A few questions about loading old games

[santamonica811]

Okay, I have sort of figured this out. 
Leave Table > New Table > Load Old Game (and then enter that game number)

But here is where I start to get confused.

I first immediately hit "add bot" (If I do not, a real player will quickly join the game).
There is then a place to change the decision number.  If I leave it as is, I will be taken to the spot just when the game ended.  If I change the decision number to 1, I will be taken to the very beginning of the game, and can then (re)play the game, starting from that point.  Or if I enter a larger number (eg, Decision 24), I'll be taken to that point in the game and can finish it out from there.

Here are my questions.
a.  Assume I just want to view an entire game's log, and do not want to play it again, how is this done?
b.  If I wanted to replay a game from, say, Turn 8, how do I get to that Turn?  There is no correlation between decision number and turn number (since turns will usually have multiple decisions, and if you built a chain, one turn could have dozens of decisions).  How do I know what decision number to enter, to get taken to Turn 8?
c.  Is there an easy (or a difficult) way to look at the log of a game, and while looking at that log, choose, "Let me replay this game, starting from Point X or Point Y."?
d.  Is there already a link to someone spelling out, step-by-step, the way(s) to do all this?  If so, that would be a great thing to have on a sticky, or on a FAQ thread at the top of this page.

[santamonica811]

Okay, after posting, I sort of figured out a way to resolve Situation "A."  If a game has, say, 300 decisions; if I enter Decision 299 in that window, then I will be taken to the step right before the game ends, and I can scroll up to look at the entire game log...minus the last purchase of the game, of course, since it will not have happened yet.  :-)

[Ingix]

a)
I think the very last decision (usually the one that ends the turn, which then ends the game) is never recorded. So if it was you (that means the player that you substitute for in this replay) that made the decision, you can load at the last decision and usually simply stare at an empty Province pile (or a Province pile that contains just 1 Province, because the last decision was to buy that Province and with only one buy that ended the turn/game). Similiarly would be a 3 pile ending, which would manifest as 3 emtpy piles or 2 empty piles and one pile with 1 card remaining.

If it *wasn't* you who made that last decision, then that player's part is taken over by the bot, and that will normally result in the play that ends the game (buy Province) and so the reloaded game is over before you can do anything. The thing to do in that case is to substitute for that player (ending the game) in the reload. To do so, press "Player Order" in the screen after you have added the correct number of bots to the game. This allows you to specify (by moving the players of the reloaded game around) which player substiutes for which original player.

b)
There is no way to know which decision corresponds to the beginning of any turn. What I usually do is to load the game as in a) at the end, then request a 'general undo' by typing "/undo" in the chat window. This will put small decision points before each entry in the log. If you click on any such point, it will undo to (before) that decision. Just use the first decision on your turn 8, and you are ready to go.

Since you want to play as a particular player, it might be that the method in a) might lead to the game ending as soon as it is loaded. Since you can't change the player you substitute for, I then go backwards from the ending decision, usually in steps of 10. So if the game had 247 decisions, I try 237, 227, a.s.o. After 1 or 2 of those I usually arrive at a point near the end of the game where I get to make a decision and can then do the undo.

c) Just use the same method as described in b).

d) I don't think so. This feature was (I think) more intended to do diagnositics for finding problems than players actually (re-)starting a game at the start or somewhere in between.

[santamonica811]

Very helpful/useful response.  Much thanks.  :-)