Ruling — Faiyum

← Faiyum

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Faiyumbg-318983-en-1e

For a 4-player game:

1. Place the game board on the table.[1]

2. Place a settlement on the red space and a road on the dam between the two peninsulas.[1]

3. Place a crocodile on every wheat (yellow) space and grape (purple) space.[1]

4. Every player chooses a color and takes the matching colored starting cards, reputation disc, reputation marker ('50/100'), and an administration overview card.[1]

5. Place the administration overview card to one side of your personal play area.[1]

6. Place your reputation disc on the '0' space of the reputation track and your '50/100' reputation marker near the end of the reputation track.[1]

7. Take your starting cards in hand.[1]

8. Prepare the draw pile and card market: Take the 13 yellow-bordered cards and set aside cards numbered 114-120.[2]

9. Keep only the 4 natural disaster cards (numbered 122-128) that show your current number of players, and return the other 5 cards to the game box.[2]

10. Place these 4 cards on top of the cards numbered 114-120, then place them to the side.[2]

11. Shuffle the 56 blue-bordered cards (numbered 2-112) and place them face down as a draw pile.[2]

12. Draw the topmost 12 cards, then sort them face up by number from low to high.[2]

13. Place the 8 lowest cards face up in ascending order on the spaces of the card market, starting on the left with the lowest number and continuing to the right as the numbers increase.[2]

14. Mark down the 4 lowest cards in the market and place a red discount token on each of these cards.[2]

15. Choose a player to become the first player.[2]

16. The first player takes $3, the second and third players take $4, and the fourth and fifth players take $5.[2]

17. Place the wooden parts and money tokens in separate supply piles on opposite sides of the game board based on whether they are limited or unlimited.[2]

For a solo game:

1. Follow the standard setup steps with these changes: Take the administration overview card for the solo game.[3]

2. Do not use the discount tokens; return them to the game box.[3]

3. Start the game with $4.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook · p.2 · Game Set-up · Example for 4 players

[2] RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook · p.3 · Fourth player · Third player

[3] RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook · p.8 · The solo game · Game preparation · How to play · The challenge of the pharaoh · Starting goal

So says the rulebook. So plays 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 204 ms · ask 6649 ms · total 6856 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6856 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Place the game board on the table. Place a settlement on the red space and a road on the dam between the two peninsulas. A Place a crocodile on every wheat (yellow) space and grape (purple) space. B J Everybody chooses a color and takes the matching colored starting cards , reputation disc , and '50", "headingPath": "Game Set-up · Example for 4 players", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.047163, "snippet": "For games with 2 to 5 players, we already explained the game preparation on the previous pages and will explain all rules on the following pages. When playing the solo game, you need to make only a few changes during game set-up and while playing the game. You will find these changes on the final pa", "headingPath": "Playing with 2 to 5 players vs. solo games", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.045285, "snippet": "F Prepare the draw pile and card market as follows: Take the 13 yellow-bordered cards and set aside the cards numbered 114-120. You now have multiple versions of the natural disaster cards numbered 122-128 in hand. Keep only the 4 cards showing your current number of players, and return the other 5 ", "headingPath": "Fourth player · Third player", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "When you are playing solo, the pharaoh commands you to take charge of the whole urbanization yourself. You can play single games in which you attempt to beat your personal high score. You can also accept the pharaoh's challenge and play a campaign in which you try to fulfill different goals and unlo", "headingPath": "The solo game · Game preparation · How to play · The challenge of the pharaoh · Starting goal", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "The general rules of Faiyum are easy, but the game as a whole is complex thanks to the wide spectrum of different actions on the cards. These actions are all explained in detail in the separate glossary, so good news! After learning the general rules and discovering the actions of your starting card", "headingPath": "How to play", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "In Faiyum , unlike in deck-building games, you do not have the familiar personal draw pile. Instead, at the start of the game, you have all your cards in hand and can play them one after another. After you play a card, place it face up on top of your discard stack. Play a card from your hand by plac", "headingPath": "a) Play a card from your hand", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "First, gain $3 minus the number of cards in your hand, taking the money from the supply. If the result is 0 or negative, do not take or pay any money. 'NO, Ronald, you never lose money. The lowest possible income is $0.' Then, remove 0 to 2 upright workers from any spaces on the game board and retur", "headingPath": "I. Gain income:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Place 3 bridges. Place 2 palaces. Gain at least 250 reputation. Finish all 4 monuments on the building sites by placing all 15 building blocks. Place 9 workshops. Leave 10 or fewer crocodiles on wheat and grape spaces. As a bonus, each time you fulfill a goal - including the starting goal - you unlo", "headingPath": "Further goals · Achievements", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Game Set-up · Example for 4 players", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Fourth player · Third player", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The solo game · Game preparation · How to play · The challenge of the pharaoh · Starting goal", "sharpsignalDocId": 1029}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1029 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1029 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 0.87074 of 1702 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 27, 2026 06:19 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 Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Game Set-up · Example for 4 players	p.2	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 Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Playing with 2 to 5 players vs. solo games	p.4	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 Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Fourth player · Third player	p.3	0.045285 (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 Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	The solo game · Game preparation · How to play · The challenge of the pharaoh · Starting goal	p.8	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
#5	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	How to play	p.5	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
#6	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	a) Play a card from your hand	p.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))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	I. Gain income:	p.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))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Further goals · Achievements	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

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 18 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 Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Game Set-up · Example for 4 players	p.2	#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 Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Fourth player · Third player	p.3	#3	0.045285 (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 Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	The solo game · Game preparation · How to play · The challenge of the pharaoh · Starting goal	p.8	#4	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
#4	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Playing with 2 to 5 players vs. solo games	p.4	#2	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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Further goals · Achievements	p.8	#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
#6	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	III. Replace cards in the card market:	p.7	#10	0.014286 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	How to play	p.5	#5	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
#8	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	a) Play a card from your hand	p.5	#6	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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Game Set-up · Example for 4 players	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	Fourth player · Third player	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Faiyum — Rulebook (corpus doc 1029)	The solo game · Game preparation · How to play · The challenge of the pharaoh · Starting goal	p.8	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 204 ms · first delta 2420 ms · total 6856 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 204 ms · ask 6649 ms · gateway work 6856 ms · total 6856 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3453
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 561
tok/sec: 128.8 tok/sec — 561 output tokens in 4.357 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 0s 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 6s 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: 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

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 959), 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.