Messages

When you gain Berserker, you should be able to choose to use another when-gain ability before Berserker's, for instance Sheepdog. Then, when you resolve Berserker, you have an Action in play, so Berserker plays itself. Compare to Emporium for example. This doesn't currently work correctly.

When setting up the kingdom I was not allowed to start the game when I had chosen Herb Gatherer as the card for Way of the Mouse. It said that the selected card is not a kingdom card. But it is a kingdom card. I guess that there's some code preventing it from being chosen at random, maybe because the "rotate" effect would do nothing, but there's no reason it couldn't be chosen by the user.

I hear you, but as written, Elder's text says that "choose" is only one possible word that its effect applies to. If it applies only and explicitly to cards using the word "choose," it should resemble the text of Patron ("using the word 'choose'") or change "e.g." to "i.e."

As it stands now, Barge and Village Green give you a choice this turn using the phasing "either/or" (and Village Green's FAQ even explicitly uses the word "choose").

I'm not disagreeing with you - we have to read Elder's FAQ to know what it's supposed to mean. I was just replying to the poster before me, who said that Elder doesn't affect Barge because of the "next turn" ability. That's not ther reason. My reply was based on how Elder is supposed to work.

You still get a number of cards (currently 8, probably 16 soon, 28 if they had all been implemented, and probably more in the future) that you can pick and choose from. Whether the default is that they are included or excluded makes no difference for that.

my idea clearly only works with all-or-nothing

I've no idea why you think that's the case, much less "clearly" so.

Players can ban exactly 5 cards. Beyond that, there is no functionality to let players freely include or exclude individual cards from sets. I see no reason why that would be allowed for deprecated cards when it's not allowed for any other cards.

Frankly nobody needs Pearl Diver, Navigator, Pirate Ship, or even Explorer. Plenty of better cards out there with 2E and other expansions. But Ambassador is a Dominion classic for 2P games.

I'll also miss Ghost Ship, Sea Hag and Explorer.

But in any case, my idea clearly only works with all-or-nothing; we can't let players pick cards. It's not like the game has been bad because all those Seaside cards were available, so I'm fine having them all be there for the opportunity to get Ambassador or Ghost Ship every now and then.

I think the key phrase is "When it gives you a choice of abilities (e.g. "choose one") THIS TURN". If you are making a choice that doesn't occur THIS TURN, then you don't benefit from being able to choose additional choices. Yes, it would be better if Elder clarified that it doesn't apply to actions that impact subsequent turns.

That's not the reason it doesn't work on Barge. Barge sets up an effect for next turn, but Barge does that this turn (and the choice is this turn). The reason is that Elder only affects cards that say "choose" and then list effects. Otherwise it could also affect Tournament for instance, letting you both get a Duchy and a Prize, and Border Guard, letting you take both Lantern and Horn.

Why not add an option "I'm okay with playing with deprecated cards"? If both/all players choose it, the old cards are available in full random.

Just a small correction. Trashing Urchin, opponents using Reactions, and Adventure tokens are in the same timing window, but deciding to use a Way is not. Deciding to use a Way comes after (at the same time as the effect of an opponent's Enchantress or Highwayman). This means that if your opponents want to use a Moat or other Reaction, they would have to do this before you decide if you want to use a Way, not after. Your description of Skirmisher is correct; you can decide to use a Way after gaining the Mercenary.

Oh I hadn't really thought about that, I thought that a buy phase automatically came with a buy.

So using Villa as a way (most of the time) just negates the extra buy that you get. You'd think that the extra buy was tied to the buy phase while it's actually tied to the Villa.

Glad we got that cleared up.  :o

Actually you start every turn with 1 Action and 1 Buy (and 0 coins). Moving to another phase during your turn never changes how many Actions, Buys and coins you have.

If you gain a Duplicate and play it with Innovation, it should give you the option to gain a copy of itself. I thought this worked, but at least it's not working now.
Game 91053548, my turn 5.

Buy Innovation.
Play an Improve, don't buy anything, in start of Clean-up you trash a $2 cost card to gain another Improve and play it with Innovation. You're still in start of Clean-up so you should now be able to "improve" another card from play. But this doesn't work.

Game 91032070, my turn 9.

With Innovation, gaining a Livery and playing it should give you a Horse (because of the gaining of Livery which costs $4 or more), but it doesn't.
Game 91030383, my turn 7.

I happened to see this bug listed. This is actually correct behavior, not a bug. Donald has confirmed this in this thread (where Ingix also participated): http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20153.msg826012#msg826012

Ah, searching the forums I found this old thread: http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=1575.msg5226#msg5226
And I was able to solve it. Thanks.