RuleSage cited table rulings
← Citadels

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered
To set up your first game, follow these steps:
1. Choose a cast of eight characters, one for each rank from 1 to 8.[1]
2. Place the character reminder cards matching those eight characters in the center of the table in order of rank.[2]
3. Choose 14 unique districts to add to the 54 basic districts.[1]
4. Shuffle the chosen unique districts with the 54 basic districts.[2][1]
5. Deal four cards facedown to each player to serve as their starting hands.[2][1]
6. Place the remaining district cards in a facedown pile in the center of the table to create the district deck.[2][1]
7. Place all gold coins in the center of the table to create the bank.[2][1]
8. Each player takes two gold from the bank.[2][1]
9. The oldest player takes the crown and the eight character cards.[2][1]
[1] RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook · p.8 · custoMIzatIon rules · usInG 9 characters · coMplete setup
[2] RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook · p.3 · setup · playInG the GaMe
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile
live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings
search 243 ms · ask 6664 ms · total 6919 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 6919 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 3, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "The setup steps presented here are for your first game only. For the complete steps of setup for future games, see 'Complete Setup' on page 8. To set up your first game, follow these steps: Take the character reminder cards matching the eight characters from the list on the left and place them in th", "headingPath": "setup · playInG the GaMe", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.032002, "snippet": "After you have played the basic game, you can add more variety by playing with different characters and unique districts. A few scenarioes are provided on page 9; alternatively, players can choose which characters and unique districts to use in the game by following the customization rules below. Be", "headingPath": "custoMIzatIon rules · usInG 9 characters · coMplete setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032002, "snippet": "For your first game, set aside the cards listed below and all 54 district cards with these icons in the bottom-left corner: All other cards will not be used for your first game. If you are already familiar with Citadels , feel free to use the scenarios on page 9 or the customization rules on page 8 ", "headingPath": "your fIrst GaMe", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "In 2- or 3-player games, each player plays with two characters . The game is played normally, except that each player takes two turns each round (one turn for each character). Each player has only one stash of gold and one city, and each character's abilities apply only during its own turn. For exam", "headingPath": "playInG wIth 2-3 players · setup · seleCtion phase · Game enD · GeM shapes on cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.015385, "snippet": "This section explains each character's abilities in full detail. Remember, character abilities are optional (unless the word 'must' or 'cannot' is used here in the rules), and each ability can be used only once per turn at the time specified; if no time is specified, the ability can be used at any t", "headingPath": "character abIlItIes In detaIl", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.015152, "snippet": "Unlike the selection phase, players do not take turns in clockwise order during the turn phase. Instead, they take turns in ascending order of their chosen character's rank, which appears in the top-left corner of each character card. The crowned player calls each character number in ascending order", "headingPath": "turn phase · DistriCts", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.014925, "snippet": "characters or the Architect's increased building limit), and restrictions (such as the Navigator's inability to build districts). Y ou play with the cards in your hand, pay with the gold in your stash, gain resources from districts in your city, and build new districts in your city. You cannot use e", "headingPath": "character abIlItIes In detaIl", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.014706, "snippet": "Take a card at random from each other player's hand and add those cards to your hand. Then give one card from your hand to each player you took a card from. If a player has no cards in hand, you neither take a card from them nor give them a card. Taken cards can be kept and given back in several dif", "headingPath": "character abIlItIes In detaIl", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "custoMIzatIon rules · usInG 9 characters · coMplete setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "setup · playInG the GaMe", "sharpsignalDocId": 137}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base-rulebook boost: not recorded (this ruling predates it)
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)
debug row retained until
Oct 31, 2026 14:10

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. How much wider that pool was is set gateway-side and is NOT REPORTED for this ruling, and neither are the answerer's final rows — so rulesage has nothing of its own to show beside these.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. How many arms fused this ruling was NOT RECORDED (it predates the boost trail, ran on the path that stored none, or stored one that could not be read), and the ceiling depends on that count (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60): 2 arms top out at 0.03279; 3 arms top out at 0.04918. So a score above 0.03279 here is not an anomaly: it is arithmetic proof a boost arm voted, and the measured band 0.016–0.033 (taken on two-arm asks) is what does not apply. 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 rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) setup · playInG the GaMe p.3 0.032787 (at the 2-arm ceiling (0.03279) — the top of a 2-arm fuse; whether more arms ran here was never recorded) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) custoMIzatIon rules · usInG 9 characters · coMplete setup p.8 0.032002 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#3 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) your fIrst GaMe p.2 0.032002 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) playInG wIth 2-3 players · setup · seleCtion phase · Game enD · GeM shapes on cards p.7 0.03125 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 (measured on two-arm asks; this ruling's arm count was never recorded)) 300
#5 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) character abIlItIes In detaIl p.10 0.015385 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) 300
#6 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) turn phase · DistriCts p.4 0.015152 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) 300
#7 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) character abIlItIes In detaIl p.10 0.014925 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) 300
#8 RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) character abIlItIes In detaIl p.12 0.014706 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse on a two-arm ask, and this ruling's arm count was never recorded) 300

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.

the passages the answerer read: NOT RECORDED for this ruling. Any of three things leaves this empty, and they are all different from the answerer having had nothing to read: this ask may never have reached a gateway at all; a multi-book ask keeps each book's own context on that book's own page rather than here; or the gateway build that answered may simply not report it. What this NEVER means is that the answerer read nothing — an answer was composed from passages either way, and their absence here is a gap in what we were told, not in what it read.

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.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
[1] RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) custoMIzatIon rules · usInG 9 characters · coMplete setup p.8 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Citadels — Rulebook (corpus doc 137) setup · playInG the GaMe p.3 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 243 ms · first delta 5325 ms · total 6919 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 243 ms · ask 6664 ms · gateway work 6919 ms · total 6919 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
3153
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
215
tok/sec
139.7 tok/sec — 215 output tokens in 1.539 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 29s ago)
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.
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
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)
set up

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 59), 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.