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2476

Rules Questions / Re: What is the "lose track" rule?

« on: January 27, 2012, 06:54:09 am »

I want to take a new crack at explaining the "lose track" rule, as I understand it, because I see that people are misapplying it (which isn't that strange since there's been a lot of debate and confusion).

Every instruction that tells you to move a card, tells you to move it from some place to some other place. Often the place to move it from is implicit, but it's there.

If not instructed where to move the card from and to, the default is:

• Gaining a card: Move it from Supply to discard
• Discarding a card: Move it from your hand to discard
• Trashing a card: Move it from instructed location to Trash
• Playing a card: Move it from your hand to the play area

The "lose track" rule applies when an ability is trying to move a card, but the card isn't where it's trying to move it from. This is what's been called the card's "expected location". And what happens then, is that the card can't be moved. Looked at this way, it's hardly a new rule; it's kind of given from the basic rules.

The card's current location is often implicitly given. Golem talks about revealing cards from your deck, so when it tells you to play them it means from your deck to your play area. A card that talks about itself in its play-instruction, expects that it's in the play area. So Embargo and Mining Village mean to move themselves from the play area to Trash.

We can also have cases where an ability (on a card) says to move a card somewhere, and then to move it again. The second move implicitly tries to move the card from where the first move put it. This is the case with Throne Room + Mining Village. TR plays MV, moving it from your hand to the play area. Then it plays MV again, moving it from the play area to the play area. If it's not in the play area (such as if it was moved to Trash in the meantime), the move fails. (Since a card can't be trashed by moving it from Trash to Trash, MV can't Trash itself again.)

To also include the TR + MV + Possession case: TR plays MV, moving it to the play area. MV moves itself from the play area to Trash. Possession's when-trash ability moves MV to set-aside area. TR plays MV again, failing to move it first just like in the previous case. MV moves itself from the play area to Trash, but since it's not in the play area, this move fails. (So also in this case TR can't trash itself again, but for different reasons.)

Important: This rule only means that sometimes a card can't be moved. It never stops a card from being played (i.e. its intructions resolved).

2477

Rules Questions / Re: Trader with Torturer

« on: January 27, 2012, 04:49:06 am »

Torturer tries to make you gain a curse (to your discard), then move it from discard to hand. If you use trader to gain a silver instead (to your discard), Torturer "loses track" of the curse and moves nothing to your hand. So you end up with the silver in your discard pile.

That's not correct. It's not quite that complicated. The "lose track" rule is very rarely needed, and it's not needed here.

First of all, Torturer says "he gains a Curse card, putting it in his hand," which means the Curse goes directly to your hand. This is actually from the first rule book: "Gain -- when a player gains a card, he takes the gained card (usually from the Supply) and puts it onto his Discard pile (unless the card says to put it elsewhere)." But if you use Trader it doesn't even matter where the Curse would have gone, because the gain never happens. Instead, you get a new gain, which is "you gain a Silver," with no qualifiers.  As per the standard rules, this Silver comes from Supply and goes to you discard. This is also explained in the FAQ for Trader.

If hypothecally Torturer had instead said "he gains a Curse card, and then puts it in his hand," it would be two instructions. So the Curse would go to your discard. In this case the second instruction would indeed try to execute after you've cancelled the first instruction and gained a Silver instead. But even then there's no "lose track" rule needed since the card doesn't even exist. Torturer didn't gain you a Curse, so the second instruction fails. It would be like if the Curse pile was empty; the first instruction fails, so the second can't be resolved.

2478

Rules Questions / Re: What is the "lose track" rule?

« on: January 26, 2012, 05:02:23 pm »

It seems like he came back on this one.

This reminds me about the whole Trader/Ironworks debate.

I guess you're often best served by just doing what seems logical. If you buy BV with Watchtower in hand, I would suggest you can choose whether you want none, one or the other, or both cards on deck. That seems the best way to me and the least complex....

But that is the effect of Donald's rulings here too. I don't agree that it seems like he changed his mind here. That's not how I interpreted it.

He had already written a couple of places that you can topdeck BV and bonus card, in either order. The quote in the second post in this thread, which is from a very new thread, says exactly what I wrote in my last post (in the parenthesis), namely that if you choose to leave the Duchy on top of the BV, you can't move the BV. Yes, he does write this: "Once a card covers up a card in your discard pile, the covered-up cards are "lost" and cannot be moved by stuff like Watchtower, even though you personally remember what's going on." But again, that was about that example. It doesn't necessarily mean that a card is "lost" forever, such as when it's no longer covered-up when an ability resolves. He doesn't write anything in that post about changing previous rulings, so it's quite plain that he isn't. In this post he even specifically addresses the implication of lose-track on BV+Watchtower: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1028.msg16408#msg16408.

