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[Jeebus]

When a card tells you to trash a number of cards, they are all trashed at once. But Monastery says "for each". Is it several trashing effects or just one?

For instance, if I gained 2 cards, can I trash an Overgrown Estate, draw a Curse, and then trash that Curse?

[crj]

And, indeed, what about trashing Rats with Monastery, having used Rats to gain a lot of cards that turn?

Asking for a friend.

[Jeebus]

Also, if the trashing effects are separate, you could even get more of them as you go: Trash a Hunting Grounds, gain 3 Estates, now you may trash 3 more cards before you're done.

[Donald X.]

When a card tells you to trash a number of cards, they are all trashed at once. But Monestary says "for each". Is it several trashing effects or just one?

For instance, if I gained 2 cards, can I trash an Overgrown Estate, draw a Curse, and then trash that Curse?

It's multiple trashing effects. You can trash the Curse.

It counts the number of cards you've gained when it starts churning through its trashing. So gaining more cards due to the trashing won't increase how many you can trash.

[Jeebus]

It's multiple trashing effects. You can trash the Curse.

It counts the number of cards you've gained when it starts churning through its trashing. So gaining more cards due to the trashing won't increase how many you can trash.

Thanks, that makes sense. I was thinking about it wrong.

[Jeebus]

This is implemented wrong online. I'll post it as a bug.

[markusin]

This is implemented wrong online. I'll post it as a bug.

Right now, the online client has you confirm all the trashes that are to be performed at once. According to the ruling Donald explained above, it should be more like Remake where every trash on Monastery is resolved one at a time.

That actually sounds like a pain from an user interface standpoint. You either confirm each trash individually, or, if you have the option set to not ask for confirmation on single trash/discards, you can't undo a step without requesting an undo.

[Jeebus]

This is implemented wrong online. I'll post it as a bug.

That actually sounds like a pain from an user interface standpoint. You either confirm each trash individually, or, if you have the option set to not ask for confirmation on single trash/discards, you can't undo a step without requesting an undo.

Maybe so, but it's the only correct way. (I actually made a mistake today, because I was expecting to click "confirm" for each card.) You usually won't gain that many cards in a turn, so it will only be a few more clicks. But I do think a button saying "Stop trashing" should be implemented at some point. It's more important to get the card working correctly than the slight improvement in UI from that button though.

[markusin]

This is implemented wrong online. I'll post it as a bug.

That actually sounds like a pain from an user interface standpoint. You either confirm each trash individually, or, if you have the option set to not ask for confirmation on single trash/discards, you can't undo a step without requesting an undo.

Maybe so, but it's the only correct way. (I actually made a mistake today, because I was expecting to click "confirm" for each card.) You usually won't gain that many cards in a turn, so it will only be a few more clicks. But I do think a button saying "Stop trashing" should be implemented at some point. It's more important to get the card working correctly than the slight improvement in UI from that button though.

I agree. I just found the ruling surprising.

[Donald X.]

That actually sounds like a pain from an user interface standpoint. You either confirm each trash individually, or, if you have the option set to not ask for confirmation on single trash/discards, you can't undo a step without requesting an undo.

Stef's tentative plan (I told him about the bug when Jeebus originally asked the question) is to let you trash up to N cards, and if you trash fewer than N and something triggered, you get to go again (for up to the remaining number obv.).

[-Stef-]

That actually sounds like a pain from an user interface standpoint. You either confirm each trash individually, or, if you have the option set to not ask for confirmation on single trash/discards, you can't undo a step without requesting an undo.

Stef's tentative plan (I told him about the bug when Jeebus originally asked the question) is to let you trash up to N cards, and if you trash fewer than N and something triggered, you get to go again (for up to the remaining number obv.).

It's still my tentative plan, but it also has me a little worried.

The reason to do it would be a much nicer interface - obviously it's nicer if you want to trash 5 coppers that you can trash them all at once.
(especially if you have the "confirm single trashes" on)

The reason not to do it could be that it breaks the rules of the game. It allows you to trash multiple cards at once where in the actual game you can not (with this card).

As far as I know, there isn't any card that makes this difference relevant. A hypothetical effect that would make it matter is something like
"When you trash this, discard your hand". Suppose you'd have two of those in hand - the actual game wouldn't allow you to trash both but if I implement this trick online you can.

Am I missing something? Is there an actual card that makes this not work?

