How can you tell what expansions/cards are available before beginning?

[BrenBarn]

When I look at the list of tables available to join, I can see how many people are there.  If I join a game, I can sometimes see other information like "expansions used".  But sometimes, even if no expansions are listed, cards from expansions appear in the game.  My hunch is that this is because the "expansions used" is only displayed if some expansions are excluded; if no such message is displayed, it means "all expansions the players have access to", but it doesn't say what that includes.  I can't find a way to see a definitive list of what cards might be used in the game before the game actually begins.

How can I see a FULL list of all expansions that might be used in the game, before clicking "ready"?  Even better, how can I see a full list of all CARDS that might be used in the game, before clicking "ready"?

[Ingix]

With a few tries right now I could see some used *cards*, but not some used expansions. However, I do not use this interface at all normally, so I guess it will come up from time to time.

I don't think what you literally asked for is possible, at the moment, but I encourage others to correct me who use this method to join tables.

However, I have the feeling that you don't want to know what expansions might come up out of the blue, I think you either want to seek out or avoid certain expansions, both of which is possible (to a certain degree) in the "Matching" tab.

If you want to avoid certain expansions, set them as unfamiliar in the "Familiar Cards" tab, then go to the "Matching" tab, select "Advanced options", then make sure to deselect "Rated game".

If you want to seek out expansions (instead of just base game cards), again at the Advanced version of the "Matching" tab, check the box "Wait for Expansions". That will make sure that your opponent (assumimg you only have the base cards) will have at least half the expansions. Of course, this is not perfect, because your opponent is free to preselect some or all 10 Kingdom cards.

If you have questions about anything I wrote, feel free to ask. If you can clarify why you want to know about expansions, it may be possible to achive that goal in another way (as I tried to explain above).

[BrenBarn]

Thanks for that info.  I guess I can use the Matching tab to mostly get what I want.

The underlying issue in my question is that I think it's irritating for there to be information that is available for matching but not visible when you look at the game "manually".  If it's possible to match on expansions, I should be able to see the expansions when I join the game.  Anything that is possible with the Matching tab should be replicable by manually looking at games.

Also, it would be nice to be able to filter in more detail, like if I want a game that does or doesn't include a particular expansion.

[Ingix]

From some more tests, it seems that if the table host manually removes some of his expansions from the list of expansions potentially used on that table, the remaing ones will be listetd in the matching tab. Otherwise, there is no list, and a potential playing partner then has no info about what expansions might be in that list of "all that the host player owns".

I agree that it might be useful to add that info to the table in all cases.

Generally, it should be noted that the host can change these settings even while others have joined the table.

Also, I think the idea was that if you want fine-grained control, you can start your own table.