Anyway, the lose-track rule really has little to do with BV+Watchtower; since you can gain the two cards in either order you can just ignore it. But if you add Develop and Inn to the mix, you get a complex case where lose-track actually will have a practical effect (see http://boardgamegeek.com/article/7937101#7937101). But the most important case where we need lose-track, is to explain why TR+Mining Village works the way it does, and also, in a related but different case, Possession+TR+Mining Village. See the original lose-track thread linked to before.

To be complete, this is the one other application I've found of lose-track in Donald's posts: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1028.msg16184#msg16184. It explains why you can't reveal Watchtower twice to the same card, first to trash it and then to topdeck it (or vice versa). This doesn't matter with published cards, since you never want to, but might possibly in the future.

2479

Rules Questions / Re: Feast and Bishop Interaction

« on: January 26, 2012, 11:08:17 am »

How about this, now it can't gain itself:

Card ($4) Reaction-Victory-Treasure +1$ +Worth 1VP Trash a card from your hand. ------------ If this card is trashed, you may reveal this. If you do, gain a Victory or a Treasure Card costing exactly $1 or $2 more than this.

The on-play ability is probably too powerful though. In itself it's comparable to Loan. It's weakened somewhat by the fact that it's not optional, which is good. Maybe remove the VP and the option to gain a Victory card?

2480

Rules Questions / Re: What is the "lose track" rule?

« on: January 26, 2012, 10:53:20 am »

WT can't dig deeper than one card however, so you can only put the Duchy on top.

Everything you said was correct except for this. It's easy to think that lose-track is stopping you from also moving the BV after you moved the Duchy, but as I just quoted, Donald ruled that you can. (It's only if you choose to leave the Duchy there, on top of the BV, that you can't. But, in that case it would behoove you to move the BV before gaining the Duchy, so it doesn't matter in practice.)

2481

Rules Questions / Re: What is the "lose track" rule?

« on: January 26, 2012, 10:49:21 am »

I would say you can, since you could choose to topdeck the BV first, then the 2nd card.
If you wanted the 2nd card to be topdecked first it's more ambiguous - does a card have to touch the discard pile before "on-gain" abilities can touch it?
I would say no, due to this sentence in the original rules:
"A player places cards he Buys or otherwise acquires during the game on his Discard pile unless he is specifically directed to place them elsewhere."

Either way I'm curious what the point of this rule is supposed to be.

In order for the gained card to go somewhere else when you gain it, you have to be instructed to do so in the gaining instruction (Bureaucrat, Sea Hag, Mine, etc). So if you gain Border Village normally, like when buying it, it goes to discard. Now when-gain can happen -- either Watchtower or Royal Seal can move it out of the discard.
Nevertheless, you can topdeck both cards, in either order. If you want to topdeck the second card: You gain the Border Village to discard, and then do when-gain effects. First, you gain the second card to discard. You reveal Watchtower and topdeck that card. Then you reveal Watchtower as a Reaction to gaining the Border Village. It's now where Watchtower expects it to be, on top of the discard pile, so you can topdeck it. The Border Village was covered by another card for a second though, so it's ambiguous. But, Donald ruled that this is how we should play it "until there's a published rule": http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1028.msg16408#msg16408

2482

Rules Questions / Re: General timing rule (Mandarin + Royal Seal)

« on: January 26, 2012, 07:36:35 am »

Isn't there an on-buy version too: buying Mint with Talisman & Quarry in play?

As far as I can see, all of the cases involving Mint, Talisman, Quarry and Royal Seal neither confirms or refutes the rule.

Play Talisman and Quarry, buy Mint. Talisman's when-buy and Mint's when-buy trigger. You do Talisman's first, so you gain another Mint. Then Mint's when-buy, trashing alle the Treasures. Now if you did Mint's first, trashing the Talisman, would you still gain another Mint? You would if this rule is correct. But since you can just choose to do Talisman's when-gain first, I don't think this has ever come up.