[navical]

These are definitely edge cases, but it is possible:

You have two Catacombs in hand, no other cards in hand, and no cards in your deck and discard pile.
Blessed Village is in the Supply, and the top boon is The Wind's Gift.
If you trash the Catacombs one at a time, and gain a Blessed Village off the first, then The Wind's Gift will make you discard the second Catacombs, so you can't trash it.
If you trash both Catacombs at once, however, you can trash both at once.

Another way to get the same issue:
Cursed Village is in the Supply with your -2 Cost token on it. You have 4 Provinces in hand in addition to the two Catacombs, and Fear is the top Hex. (Or Haunting with 3 Provinces in hand - if you've trashed both Catacombs you don't have to topdeck a card, if you've only trashed one then you do).

These also work with Inherited Blessed/Cursed Villages and trashing Hunting Grounds.

[-Stef-]

These are definitely edge cases, but it is possible:

You have two Catacombs in hand, no other cards in hand, and no cards in your deck and discard pile.
Blessed Village is in the Supply, and the top boon is The Wind's Gift.
If you trash the Catacombs one at a time, and gain a Blessed Village off the first, then The Wind's Gift will make you discard the second Catacombs, so you can't trash it.
If you trash both Catacombs at once, however, you can trash both at once.

Another way to get the same issue:
Cursed Village is in the Supply with your -2 Cost token on it. You have 4 Provinces in hand in addition to the two Catacombs, and Fear is the top Hex. (Or Haunting with 3 Provinces in hand - if you've trashed both Catacombs you don't have to topdeck a card, if you've only trashed one then you do).

These also work with Inherited Blessed/Cursed Villages and trashing Hunting Grounds.

yes you're right catacombs is a problem card.

So I should just trash them one at the time, and can still let you select them all?
The strange thing would be that the interface would look identical for chapel & monastery, while one trashes all at once and the other does not.

[Chris is me]

One workaround would be to number the cards trashed as you click them with “1st” “2nd” “3rd” etc. this could also be implemented for top decking effects. Work would need to be done to make this number distinct from the number used to indicate how many of multiple copies of a card you are trashing.

[pacovf]

Personally, I think that ergonomy of the UI is more important than fidelity to the rules. If the UI means there is some rare edge case that is not satisfied, but the alternative is a vastly less convenient UI, I would rather have the first. But maybe I am not thinking hard enough about another solution.

[Jeebus]

Method #1 is to let you select several, trash them, and then select again etc.
Method #2 is like method #1 but also: when you trash, you trigger them one by one.

I don't really see the big upside for creating a special interface for these. I would just literally do what it says, trashing (and confirming) one card at a time. (Of course, I'm a stickler.) There should be a button "Don't trash". When you click it, Monastery is done trashing.

Problems with the two methods:

* Potential edge cases as Navical laid out. With method #1 these can be solved by never allowing you to select more than one card at a time that could potentially trigger something (including Catacombs, Cultists, etc and Inherited Catacombs, Cultists etc). It would make the UI pretty awkward though. And it could be that to make it smoother, you'd have to differentiate between different effects and triggers, like Market Square, Catacombs, Rocks... With method #2, you would have to ask the user which to trigger first, and then it could be that you have to cancel the trashing of an already-selected card.

* I only played woth Monastery once, and as mentioned I made a mistake because of it. Since I knew how to play with it, I excepted to confirm after each card, and so ended up trashing just 1, and didn't understand what was going on in time to undo. This is a problem the way it is now, and also with both methods.

* With both methods there's the problem that it seems like you trash all at once, like with Chapel. That confusion is not very friendly in terms of UI either.

Regarding my suggestion:

* I would think that in the vast majority of cases, you trash 1 or 2 cards with Monastery, and rarely more than 3. If you do trash more, that would probably be like once in the game. Doctor overpay already has you deal with each single card - although you don't need to confirm there. If you're adverse to confirming on trash though, I expect you would have already unchecked that setting.

* It's probably the solution that required the least amount of work (except keeping it like it is of course), so resources can be spent on other things.

Keeping it as-is has the benefit of the least amounf of work and it works smoothly if we say that online Monastery is different than IRL Monastery (which would be the only Dominion card like that except maybe Black Market, but playing BM still works the same). For people who expect IRL Monastery though, it could cause mistakes until they learn the difference.

[werothegreat]

I think it should ask you to confirm each trash.  That might be a tad annoying if you gained a lot of cards that turn, but that's not going to happen often.  And you're not likely to spam Monasteries either.  It's not like Urchin asking you on every play if you want to trash it.

