Ruling — Port Royal

← Port Royal

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Port Royalbg-156009-en-1e

### Setup

1. If playing with fewer than 5 players, remove the special Expedition card that lacks a gold coin on its backside.[1]

2. If playing with 5 players, place this specific Expedition card in the middle of the table.[1]

3. Shuffle all remaining cards and place them face down to form the draw pile.[1]

4. Leave space next to the draw pile for an open discard pile.[1]

5. Deal 3 coins to each player by drawing cards from the draw pile and placing them face down in their personal display, ensuring only the golden coin side is visible.[1]

### Gameplay

The player who last visited a harbor starts, and play proceeds clockwise.[2] The active player performs two phases, the second of which may be skipped.[2]

**Phase 1: Discover**

1. The active player draws a card from the draw pile to the middle of the table to form the harbor display.[3]

2. The active player decides whether to stop or draw another card.[3]

3. The player must stop if they draw a Ship of an identical color to one already in the harbor display that they cannot repel.[4] If this happens, the player discards the harbor display (keeping Expeditions separate), the second phase is skipped, and all players with a Jester gain 1 coin.[3][4]

4. During this phase, the following card types may be drawn:

* **Person:** Goes into the harbor display; these provide abilities and victory points.[3]

* **Ship:** The active player may put it in the harbor display or, if they have enough Sailors/Pirates (swords), repel it by putting it in the discard pile.[3] A ship with a Skull symbol cannot be repelled.[3]

* **Expedition:** Placed apart from the harbor display; players can claim these any time during their turn by discarding matching Persons from their personal display to take the Expedition and coins.[3][5]

* **Tax Increase:** All players with 12 or more coins lose half of them (rounded down); then, depending on the card, either the player with the most Swords or the least victory points gains 1 coin.[5]

**Phase 2: Trade & Hire**

1. This phase occurs if the active player did not forfeit their turn.[2]

2. The active player takes cards from the harbor display based on the number of differently colored Ships present:

* 0-3 different colors: take 1 card.[4]

* 4 different colors: take 2 cards.[4]

* 5 different colors: take 3 cards.[4]

3. When taking a Ship, the player puts it in the discard pile and gains the coins depicted on its banner.[4]

4. To hire a Person, a player pays the cost depicted on the bottom of the card, moving the coins to the discard pile, and adds the Person to their personal display to use its ability.[6]

5. After the active player acts, every other player may take 1 card from the harbor display if able.[6]

6. If a non-active player takes a card, they must give the active player 1 coin as compensation.[6]

7. After all players have had a chance to act, any leftover cards in the harbor display are discarded.[6]

### End of the Game

1. The end of the game is checked as soon as one player acquires 12 victory points.[6]

2. The current round continues until the player to the right of the start player has been the active player.[6]

3. The winner is the player with the most victory points.[6]

4. In the event of a tie, the player with the most coins wins; if still tied, the players share the win.[6]

5. (Variant) The game ends when a player has 12 victory points and at least 1 Expedition.[7]

[1] RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook · p.1 · IntroductIon · 120 Cards, comprised of · 6 Expeditions · setup · Important note regarding the cards: · 4 Tax Increases

[2] RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook · p.2 · Goal of the Game · flow of play · 1. Discover:

[3] RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook · p.2 · 1. dIscover

[4] RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook · p.3 · 1. dIscover · 2. trade & hIre · Trade:

[5] RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook · p.2 · 1. dIscover

[6] RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook · p.3 · Hire: · end of Game

[7] RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook · p.3 · end of Game varIant

Answer in hand — your move.

