

5. Each player, starting with the selecting player and "wrapping around" the track, performs the action, with the selecting player receiving its bonus.[3]

6. After all players are done, the selecting player shifts their disk forward fully into the next vacant space.[3]

7. This process continues until every player has selected an action (in a 2-player game, continue until each player has selected two actions).[3]

8. If the Produce action was not selected during the round, add 1 credit to its tile.[3][4]

9. Shift all selected action tiles upward, slide all turn order disks back 1 space on the priority track, and begin a new round.[3][4]

**Actions:**

* **Develop:** Each player may buy one development tile, adding it to their empire mat; the first player receives a -1 cost bonus.[3]

* **Explore:** Draw seven world tiles from the bag and arrange them gray-side-up in the center; in player order starting with the selecting player, each player picks one world to add to their empire; the selecting player then picks a second world; return unpicked tiles

[1] RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook · p.2 · SETUP

[2] RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook · p.2 · SETUP

[3] RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook · p.3 · PLAY · RETREAT INTO ISOLATION

[4] RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook · p.3

One rule clearer, zero feelings hurt.

🔧 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 83 ms · ask 10390 ms · total 10475 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 10475 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.047379, "snippet": "Put the two development mats in the center of the table and place the developments on them: First game : place the 8 large development tiles on their mat in their indicated spaces with their white square ( ) sides face up. Then, place 1, 2, or 3 each of the small development tiles, depending on whet", "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.047163, "snippet": "Action : none. Bonus : gain 1 VP chip and shift your priority disk to the first position of the priority track. This tile has no action; just two bonuses for the selecting player, who gains one victory point chip and shifts their priority disk from its current position to the first position of the p", "headingPath": "SEND DIPLOMATIC ENVOYS · ROUND END · GAME END · WINNING", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.046871, "snippet": "After players have selected their colors, randomly determine the initial player order, placing one of each player's disks on the priority track to mark this, keeping the first space of the track clear. 2-player game : place the second disks for both players on this track, after their first disks in ", "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.046032, "snippet": "A game typically consists of 12 to 15 rounds. In each round, the first player selects an action tile in the center, shifting it part way down in its 'slot' and sliding their turn order disk halfway to the priority track's first space. Then, each player - in order as shown on the priority track - doe", "headingPath": "PLAY · RETREAT INTO ISOLATION", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045928, "snippet": "EXPLORE draw 7 from pick BONUS pick second (after other players) return unpicked to return unpicked EXPLORE draw 7 from pick BONUS pick second (after other players) return unpicked to return unpicked BONUS may sell 1 for : then, use powers to consume goods TRADE, CONSUME Genes 3 Alien 4 Novelty 1 Ra", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "The first player buys their development at −1 cost, the Develop bonus. After this action has been done by all players, the first player shifts their disk the remaining way to occupy the first space of the priority track. The next player in order selects an action tile which has not been selected thi", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.030159, "snippet": "Action : none. Bonus : Gain +1 priority and 1 credit. Draw 3 goals, keep 1 face down, and return the other 2 face down to the bottom of the goal stack. This tile has no action; just three bonuses that the selecting player gains: 1 position on the priority track, inserting their disk in front of the ", "headingPath": "Chart Galactic Goals", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "t rea Action : pick 1 world from the 7 worlds drawn from the bag. Bonus : pick a second world (after everyone has picked a world). Draw seven world tiles from the bag and arrange them gray-side-up in the center area. In player order, starting with the selecting player, each player picks one world an", "headingPath": "POWERS · EXPLORE", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLAY · RETREAT INTO ISOLATION", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 742}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 742 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 742 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 0.90558 of 3421 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 22, 2026 16:53 UTC

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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SETUP	p.2	0.047379 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SEND DIPLOMATIC ENVOYS · ROUND END · GAME END · WINNING	p.9	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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SETUP	p.2	0.046871 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	PLAY · RETREAT INTO ISOLATION	p.3	0.046032 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)		p.3	0.045928 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)		p.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))	300
#7	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	Chart Galactic Goals	p.11	0.030159 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	POWERS · EXPLORE	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 23 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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	PLAY · RETREAT INTO ISOLATION	p.3	#4	0.046032 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SETUP	p.2	#3	0.046871 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	POWERS · EXPLORE	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
#4	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	PRODUCE	p.7	#11	0.02885 (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
#5	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	Chart Galactic Goals	p.11	#7	0.030159 (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
#6	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)		p.3	#6	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
#7	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SETTLE	p.6	#17	0.013514 (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 New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SETUP	p.2	#1	0.047379 (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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SETUP	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	SETUP	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)	PLAY · RETREAT INTO ISOLATION	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK New Frontiers — Rulebook (corpus doc 742)		p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 83 ms · first delta 2463 ms · total 10475 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 83 ms · ask 10390 ms · gateway work 10475 ms · total 10475 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3921
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 129.3 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 7.918 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 19s 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 7s 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.

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 676), 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.