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[GendoIkari]

So Isotropic implements basically every rule correctly, but there are certain things that it can't quite avoid:

As was just pointed out in another thread:
You can't hide the fact that you are overspending. You either play all your treasures at once, and your opponent knows how much you can spend, or you play them one at a time, and your opponent knows that you're up to something.

If you have a reaction in your hand, you cannot hide this fact by choosing not to reveal the reaction. Your opponent sees "waiting for reactions." This could matter especially with Minion... if I play Minion, and my opponent has a Moat but doesn't reveal it, I may be less likely to discard the hand.

You can't see the top card of the discard piles.

What else am I missing? Is Stash implemented so that it gives all the same information to your opponent that it would in real life?

[eHalcyon]

As was just pointed out in another thread:
You can't hide the fact that you are overspending. You either play all your treasures at once, and your opponent knows how much you can spend, or you play them one at a time, and your opponent knows that you're up to something.

If this is a concern, all you need to do is play treasures one at a time EVERY time.

Edit: and I just saw that WW said the same thing in that other thread. 

[Young Nick]

Also, you can't see which order you draw your cards in. This is most important for knowing which cards missed the reshuffle. A good player would already know, but not all of us remember cards that well.

[jsh357]

Watching the physical deck pile up in an Ambassador game makes its power a whole lot more clear in a real game.

[Fate]

Obvious example which has been discussed to death on this forum is the score.  There is no way to make sure your opponent isn't writing down his score even if the point counter isn't available.  So the strategy of keeping track of the score is basically gone from the online game, especially in tournaments.

[Lekkit]

It's harder to bluff with Contraband on isotropic than IRL.

[GendoIkari]

It's harder to bluff with Contraband on isotropic than IRL.

Why is that? You usually play your Contraband first, which you can do just as easily on Iso without giving away if there is any other treasure in your hand. If you're talking about bluffing by playing a Gold, then a Contraband, while keeping back a Silver; you can do that on Iso as well.

[Deadlock39]

I suspect he is referring to real life bluffing, like acting like you got a really bad draw if you actually have enough for a Province.  Or... Something that would be possible on Iso if the interface was different: Play 2 Coppers and say "whoops... should have played Contraband first".  Then play your Gold after they prohibit Lab or something.

[Kuildeous]

I suspect he is referring to real life bluffing, like acting like you got a really bad draw if you actually have enough for a Province.  Or... Something that would be possible on Iso if the interface was different: Play 2 Coppers and say "whoops... should have played Contraband first".  Then play your Gold after they prohibit Lab or something.

I suppose anything that can be bluffable would count. If your hand would benefit equally from a +$2 or discarding your hand, what you do with that Minion may be determined by whether your opponent sighs or perks up when you lay that card down. With a faceless interface, you do not have anything to base it on.

If your opponent draws his five cards and looks like he just devoured an entire lemon, then maybe you shouldn't play Possession after all. Or maybe you should if your opponent is the type to try to do reverse psychology on you.

And so on.

[Fabian]

You can bluff pretty specifically with Contraband IRL though, without making it a super obvious ploy. If you play Contraband and 3 Copper at the end of your turn without overselling it, it's real easy for your opponent to ban Gold, which leaves you free to play that Silver that remains in your hand and get a Province. It would be very obvious what you were doing on isotropic though, as you'd either hit play all or you'd play Contraband first.

The usual array of crappy "look happy when your hand is crap" bluffs are quite different, I would say, and don't really work IRL or on isotropic, anyway

[shark_bait]

If your opponent draws his five cards and looks like he just devoured an entire lemon, then maybe you shouldn't play Possession after all. Or maybe you should if your opponent is the type to try to do reverse psychology on you.

And so on.

That's when you see how close he is to a reshuffle and decide from his past hands whether he's planning on being a winner or a whiner 

[Ozle]

M ain difference for me is that people are better on Isotropic than the people I play in real life!