Play Talisman, Quarry and Royal Seal, buy Mint. Talisman's when-buy and Mint's when-buy trigger. You do Talisman's first, so you gain another Mint. Now Royal Seal's when-gain triggers for the second Mint, so you put it on your deck. The first Mint's when-buy happens, trashing all Treasures. Then the first Mint's when-gain happens, but now there's no Royal Seal in play. The rule wasn't invoked on this one, since the Royal Seal's when-gain never triggered for the first Mint.

2483

Rules Questions / Re: General timing rule (Mandarin + Royal Seal)

« on: January 25, 2012, 09:07:01 pm »

Consider the parallel situation of Alchemist-Herbalist, where in top-decking the only Potion in play (via Herbalist) causes all the Alchemists to fail.

That's not the same thing; that is to say, the Alchemist-Herbalist case does not invoke this rule. Two abilities don't resolve at the same time, as in the Mandarin+Royal Seal case. You discard cards from play one at a time, so you have separate discarding events for each card, which may trigger when-discard effects like Herbalist's or Alchemist's.
Mandarin and Royal Seal both trigger at the exact same time, when gaining the Mandarin.

Technically they're both on-gain abilities, not on-buy abilities.

Thanks! Fixed. I knew that, just screwed up when writing the post.

2484

Rules Questions / General timing rule (Mandarin + Royal Seal)

« on: January 25, 2012, 06:03:06 pm »

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. In compiling the complete rules for Dominion, I've written down the following rule.

A) When several abilities happen at the same time, after determining the order of the abilities, resolve all of them, even if the condition that triggered an ability changes before that ability is resolved.

There's also a second part:

B) However, if an ability refers to a card which is no longer defined (for instance a "gained card" that wasn't gained after all), then that ability can't be carried out.

But it's the first part (A) I'm concerned with now, and specifically the bolded part. It's a rule I've been having in my head, but I can't source it to anything official. I know of several posts by forum members where it's mentioned. But what I'm after is a post where Donald refers to the rule, or any place in any rulebook where it's implicit (since I doubt that it's explicitly stated anywhere), or any ruling by Donald where it's implicit.

I'm even having a hard time thinking of examples where it would apply. But I managed to come up with one: I buy a Mandarin with Royal Seal in play. Royal Seal's when-gain triggers because it's in play. I elect to resolve the Mandarin's when-gain first, putting all Treasures on top of my deck. Then I resolve Royal Seal's when-gain even though it's no longer in play, and put the Mandarin on the deck. According to this rule, this is allowed. On isotropic it also works.

So I want to confirm that the above is correct, and that the rule is correct. And any other examples where it would apply would be greatly appreciated.

2485

Rules Questions / Re: Throne room/king's court

« on: January 19, 2012, 07:19:47 pm »

I will go you one better and repeat the ruling, making this post itself the latest ruling.

You only keep TR and KC in play if they directly played a duration card. If you KC a KC a duration card, the first KC is discarded, the second stays in play.

This is just the most direct interpretation of the rulebook. Briefly I said both stayed out, but the way of specifying that is convoluted and anyway did not match the rulebook.

Does anyone have a link to the ruling referred to? I mean the one where Donald originally ruled as he does here. I assume it's on BGG, but I've searched all over the place without finding it. I'm finding the previous ruling (about leaving TRs/KCs that modify TRs/KCs in play) but not the new one.

2486

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Feature Request: Make resigning easier

« on: January 11, 2012, 07:02:34 pm »

You're welcome - seems like you need something to get you to pull your head out of your ass. You cannot mandate courtesy. If you remove the option for people to quit in a courteous way, then they will use the even easier method of closing the tab, which forces everyone else to wait two minutes if they do wish to carry on with the game.

I gave a clear reasoning for my position, which you haven't responded to, choosing instead to repeat yourself, even more obnoxiously. I believe that is the very behavior commonly described as "having your head up your ass." Funny!
"You cannot mandate courtesy." - Ah, you prove the veracity of this statement too. Clever!

2487

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Feature Request: Make resigning easier

« on: January 07, 2012, 01:08:09 pm »

I dunno, seems like barsooma was making a reasonable point to me, one that's better seen in context. I mean, we're talking possible here, so those 5% of cases matter.
To which I might add, how the heck do you know why people resign?  You totally just pulled your statistic out of the air.

Yep, of course I pulled it out of the air. You think I tried to make it seem like it was based on studies?

