Reply: Russian Railroads:: Rules:: Re: Engineer 9 (2 industry advancements) and Factory 3 (Re-do) question.

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tim3classik wrote:

We played the game yesterday and had a question on a situation.
Engineer 9 was on the board (2 industry advancements for 1 worker). A player used a worker to take the action, advancing the industry tracks 2 times and activating Factory #3, which lets him re-play an action with one worker. He wanted to activate Engineer 9 again (on the board) but had only 1 advancement left.

Can he decide to take part of the advancement? The question rose because we know you can't take part of the actions on the board. However, we had trouble deciding if the action was triggered by the board, or the factory.

We played that he could not activate his factory (had to forfeit his re-do) but I think we played it incorrectly.

TL;DR; you can activate the #3 and forfeit the 1 industry advancement.

Golden rule in the game: if it's a public action, you have to completely resolve it. If it's a private bonus, you can partially resolve it.

In your case, since engineer #9 was available as a public action, you have to be able to advance your industry twice. That's it. The #3 factory is activated by your action, sure, but the bonuses associated with it are your private bonuses. You can opt to copy engineer #9 again, but forfeit the bonus.

Alternative scenario: suppose both engineers #8 (copy an action) and #9 are available as public action in a 4-player game. If you first take engineer #9, then in order to take engineer #8 and copy your first action, you have to be able to resolve it again. Otherwise, you must copy another action or not use it at all.

Another scenario, suppose you use your private engineer #2 for 1 industry and 3 VP, but forfeit the 1 industry advancement. If you want to subsequently use the public engineer #8 to copy your engineer, you must be able to advance your industry, as it's a public action.