Ruling — Black Fleet

← Black Fleet

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Black Fleetbg-157403-en-1e

**Setup**

1. Shuffle the movement cards and deal 2 to each player.[1]

2. Shuffle the remaining movement cards into a deck next to the board.[1]

3. The first player is the one with the black ships.[1]

4. Separate development cards into 4 decks with the same number on their backs, shuffle each, and deal each player a card of values 5, 8, 11, and 14.[2]

5. Players place development cards face-down in front of them in increasing value from left to right.[2]

6. Players place their victory card (value of 10 for the first game) to the right of their development cards.[2]

7. Deal and reveal 1st player selection cards to each player.[2]

8. Each player takes ships matching their card color (a merchant holding 3 goods and a pirate holding one) and places them in front of them.[2]

9. Shuffle fortune cards to form a deck next to the board.[2]

10. Each player draws one fortune card.[2]

11. The first player places their merchant ship on a space adjacent to a chosen port and loads 3 goods matching that port.[1]

12. Other players do the same clockwise.[1]

13. Once all merchants are in play, the game begins.[1]

**A Turn**

On your turn, you must resolve the following steps in this exact order:

1. Play a movement card.[3]

2. Move your ships, perform actions, and sometimes play fortune cards.[3]

* You can move your ships and one navy ship (shown on the played card).[4]

* Each ship can move a number of spaces of your choice, less than or equal to the value on the movement card.[4]

* Ships can only move on sea spaces and can move through friendly ships, but not through opponents' ships.[4]

* A ship can never end its movement on the same space as another ship.[4]

* You may move ships in any order, but each movement must be completed before starting the next.[4]

* A ship can only perform a single action on its turn.[4]

* An empty pirate can attack an adjacent opposing merchant before, during, or after its movement; attacking is an action.[5]

* A pirate carrying treasure can bury it on a beach space before, during, or after its movement; burying is an action.[5]

* You can play as many fortune cards as you want on your turn, but never during another player's turn.[6]

3. Draw enough movement cards to have 2 in hand (usually drawing one) and sometimes draw one or more fortune cards as indicated by the movement card.[7][3]

4. If you choose, pay for and flip a development/victory card face-up.[3]

* You can purchase development cards in any order, but the victory card can only be bought after all other development cards.[7]

* You can only buy a single development/victory card per turn.[7]

**End of the Game**

1. The game enters the final round as soon as any player buys their victory card.[8]

2. The final turn ends with the player to the right of the player who bought the victory card, ensuring everyone plays the same number of turns.[8]

3. The winner is the player who has bought their victory card; if there is a tie, the richest player wins.[8]

[1] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.7

[2] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.6

[3] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.8

[4] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.9 · Play a movement card · Play your ships

[5] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.11 · The role of the merchant is to transport goods.

[6] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.12 · The role of the merchant is to transport goods. · Playing fortune cards

[7] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.13 · End of Turn · Drawing movement and fortune cards · Flip a development/victory card face-up. · IMPORTANT:

[8] RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook · p.14 · IMPORTANT:

That settles it — whose turn was it?

🔧 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 230 ms · ask 4988 ms · total 5220 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5220 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 9, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "The first thing to do is to choose one of your movement cards. The movement cards show four lines of information. We'll only consider the first three for now (the last one is used at the end of the turn). Each of these lines represents a type of ship and a numbered value which indicates the correspo", "headingPath": "Play a movement card · Play your ships", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.047875, "snippet": "The object of the game is to flip your victory card face-up by paying 10 doubloons. First, you'll have to pay for and flip all of your development cards face-up. You will earn doubloons by transporting goods to ports with your merchant, using your pirate to steal goods from opposing players' merchan", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.04741, "snippet": "Shuffle the movement cards and deal 2 to each player. The other movement cards are shuffled into a deck next to the board. The first player is always the one who has the black ships. Everyone will play the same number of turns (see end of the game). The first player places his merchant ship on one o", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.045928, "snippet": "Once all of your movements have been resolved, you'll end your turn by doing this: Once all of your movements have been resolved, you'll end your turn by doing this: Draw enough movement cards to give you 2 of them in hand (most of the time, you'll only have to draw one). in hand (most of the time, ", "headingPath": "End of Turn · Drawing movement and fortune cards · Flip a development/victory card face-up. · IMPORTANT:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.045695, "snippet": "As soon as any player buys his victory card, you are in the final round. Check to see who has the black fleet card (the first player) As soon as any player buys his victory card, you are in the final round. The final turn ends with the player immediately to his right, meaning that everybody plays th", "headingPath": "IMPORTANT:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.044796, "snippet": "The pirate is already on the beach, so it doesn't need to move. It buries its treasure and gains 6 doubloons. It buries its treasure and gains You can play as many fortune cards as you want on your turn. The effect of these cards is explained on each of them. If the text on the card contradicts the ", "headingPath": "The role of the merchant is to transport goods. · Playing fortune cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Separate the development cards into 4 decks of cards, each with the same number on their backs. Shuffle each deck and deal each player a card of each of the following values: 5, 8, 11, and 14. The extra cards are returned to the box. The players place the development cards in front of them, face-dow", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.030886, "snippet": "If a player starts his turn without having his merchant in play (because it's been sunk), that player places it in a space adjacent to the port of their choice and loads it with 3 goods cubes of the corresponding color. It can then be played normally. The role of the pirate is to steal goods cubes f", "headingPath": "The role of the merchant is to transport goods.", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Play a movement card · Play your ships", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The role of the merchant is to transport goods.", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The role of the merchant is to transport goods. · Playing fortune cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "End of Turn · Drawing movement and fortune cards · Flip a development/victory card face-up. · IMPORTANT:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "IMPORTANT:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1074}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1074 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1074 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 0.89852 of 2434 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 30, 2026 23:44 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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	Play a movement card · Play your ships	p.9	0.04866 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.8	0.047875 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.7	0.04741 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	End of Turn · Drawing movement and fortune cards · Flip a development/victory card face-up. · IMPORTANT:	p.13	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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	IMPORTANT:	p.14	0.045695 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	The role of the merchant is to transport goods. · Playing fortune cards	p.12	0.044796 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.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))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	The role of the merchant is to transport goods.	p.11	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

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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	Play a movement card · Play your ships	p.9	#1	0.04866 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.7	#3	0.04741 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.6	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	The role of the merchant is to transport goods.	p.11	#8	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
#5	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	End of Turn · Drawing movement and fortune cards · Flip a development/victory card face-up. · IMPORTANT:	p.13	#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
#6	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	IMPORTANT:	p.14	#5	0.045695 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	The role of the merchant is to transport goods. · Playing fortune cards	p.12	#6	0.044796 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.8	#2	0.047875 (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 Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.7	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)		p.8	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	Play a movement card · Play your ships	p.9	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	The role of the merchant is to transport goods.	p.11	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	The role of the merchant is to transport goods. · Playing fortune cards	p.12	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	End of Turn · Drawing movement and fortune cards · Flip a development/victory card face-up. · IMPORTANT:	p.13	no quote on the wire
[8]	RULEBOOK Black Fleet — Rulebook (corpus doc 1074)	IMPORTANT:	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 230 ms · first delta 1380 ms · total 5220 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 230 ms · ask 4988 ms · gateway work 5220 ms · total 5220 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2271
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 764
tok/sec: 202.9 tok/sec — 764 output tokens in 3.766 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.

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 1004), 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.