It was based on experience of course. I play mostly two player these days, but I'd say that for every resignation when somebody "has to go", there are at least 30 that are because they are losing (or think they are). If we factor in multi player games, there might be more "has to go" resignations, if we assume that there are some people who don't resign in multi player but would in two player. I have a feeling there aren't too many of those; people who resign, generally just do so no matter what. But I can't know that for sure.

Anyway, 5% (1 out of 20) doesn't seem unreasonable. So the down side to removing the 'resign' button in multi player would be that in those 5% of cases, people might close the tab, leaving the other player's hanging. Actually some of those people might exit instead, which wouldn't be a problem. So only when they close the tab instead of exiting.

The up side would be that in those other 95% av cases, some of those people might be discouraged from resigning because there's no button. (The FAQ should also state that you shouldn't resign in multi player.) It's pretty hard to say how many resignations that would prevent though. There's also the problem that some people might close the tab instead of not resigning, or exiting.

However, there's also the result of these two undesirable outcomes to consider. Closing the tab as opposed to resigning is inconvenient for the other players, nothing more. Resigning (or closing the tab/exiting) in a multi player game ruins the game, technically. I think that ranks far higher.

2488

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Feature Request: Make resigning easier

« on: January 07, 2012, 10:10:25 am »

Um... so that people don't close the tab and leave the rest hanging for 2 minutes? Think a little.

Thanks for that random act of rudeness.
You can always close the tab. You can always just switch to another window. The point is that resigning in multiplayer is never* okay, and the site shouldn't condone it.

*Yes, of course if something unforeseen happens. But 95% of the time that's not why people resign.

2489

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Possession+Scrying Pool bug

« on: January 06, 2012, 12:36:36 pm »

Here's another Possession bug, this time with Minion.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111228-071702-02c3805f.html

When I possessed the other player (turn 18) and made him play Minion, my own hand of five cards didn't change. I realized when it was my turn again that I had discarded my hand and drawn four new ones. But during his turn I had no way of knowing what those cards were or even if my hand had changed.

Strangely on the other turns this didn't happen.

2490

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Feature Request: Make resigning easier

« on: January 06, 2012, 12:04:47 pm »

A little off topic, but I don't think resigning should be at all possible in multiplayer. I realize you can just close the tab or exit, but there's no reason why there should be a 'resign' button i multiplayer.

2491

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Type of Cards, Multi-type Cards and Color Questions

« on: December 20, 2011, 10:17:50 am »

Donald has explained why Attacks don't have a special color on BGG somewhere way back. It's because the Attack type doesn't have any special rules associated with it. "Attack" is essentially just a keyword so that it can be referred to by other cards. (You could in theory have a card that did the same as Witch, but without the "Attack" type, making it immune to Moat etc. Its cost would have to be higher than $5 of course.) Action, Treasure, Reaction, Duration, Victory and Curse cards all have rules that explain how they are used.

Actually I guess the rules for Victory and Curse are the same: Essentially there are no special rules (except for Province and Colony, regarding the end of the game). "Victory" and "Curse" are essentially just keywords. But since each of these types is the only one on the card, each type should get its own color.

It's the same with Prizes as with Attacks I guess. The Prizes do have some special rules though, regarding setup and that they're not in supply. But once a Prize card is in your deck, it doesn't behave in any special way because of the "Prize" type.

2492

Rules Questions / Re: The difference between Forge and Remodel when trashing no cards

« on: December 16, 2011, 08:47:48 am »

A lot of complex replies to this one. The quoted passage from the FAQ is the clearest explanation, I think. Or maybe like this:

Remodel tells you to trash one card. Then gain a card based on the cost of the card you trashed. If you didn't trash a card, you have no basis for the second part. (So this is an implicit "if you do.")

Forge tells you to trash any number of cards from zero cards and upwards. Then gain a card based on the total cost of the trashed cards. If you trashed zero cards, the total cost is $0.

If Remodel said "Gain a card costing up to $2 more than total cost of the trashed cards" then you would gain a card costing up to $2 when trashing zero cards. The reason is that Remodel now doesn't refer to the specific card you trashed, but the cost of all the cards you trashed, which could either be one (if your hand wasn't empty) or zero (if your hand was empty).

2493

Rules Questions / Re: Reactions are confusing, man

« on: December 06, 2011, 06:31:00 am »

I guess the answer was that this only applies to cards you reveal from your hand, as a special rule. Although I was slightly confused as to why Donald didn't give a clear "yes" to AJD's post.

I addressed this already.

Yes, that reply was what slightly confused me.