[Kuildeous]

You can bluff pretty specifically with Contraband IRL though, without making it a super obvious ploy. If you play Contraband and 3 Copper at the end of your turn without overselling it, it's real easy for your opponent to ban Gold, which leaves you free to play that Silver that remains in your hand and get a Province. It would be very obvious what you were doing on isotropic though, as you'd either hit play all or you'd play Contraband first.

Another way to mess with people with Contraband would be to look intently at Gold while playing Contraband, hoping the opponent will choose to block your Gold. Or you could count the number of Provinces, hoping that will prompt the opponent to choose Province, since he thinks you have $8. Granted, that kind of bluffing relies on how observant the opponent is.

Counting stacks is another difference. Sure, you can count the stacks at any time IRL, but it's far more convenient to look at the numbers on the screen. Isotropic doesn't have the issue where you counting a specific stack tips off the opponent as to what you're going to do next. 

[WanderingWinder]

You can bluff pretty specifically with Contraband IRL though, without making it a super obvious ploy. If you play Contraband and 3 Copper at the end of your turn without overselling it, it's real easy for your opponent to ban Gold, which leaves you free to play that Silver that remains in your hand and get a Province. It would be very obvious what you were doing on isotropic though, as you'd either hit play all or you'd play Contraband first.

Another way to mess with people with Contraband would be to look intently at Gold while playing Contraband, hoping the opponent will choose to block your Gold. Or you could count the number of Provinces, hoping that will prompt the opponent to choose Province, since he thinks you have $8. Granted, that kind of bluffing relies on how observant the opponent is.

Counting stacks is another difference. Sure, you can count the stacks at any time IRL, but it's far more convenient to look at the numbers on the screen. Isotropic doesn't have the issue where you counting a specific stack tips off the opponent as to what you're going to do next. 

And it counts on your opponent falling for bluffs, instead of just picking the strategic target no matter what. :/

[O]

This just happened in a tournament game vs. Titandrake:

Militia'd a hand of 5 copper for an instant discard. This was the second reshuffle, so sometimes this knowledge could probably be very useful..

[ftl]

Could also happen with Lookout. Or Throne Room. Really, any card that forces you to make a decision might reveal information if there's only one possible choice and so isotropic chooses it for you.

[The Adventurer]

IRL : Cheating, shuffling estates stuck together from reshuffle to reshuffle until you split the up in your discard, having your cards deteriorate with use, shuffling for hours, counting cards for hours with philosophers stone, taking 20 minutes to take cards out and back in the box to set up a single game.

Therefore, not buying philosopher's stone, nor any card that involve too much reshuffling just because they're annoying, and considering other games if you don't have time for the longer setup (especially with friends who are clueless on how to do this/which cards belong in which box).
Most importantly I have a harder time keeping track of my purchases as well as my opponent's IRL because I don't see the numbers next to the piles, and while I do not pay attention on ISO, when I come back to the game what happened is written on the screen. If I stop paying attention for a minute IRL (like I always do at some point sooner or later), well I missed what my opponent just bought.

ISO : Not getting the same feel than when you manipulate the cards and the same atmosphere in general, if you want to play one evening and feel all social and have a drink, well you'll end up drinking alone and having a casual "hi hf/gg" as a discussion.

[mnavratil]

Could also happen with Lookout. Or Throne Room. Really, any card that forces you to make a decision might reveal information if there's only one possible choice and so isotropic chooses it for you.

I HATE that isotropic will make these automatic decisions for you. Sometimes I don't realize it has happened and will click on a wrong action as a result.
Example: Play Throne Room, Ambassador with another Ambassador in hand. Accidentally send the Ambassador over because I was choosing the card to reveal, not the action to play.

[blueblimp]

Could also happen with Lookout. Or Throne Room. Really, any card that forces you to make a decision might reveal information if there's only one possible choice and so isotropic chooses it for you.

I HATE that isotropic will make these automatic decisions for you. Sometimes I don't realize it has happened and will click on a wrong action as a result.
Example: Play Throne Room, Ambassador with another Ambassador in hand. Accidentally send the Ambassador over because I was choosing the card to reveal, not the action to play.