[markusin]

I think it should ask you to confirm each trash.  That might be a tad annoying if you gained a lot of cards that turn, but that's not going to happen often.  And you're not likely to spam Monasteries either.  It's not like Urchin asking you on every play if you want to trash it.

I am pretty okay with this suggestion, but it should also be made clear how many trashes you have left before you trash the next card. There might be the instinct to click on a bunch of cards to see the max number of cards one can trash with Monestary right now. You want to give the remaining number of trashes to help people do math for say Tomb or Wall.

[Jeebus]

Yes, my suggestion (including "Don't trash" button), plus a running count of how many more you can trash.

[Donald X.]

That actually sounds like a pain from an user interface standpoint. You either confirm each trash individually, or, if you have the option set to not ask for confirmation on single trash/discards, you can't undo a step without requesting an undo.

Stef's tentative plan (I told him about the bug when Jeebus originally asked the question) is to let you trash up to N cards, and if you trash fewer than N and something triggered, you get to go again (for up to the remaining number obv.).

Another solution: the above, but, if anything triggers, the rest of the choices are thrown out (and you can go again).

[Cave-o-sapien]

I think it should ask you to confirm each trash.  That might be a tad annoying if you gained a lot of cards that turn, but that's not going to happen often.  And you're not likely to spam Monasteries either.  It's not like Urchin asking you on every play if you want to trash it.

Agree. We already do this with Remake, and I don't think it will be terribly common to trash more than two cards with Monastery.

On those occasions where you do a lot of trashing, you'll be so pleased with yourself that you won't care about the extra clicks.

[Accatitippi]

Another choice which might be a tad inelegant would be: if you have cards with on-trash abilities in hand, do it one by one, otherwise, do it all at once.

[chipperMDW]

It seems like this situation is similar to discarding down to X, where you should technically discard one at a time, (so Tunnel/Watchtower), but I know that the online Militia normally has you discard multiple cards at once.

So how does the game handle Militia with Tunnel/Watchtower? For the sake of consistency, however it handles that might also be generally how it should handle Monastery.

[Donald X.]

It seems like this situation is similar to discarding down to X, where you should technically discard one at a time, (so Tunnel/Watchtower), but I know that the online Militia normally has you discard multiple cards at once.

So how does the game handle Militia with Tunnel/Watchtower? For the sake of consistency, however it handles that might also be generally how it should handle Monastery.

It would be vice-versa - for the sake of consistency, Militia / Tunnel could be changed to match this. Monastery / Overgrown Estate is an interaction that makes us need Monastery to work some way that handles it; I don't think Militia / Tunnel has such an case, which is why it hasn't been an issue. It hypothetically could though.

[chipperMDW]

It seems like this situation is similar to discarding down to X, where you should technically discard one at a time, (so Tunnel/Watchtower), but I know that the online Militia normally has you discard multiple cards at once.

So how does the game handle Militia with Tunnel/Watchtower? For the sake of consistency, however it handles that might also be generally how it should handle Monastery.

It would be vice-versa - for the sake of consistency, Militia / Tunnel could be changed to match this. Monastery / Overgrown Estate is an interaction that makes us need Monastery to work some way that handles it; I don't think Militia / Tunnel has such an case, which is why it hasn't been an issue. It hypothetically could though.

I thought Militia+Tunnel+Watchtower was the case where it mattered.  You have to be able to discard Tunnel for Gold, reveal Watchtower on the Gold, then still be able to discard that Watchtower. So it needs to accommodate one-at-a-time discarding.

Note that I don't really play online, so I really have no idea how that interaction gets handled currently. Maybe it's not being handled, in which case I agree: discard-down-to should probably end up matching whatever gets done here.

[Donald X.]

It seems like this situation is similar to discarding down to X, where you should technically discard one at a time, (so Tunnel/Watchtower), but I know that the online Militia normally has you discard multiple cards at once.

So how does the game handle Militia with Tunnel/Watchtower? For the sake of consistency, however it handles that might also be generally how it should handle Monastery.

It would be vice-versa - for the sake of consistency, Militia / Tunnel could be changed to match this. Monastery / Overgrown Estate is an interaction that makes us need Monastery to work some way that handles it; I don't think Militia / Tunnel has such an case, which is why it hasn't been an issue. It hypothetically could though.

I thought Militia+Tunnel+Watchtower was the case where it mattered.  You have to be able to discard Tunnel for Gold, reveal Watchtower on the Gold, then still be able to discard that Watchtower. So it needs to accommodate one-at-a-time discarding.