Dominion has a special case for reactions revealed from your hand, for reasons having to do with how best to handle Secret Chamber. To be precise and clear then these reactions should be phrased differently; they aren't.

AJD said "reactions revealed from your hand" and your more accurate reply stated only Moat and Secret Chamber. But since you're now confirming that it is indeed reactions revealed from your hand, it's all good. Thanks.

2494

Rules Questions / Re: Reactions are confusing, man

« on: December 05, 2011, 10:37:24 am »

I hope Donald weighs in on this one... you seem to have a really good point, and I'm not quite sure what stops Tunnel from doing that. Actually, can't you say the exact same thing about the "When gain" cards? They aren't listed as reactions, but they do react to being gained. So, when you gain Border Village, what stops you from saying "I react to Border Village being gained by gaining Torturer. Now I react to Border Village being gained by gaining a Torturer again."

The wording seems to be the exact same. "When another player plays an attack card." "When you gain this." Both are things you can do "when something happens." Why can you do one of them only once, but the other multiple times?

It's funny, I was also thinking about this a while ago. If you can reveal a reaction from your hand several times when something happens, why can't you reveal a Tunnel several times when discarding it? Then that question becomes: when a card tells me to gain a card a card when something happens, why can't I do that several times? Which leads to: when Goons tells me to gain a VP when I buy a card, why can't I do that several times (effectively gaining infinite VPs)? Which even ultimately means: why can't I do what a card tells me to do several times (even without TR/KC), since the effect of a card is an event that happens when you play it?

I guess the answer was that this only applies to cards you reveal from your hand, as a special rule. Although I was slightly confused as to why Donald didn't give a clear "yes" to AJD's post. Does it only apply to Secret Chamber and Moat? I thought it also applied to Trader and Watchtower? As of now I take it Secret Chamber is the only one where it would have a point. But there could be future cards.

2495

Dominion Isotropic / Re: What do you think of Isotropic's leaderboard change?

« on: December 05, 2011, 05:25:07 am »

Before the change to last 30 days, I had around 1200 games played. Now, after the new change, I have 644. So it's definitely not changed back to the way it was.

2496

Rules Questions / Re: Returning (new) seaside cards to the top of the deck with scheme

« on: November 23, 2011, 11:43:23 am »

If a future card comes out that makes the duration card order matter, then the code can be changed to allow the user to specify the order.

Exactly. We're in agreement on this. That was my point regarding Scheme. It doesn't matter now whether you click none or a duration that won't be cleaned up.

2497

Rules Questions / Re: Returning (new) seaside cards to the top of the deck with scheme

« on: November 23, 2011, 10:19:19 am »

The very fact that it is susceptible to mistakes is why Isotropic should allow it, I think.

Right! This is what I was saying in the other thread. It seems for some/most people it boils down to: it has to be allowed in case the user makes a mistake. So the reason the choice is there (according to this argument) is to trick you.

With multiple durations, you have no choice that results in a different outcome.

Not now, but who knows with future cards? Same as people are saying with Scheme, who knows with future cards -- there might be a case where giving this choice actually matters (except for making the user possibly click wrong). Anyway, the other example is that isotropic, for convenience, doesn't let you choose which card to put on top when you discard, and this does make a difference, however small. (It actually sometimes lists openly all your discarded cards, sometimes none of them.)

2498

Rules Questions / Re: Returning (new) seaside cards to the top of the deck with scheme

« on: November 23, 2011, 08:09:43 am »

Btw, here's another thing that isotropic does wrong for the sake of convenience: It doesn't let you you choose the order to execute previous durations at the beginning of your turn. If it were to follow the rules literally, we should have to click for each and every card. Haven't heard anybody complain about this. The difference of course is that doing it that way would be more inconvenient but not susceptible to mistakes, while the way Scheme is implemented is both more inconvenient and susceptible to mistakes.

2499

Rules Questions / Re: Returning (new) seaside cards to the top of the deck with scheme

« on: November 15, 2011, 02:23:42 pm »

Sorry, no of course you're right. I was thinking of Secret Chamber.

2500

Rules Questions / Re: Returning (new) seaside cards to the top of the deck with scheme

« on: November 15, 2011, 01:14:07 pm »

It's not always useless to show Moat more than once.

What the card literally says: I'm not at all sure that's such a great reason in this case. But I said a lot about these things (including the Moat comparison) in the other thread, and gave my reasons pretty thoroughly.