🔧 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 203 ms · ask 5757 ms · total 5962 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5962 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 3, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "A player can always stop voluntarily and proceed to the 2 nd phase unless he draws a Ship that is of identical color to one that is already in the harbor dispay and that he cannot repel . If that happens the player has to discard all of the harbor display (remember to keep Expeditions separate!) and", "headingPath": "1. dIscover · 2. trade & hIre · Trade:", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048172, "snippet": "You will try to gain gold coins with which you will hire various persons who will give you permanent abilities to aid you. They, as well as Expeditions, will also yield you victory points which will bring you victory in a game of Port Royal . The player who last visited a harbor will be the start pl", "headingPath": "Goal of the Game · flow of play · 1. Discover:", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047123, "snippet": "To hire 1 Person , a player has to pay an amount of coins (put onto the discard pile) equal to the cost depicted on the bottom part of the Person he wishes to hire. He puts the Person into his personal display and may from now on use the ability on the top part of the card (the banner). All abilitie", "headingPath": "Hire: · end of Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045928, "snippet": "As an alternative you can play with the following End of Game: The end of the game is checked as soon as 1 player was able to acquire 12 victory points as well as at least 1 Expedition into his personal display. All other rules stay the same. Winner of the game will be the player who was able to acq", "headingPath": "end of Game varIant", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.045002, "snippet": "He puts the matching Persons into the discard pile and takes the Expe dition into his personal display, as well as a number of golden coins as depicted on the card. A player may claim Expeditions any time during his turn, and as many as he is able to. Dagmar wants to claim an Expedition with 2 . The", "headingPath": "1. dIscover", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "The active player must first draw a card from the draw pile to put into the middle of the table - this will form the harbor display . Now he has to decide if he wants to draw another card or stop. He can continue to make this decision until he stops voluntarily or 2 identically colored ships are in ", "headingPath": "1. dIscover", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030886, "snippet": "In the harbor of Port Royal life is bustling and you hope to make the deal of your life. But don't risk too much or your cargo holds will be empty. Don't forget to reinvest your profit to gain the favor of Governors and Admirals and to hire various other persons that can further your goals. Try to e", "headingPath": "IntroductIon · 120 Cards, comprised of · 6 Expeditions · setup · Important note regarding the cards: · 4 Tax Increases", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "The abilities of Persons are depicted on the top part of their card on the banner. The victory points you gain are depicted on the little shield to the right of the ability banner. When you act - either as the active player, or during your chance on another players turn - you can use all abilities o", "headingPath": "abIlItIes of persons · Settlers, Captains, Priests (5 times each) Jack of all Trades ( 3 times) · Trader ( 2 of each color) · Admiral (6 times) · Sailor (10 times) / Pirate ( 3 times) · Jester (5 times) · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "IntroductIon · 120 Cards, comprised of · 6 Expeditions · setup · Important note regarding the cards: · 4 Tax Increases", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Goal of the Game · flow of play · 1. Discover:", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. dIscover", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. dIscover · 2. trade & hIre · Trade:", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. dIscover", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Hire: · end of Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "end of Game varIant", "sharpsignalDocId": 591}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 591 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 591 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 0.89982 of 2795 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 24, 2026 03:11 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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover · 2. trade & hIre · Trade:	p.3	0.048387 (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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	Goal of the Game · flow of play · 1. Discover:	p.2	0.048172 (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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	Hire: · end of Game	p.3	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
#4	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	end of Game varIant	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
#5	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover	p.2	0.045002 (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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover	p.2	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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	IntroductIon · 120 Cards, comprised of · 6 Expeditions · setup · Important note regarding the cards: · 4 Tax Increases	p.1	0.030886 (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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	abIlItIes of persons · Settlers, Captains, Priests (5 times each) Jack of all Trades ( 3 times) · Trader ( 2 of each color) · Admiral (6 times) · Sailor (10 times) / Pirate ( 3 times) · Jester (5 times) · …	p.4	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

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 9 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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	Goal of the Game · flow of play · 1. Discover:	p.2	#2	0.048172 (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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	Hire: · end of Game	p.3	#3	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
#3	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover	p.2	#6	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover	p.2	#5	0.045002 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	IntroductIon · 120 Cards, comprised of · 6 Expeditions · setup · Important note regarding the cards: · 4 Tax Increases	p.1	#7	0.030886 (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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	abIlItIes of persons · Settlers, Captains, Priests (5 times each) Jack of all Trades ( 3 times) · Trader ( 2 of each color) · Admiral (6 times) · Sailor (10 times) / Pirate ( 3 times) · Jester (5 times) · …	p.4	#8	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
#7	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover · 2. trade & hIre · Trade:	p.3	#1	0.048387 (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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	end of Game varIant	p.3	#4	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))	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 Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	IntroductIon · 120 Cards, comprised of · 6 Expeditions · setup · Important note regarding the cards: · 4 Tax Increases	p.1	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	Goal of the Game · flow of play · 1. Discover:	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover	p.2	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover · 2. trade & hIre · Trade:	p.3	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	1. dIscover	p.2	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	Hire: · end of Game	p.3	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Port Royal — Rulebook (corpus doc 591)	end of Game varIant	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 203 ms · first delta 1651 ms · total 5962 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 203 ms · ask 5757 ms · gateway work 5962 ms · total 5962 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3622
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 849
tok/sec: 200.0 tok/sec — 849 output tokens in 4.245 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 57s 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 2s 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 523), 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.