Note that I don't really play online, so I really have no idea how that interaction gets handled currently. Maybe it's not being handled, in which case I agree: discard-down-to should probably end up matching whatever gets done here.

Oh I see. I don't know what the online version does there either, but yes. One at a time for both, except, maybe the interface can be friendlier for typical no-such-weirdness cases.

[markus]

Should the log also show all discarded cards of my opponent then? I thought that it was fine to discard down to 3 and only show one card (new top of discard pile) to my opponent, if I don't want to trigger reactions.

[chipperMDW]

Should the log also show all discarded cards of my opponent then? I thought that it was fine to discard down to 3 and only show one card (new top of discard pile) to my opponent, if I don't want to trigger reactions.

From a post in a different thread (the bolding is mine (Mine is in Prosperity)):

I'd rather not have a special ruling and with no special ruling and nothing in the rulebooks, "discard down to 3" sounds to me like I keep discarding until I have 3 (or fewer dammit). However you don't need to reveal the cards below the top one because somehow the rulebook says this.

I've taken that ruling to mean you actually get to discard the cards in batches of 1–X where X is the maximum you could (must) still discard. So you can dump them all at once and reveal only the top one if there's nothing tricky going on. But you could also do it in batches of 1 and show them everything if you wanted to. Or something.

(Or else you're allowed to hide your discard pile while you discard things one by one, but I think it was ruled elsewhere that letting you hide your piles from your opponent would be a bad idea.)

When applied to Monastery, the grouping doesn't matter for information purposes (everyone gets to see all the cards that end up in the trash no matter how you do it), but Catacombs and other problem cards must be the last in a batch. So, I think, once you've included a Catacombs in the cards you've selected to trash with Monastery, instead of letting you add more cards to the selection, it should somehow say, "Hey, before you select more cards, let's go ahead and submit this batch now so we can handle tricky stuff. It's ok; you'll get to come back and pick the rest in a sec." Of course, it should still let you remove cards from the selection (EDIT: actually, I guess it doesn't let you remove things now, but just lets you undo the entire selection). And if you remove the Catacombs, it should stop telling you you can't select more right now. And once you do submit a batch with a Catacombs, the Catacombs should always be implicitly processed last because clearly the player didn't select any new cards after that one.

The thing I don't like about Donald's suggestion of "select a bunch and then if something triggers, throw out all the other choices" is that someone who doesn't care too much about all of this is going to try to trash a Catacombs and some Coppers and then they'll be like, "Man, this game is broken; I told it to trash these Coppers and here they still are." It's best not to even let the player think they can tell the game to do something if that thing is not going to end up working.

[markus]

For the online implementation, I would just go with single trashing as with Remake, showing the remaining maximum number of cards to be trashed.

[Donald X.]

I've taken that ruling to mean you actually get to discard the cards in batches of 1–X where X is the maximum you could (must) still discard. So you can dump them all at once and reveal only the top one if there's nothing tricky going on. But you could also do it in batches of 1 and show them everything if you wanted to. Or something.

But we don't have that rulebook anymore, we have a new one. What does it say? He said without checking.

The thing I don't like about Donald's suggestion of "select a bunch and then if something triggers, throw out all the other choices" is that someone who doesn't care too much about all of this is going to try to trash a Catacombs and some Coppers and then they'll be like, "Man, this game is broken; I told it to trash these Coppers and here they still are." It's best not to even let the player think they can tell the game to do something if that thing is not going to end up working.

You could leave them marked.

[Jeebus]

But we don't have that rulebook anymore, we have a new one. What does it say? He said without checking.

It uses the same wording.

EDIT: I just checked, and discarding Tunnel and Watchtower from Militia doesn't let you topdeck (or trash) the Gold.

[Jeebus]

Donald's suggestion is what I already wrote: "With method #2, you would have to ask the user which to trigger first, and then it could be that you have to cancel the trashing of an already-selected card." I meant to imply that this would be confusing. Leaving it marked afterwards is a good idea though, and probably mitigates that confusion.

But you still have the problem of the interface behaving in the same way as Chapel, which is confusing. You also have the problem of expecting it to behave differently if you know how the card works IRL, which could lead to mistakes until you learn the UI. And as I said, what about Market Square for instance? Any of the cards could trigger that. Stef would have to be very careful about how to handle cards that trigger on-trash. Implementing it like Remake is a lot easer, since all triggers would happen naturally.

And as I said from the very beginning, trashing more than a couple of cards is not going to be very common, so it hardly seems worth it.