Ruling — Between Two Cities

← Between Two Cities

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Between Two Citiesbg-168435-en-1e

The game is played in three rounds.[1]

**Round One**

1. Draw seven building tiles from the box to form your hand.[2]

2. Secretly choose two tiles from your hand to play.[2]

3. Put the remaining tiles face-down on the table above the city to your left and place the city's token on those tiles to signal you have finished choosing.[2]

4. Once every city token has a stack of tiles under it, all players simultaneously reveal their chosen tiles by placing them face-up in front of them.[2]

5. Discuss strategy with partners to determine the best location for your chosen tiles.[2]

6. Place one chosen tile into the city to your left and the other into the city to your right.[2]

7. Ensure all tiles are oriented in the same direction so the scoring key can be read and placed adjacent to at least one other tile in that city.[2]

8. If there is more than one tile under the city token to your right, pick up those tiles and repeat the choose, reveal, and place steps.[2]

9. When only one tile remains under the city token, discard it face-down to the center of the scoreboard and begin round two.[2]

**Round Two**

1. Draw three duplex tiles to form your hand.[3]

2. Secretly choose two tiles for placement in your cities.[3]

3. Place the third tile above the city to your left under the city token to signal your decision.[3]

4. Reveal and place two tiles, one into each of your cities.[3]

5. Discuss strategy with partners to determine the best city and location.[3]

6. Place duplex tiles so they are adjacent to another building tile, their orientation matches other tiles, and the final city can be a 4x4 square.[3]

7. At the end of the round, take the remaining duplex tiles from under each city token, discard them face-down to the center of the scoreboard, and begin round three.[3]

**Round Three**

1. Follow the same steps as round one, except you put your remaining tiles face-down under the city token to your right and pick up your tiles from your left.[3]

**Ending the Game and Scoring**

1. After round three, clear the discarded tiles from the scoreboard and unfold the scoreboard.[4]

2. One player calls out each building type in the order listed on the reference cards.[4]

3. Going around the table, each player announces the score for that building type for the city to their left and advances that city's token on the scoring track.[4]

4. Score one building type in all cities before moving to the next.[4]

5. Determine your final score by taking the value of your lower-scoring city.[5][4]

6. The player with the highest score wins.[5][4]

7. Break ties by comparing the scores of your higher-scoring cities.[4]

8. If still tied, break the tie by comparing the quantity of buildings by type (starting with shops, then factories, taverns, offices, parks, and finally houses).[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook · p.2 · SETUP · GAMEPLAY: OVERVIEW

[2] RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook · p.3 · GAMEPLAY: DETAILS · Round One

[3] RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook · p.3 · Round Two · Round Three

[4] RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook · p.4 · Round Three · ENDING THE GAME · Shops (16 buildings + 8 duplex) a set is worth 2|5|10|16

[5] RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook · p.8 · FINAL SCORE

Settled. Play on.

🔧 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 85 ms · ask 5134 ms · total 5221 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5221 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Shuffle the seating randomizer cards and draw one from the top of the deck. Sit clockwise around the table based on the category on the card. For example, if the card says, 'Alphabetical by city of birth,' a player who was born in Birmingham would sit to the left of a player who was born in Augusta,", "headingPath": "SETUP · GAMEPLAY: OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "All players conduct the steps below simultaneously. Draw seven building tiles from the box to form your hand. Then take the following steps in order: CHOOSE: Secretly choose two of the tiles from your hand to play. Put the remaining tiles face-down on the table above the city to your left and place ", "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY: DETAILS · Round One", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.047619, "snippet": "In a 2-player game, you each design two cities on your own (four cities total): one to your left and one to your right. On each turn you choose two tiles and place one in each of your cities. Each of the rounds from the 3 - 7 player game is played twice as indicated below: Round 1a -draw 7 building ", "headingPath": "TWO-PLAYER VARIANT", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Draw three duplex tiles to form your hand. Secretly choose two tiles for placement in your cities, then place the third above the city to your left under the city token to signal that you have made your decision. Now reveal and place two tiles, one tile into each of your cities. Just like in round o", "headingPath": "Round Two · Round Three", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "4 After round three is over, clear the scoreboard of discarded tiles and unfold the scoreboard. One player calls out each building type in the order listed on the reference cards (top to bottom). Going around the table, each player announces the score for that building type for the city to their lef", "headingPath": "Round Three · ENDING THE GAME · Shops (16 buildings + 8 duplex) a set is worth 2|5|10|16", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Between Two Cities is a tile-drafting game in which each tile is part of a city. You work with the player on your left to build one city center while simultaneously working with the player on your right to build a second city center. On each turn you select two tiles from your hand, reveal them, the", "headingPath": "OVERVIEW · GOAL", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Your final score is the value of your lower scoring city. The winner is the player with the highest score. Break ties with the value of your higher scoring city first, then by the number of tiles, then , , , , . Replacement parts are available for free upon request at stonemaiergames.com/replacement", "headingPath": "FINAL SCORE", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Jordan, Jessica Kimes, Chad Kimes, Daiaunne king-bey, Barry Klaasen Bos, Lauren Kologe Barefoot, Matias Korman, Lon Lademann, Tim Lang, Elizabeth LaRocca, Guillaume Leclerc, Michael Lee, Richard Lee, Kevin Lessard, William Lessard, Steve Lesser, Doug Levandowski, David Lipman, John Liszka, Lynn Lisz", "headingPath": "PLAYTESTERS,", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · GAMEPLAY: OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAMEPLAY: DETAILS · Round One", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Round Two · Round Three", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Round Three · ENDING THE GAME · Shops (16 buildings + 8 duplex) a set is worth 2|5|10|16", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "FINAL SCORE", "sharpsignalDocId": 850}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 850 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 850 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 0.90925 of 2303 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 25, 2026 18:50 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 Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	SETUP · GAMEPLAY: OVERVIEW	p.2	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	GAMEPLAY: DETAILS · Round One	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
#3	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	TWO-PLAYER VARIANT	p.7	0.047619 (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 Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	Round Two · Round Three	p.3	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
#5	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	Round Three · ENDING THE GAME · Shops (16 buildings + 8 duplex) a set is worth 2\|5\|10\|16	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
#6	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	OVERVIEW · GOAL	p.1	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
#7	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	FINAL SCORE	p.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))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	PLAYTESTERS,	p.7	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))	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 16 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 Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	GAMEPLAY: DETAILS · Round One	p.3	#2	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
#2	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	SETUP · GAMEPLAY: OVERVIEW	p.2	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	Round Two · Round Three	p.3	#4	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
#4	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	FINAL SCORE	p.8	#7	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
#5	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	PLAYTESTERS,	p.7	#8	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
#6	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	Round Three · ENDING THE GAME · Shops (16 buildings + 8 duplex) a set is worth 2\|5\|10\|16	p.4	#5	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 Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	OVERVIEW · GOAL	p.1	#6	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
#8	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	TWO-PLAYER VARIANT	p.7	#3	0.047619 (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 Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	SETUP · GAMEPLAY: OVERVIEW	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	GAMEPLAY: DETAILS · Round One	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	Round Two · Round Three	p.3	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	Round Three · ENDING THE GAME · Shops (16 buildings + 8 duplex) a set is worth 2\|5\|10\|16	p.4	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Between Two Cities — Rulebook (corpus doc 850)	FINAL SCORE	p.8	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 85 ms · first delta 1793 ms · total 5221 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 85 ms · ask 5134 ms · gateway work 5221 ms · total 5221 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3142
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 681
tok/sec: 202.7 tok/sec — 681 output tokens in 3.360 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 3s 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 785), 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.