No opportunity to duplicate, when playing Haggler

[santamonica811]

Game: 10872679, Frankfurt

Turn 14

Game had Haggler, Duplicate, and Harem.  Duplicate was on my mat, ready to be played.  I bought Harem (for 6 coins) while using Haggler.  But, I was NOT given the opportunity to Duplicate this Harem.  The only option in the log was to (via Haggler) get my second card at the lower-than-6 cost.  I did this, and then WAS given a chance to Duplicate this second, lower-value-card.  I tried using Undo several times, to see if I was missing some small notice in the log or on the screen to Duplicate the Harem.  Nope.  Seems like a bug.

(I'm playing the games on my home desktop, with a huge monitor, so it's certainly not an issue related to small screen size, as might happen if playing on a tablet or smartphone.  Playing on Firefox, on a PC)

[Mic Qsenoch]

That game number doesn't have any of those cards.

This isn't a bug, though maybe it's not clear how to do the thing you want to do from the interface.

Haggler's ability triggers on buy (which means it happens before the Harem is gained), so Duplicate can't possibly be called until you make a choice about what cheaper card you want to gain. Something like this:

Buy Harem -> Haggler thing: Gain cheaper card -> Gain Harem

You can call a Duplicate on either of those gains, but you will need to pass on Duplicating the cheaper card, at which point you will be given the option to Duplicate the Harem.

10896403 Turn 8 shows me doing this.

[santamonica811]

Mic
1.  This is the second time I have carefully written down the game number, only to have other people say, "That game does not exist."  Or, as you said, "It's a completely different game."  If I can figure out how to take a screen shot and paste it, I'll also do that next time, to show clearly what the game number is, as it appears on my own screen!!!  :)

2.  Interesting.  If that's not a bug, then it's poor design.  If I select the order as Expensive Card, and then Less Expensive Card (for Haggler), then it seems logical that that would be the order that I am asked to accept/decline Duplicating.  At the very least, if I am given the option to Dup the second card, the instructions should say, "[click here] to Duplicate <card 2>, or decline, to be given these options for your original card purchase."  Or something like that.

In the game I played, I do not recall seeing a button to click on, to pass on Duplicating the cheaper card (which, you say, will then give me the option of Dup'ing the more expensive card).  I only recall the hot-link in the log to accept duplicating Card # 2 or the usual End Buy button.  Where did you click, to 'advance' on your turn from the least expensive card to the more expensive card?  (I'll try and figure out how to look at a game and will look at your own game, and maybe that will show me how.  Or maybe it will only give me the log...I've clearly never reviewed someone old game before!)  :-)

But as I said; I did--via Undo--try about 3-4 times to figure out how to do this.  At the least; this card interaction could be made more user-friendly and intuitive, yes?

[santamonica811]

[continued]
Mic,
I just tried to load your game.  Not hard to find the right page.  I put in the game number, and hit load game.  Nothing.  Then hit "ready" and got the error message, "Not enough players."

I am a bit confused by this.  If someone uses "load old game," is that a way to see how the original player(s) played out a game?  (This seems to be the case, based on you including the game number as a demonstration of how things properly work.)   Or is it also (with an adjustment of settings??) a way for me to play out one of your games?  Or to play out one of my old games, if I happen to like a certain set of kingdom cards?

Can you give a step-by-step walk-through on how to set up an old game?  I'm obviously failing this particular Dominion IQ test.  :(   :-\

[Ingix]

Loading an old game is just another way to start a game, so you have to do all the things necessary for a normal game. That includes telling the game server who the other players are.

Now, this process is unfortunately not optimized for the most common case where you want to just be in the shoes of one player and have the other players taken over by AIs. In addition, Mic seems to have used a single player game (only one player), which has often problems loading. So I made a new, two player game (10908430) to illustrate the issue.

Go to "New Table", press "Load Old Game", then enter the number 10908430 and press "Load Game". This you already did with Mic's game.

Now, press "Add bot" once. This will add Lord Rattington to your table. Since the original game had 2 players, this is enough, the "Add bot" button will go away.

Now press "Player Order". This is where it is determined which of the current players (you and Lord Rattington) take the shoes of which original player (Ingix (me) and Lord Rattington). This could do with some reasonable defaults, but for now click on the checkmark near "Random" to make the order not random but chosen by you.

A small window will pop up, which should on the right side have the heading "Original Player", with Ingix on top and Lord Rattington beneath. On the left side are the current players, which should be your name on top and Lord Rattington beneath. If that's the case, you can hit "Done", because that is what you want: You take my position and Lord Rattington plays Lord Rattington.

If for whatever reason the order is reversed, you can use the small arrows to change the order of the players on the left side. Hit "Done" when you are ... done ;)

Now press the button "Ready". This should take you into the game, Lord Rattington will do his turn 7 and you will start turn 8. Take a look at 'your' turn 7 in the log. I bought Laboratory, but gained the cheaper card first (Vassal), then gained the Laboratory and then gained the Duplicate of the Laboratory.

If you want to replay that yourself, type "/undo" into the chat window (don't type the quotes, but *do* type the slash). The log will change and add lots of small dots to the start of its lines. Each dot is a decision a player has made, like playing a card, choosing (or not) to Duplicate something, etc.

Click on the dot before the line "Mic buys a Laborarory" (Mic will be replaced by your in-game initials) on your turn 7. This will bring you to the point *before* that action. You have Haggler in play and $6 to spend. Duplicate is on your Tavern mat.

Buy a Laboratory (or whatever you fancy, in the following I describe what I did). This will trigger Haggler's effect, and the game asks you which cheaper card you want to gain. Choose Vassal. Now you gain the Vassal and, as you noticed, the game gives you the option to Duplicate the Vassal. Please also note that you didn't gain the Laboratory yet, the supply pile still shows that all 10 are present there, so Duplicate *can't* at the moment offer you to gain it.

Decline to Duplicate the Vassal by pressing the "Done Reacting" button. *Now* you finally gain the Laboratory (watch the animation, or check your discard pile afterwards, it shows a Laboratory on top now). Now you also get the option to Duplicate the Laboratory. You can do so if you want (by clicking in the log), or also decline (by pressing "Done Reacting" again).

The same way it would have played out in your original game. You thought you had missed the point where Duplicate should offer you to Duplicate your Harem, but that point hand't come yet!

[markus]

Ingix beat me by a bit, but if you want to load the original game:

I think Mic played with 1 player and there's some bug loading those games. The workaround would be to create a table with min and max players = 1.
Then select advanced options and load the game with the game number 10896403.
Then you can start the game and undo 3 times to be in the situation after clicking Harem. There's the "Done Reacting" button to decline duplicating Haunted Woods.

The order has to happen that way, because that's what the game rules say. In some cases it matters in which order you gain the cards. I agree that it would be nicer if there were 2 buttons at that point:
1) Duplicate Haunted Woods
2) Don't Duplicate Haunted Woods

[santamonica811]

Thanks to all of you . . . you guys rock!  With the instructions, it was easy to load on old game.  And sure enough, once you know to skip your first chance to duplicate, you do get the chance to duplicate the original higher-cost card.

I'll digress for a minute to note: When I read posts about people playing against, well, jerks, who slow-play, or who write awful things in chat, etc. . . well, either I have been very lucky, or those people have been very unlucky.  Not only have I not had bad in-game experiences, I have found the community here to be helpful, useful, friendly, and one of the biggest "pluses" to my online subscription.

Again, thanks.  Gracias. Спаибо. Danke.  And 谢谢   :D