This gets me sometimes too. By now I'm usually careful enough that when it's my turn, I'm aware of the potential mistakes, but I've come very close to confusing Envoy & Masquerade since they are triggered by my opponent.

[eHalcyon]

(especially with friends who are clueless on how to do this/which cards belong in which box).

For sorting expansions, there is a symbol in the bottom right(?) corner with different symbols.  I think base set has a castle, and Intrigue has a masquerade mask/glasses.

[Titandrake]

Could also happen with Lookout. Or Throne Room. Really, any card that forces you to make a decision might reveal information if there's only one possible choice and so isotropic chooses it for you.

I HATE that isotropic will make these automatic decisions for you. Sometimes I don't realize it has happened and will click on a wrong action as a result.
Example: Play Throne Room, Ambassador with another Ambassador in hand. Accidentally send the Ambassador over because I was choosing the card to reveal, not the action to play.

This gets me sometimes too. By now I'm usually careful enough that when it's my turn, I'm aware of the potential mistakes, but I've come very close to confusing Envoy & Masquerade since they are triggered by my opponent.

Well, essentially it comes down to this: would you rather have to deal with more redundant clicking, or would you rather have a faster turn? On average I think the speed is worth some of the minor confusion.

[blueblimp]

Could also happen with Lookout. Or Throne Room. Really, any card that forces you to make a decision might reveal information if there's only one possible choice and so isotropic chooses it for you.

I HATE that isotropic will make these automatic decisions for you. Sometimes I don't realize it has happened and will click on a wrong action as a result.
Example: Play Throne Room, Ambassador with another Ambassador in hand. Accidentally send the Ambassador over because I was choosing the card to reveal, not the action to play.

This gets me sometimes too. By now I'm usually careful enough that when it's my turn, I'm aware of the potential mistakes, but I've come very close to confusing Envoy & Masquerade since they are triggered by my opponent.

Well, essentially it comes down to this: would you rather have to deal with more redundant clicking, or would you rather have a faster turn? On average I think the speed is worth some of the minor confusion.

Yeah, if you have to pick one rule-of-thumb, then Isotropic definitely picked the best one. (Otherwise, we'd need to specify clean-up order always, not just when Alchemist/Herbalist/Scheme/Treasury/etc show up together.)

Some ideas for how to resolve this:

• Show the image of the card asking the question next to the choice. Sometimes you'll miss the image, but hopefully you'll usually notice which card is asking before you click.
• If, by subjective judgment, a card is going to ask for a choice in "most" situations, then always offer the choice. So cards like Throne Room, Militia, etc. would always ask for a choice. Clean-up, on the other hand, would still default to not asking.

I'm curious to see what the official client does.

[Algebraist]

Obvious example which has been discussed to death on this forum is the score.  There is no way to make sure your opponent isn't writing down his score even if the point counter isn't available.  So the strategy of keeping track of the score is basically gone from the online game, especially in tournaments.

There's no rule against writing down the score in face-to-face games. You can ban it if you like, but that's a house rule, not the printed rules of the game.

Example no-one's mentioned yet: isotropic game logs reveal what hand your opponent drew at the end of each turn. This can potentially give you insight into their strategy and playstyle you wouldn't have access to in face-to-face.

[WanderingWinder]

Obvious example which has been discussed to death on this forum is the score.  There is no way to make sure your opponent isn't writing down his score even if the point counter isn't available.  So the strategy of keeping track of the score is basically gone from the online game, especially in tournaments.

There's no rule against writing down the score in face-to-face games. You can ban it if you like, but that's a house rule, not the printed rules of the game.

There's no printed rule against it, but there doesn't need to be. It is against the rules. It has been confirmed illegal by the game's designer, if you really really need that. Of course, you can have a house rule that allows it, and if your play group likes that, then more power to you.

[DStu]

There's no rule against writing down the score in face-to-face games. You can ban it if you like, but that's a house rule, not the printed rules of the game.

That's a really interesting topic, maybe we should discuss it more detailed...

edit: too slow.