This is a severe issue that fundamentally alters the strategy of the game. It is not aligned with the rules of the game.

I can't believe i'm the first person to give it a thumb. Clearly this bug report system is not ideal, especially since the developers only pay attention to multi-thumbed reports.

This a give and take between programming application and game strategic decision.

Not a true bug i think.

Not sure I would even want this 'bug' to be solved for turn based gamed. It'll slow down the game, having to take an 'additional' turn every time something has to be payed. Also, it means the game has to check for legal payments before paying, which I think it now doesn't do.
I do agree that the rules say that it should be done like this, but I'm not sure it will improve the digital version of the game.

Personally, I don't want this to be solved.
Because it would slow down things and because it would bring a whole new lot of potential timing issues like we already have with takeovers. (For instance, you shouldn't be allowed to use "Golden age of Terraforming" power to pay for itself. Nor play a green halo world and use its card on "Golden age of Terraforming" to pay for it. Or should you ? )

I am also fine with not solving this bug as it would slow the game down. But that's just my personal opinion. If it is solved though, perhaps it could just be programmed in as an option. Fixing this bug would definitely add another strategic element to the game though, and would align with the actual rules, so I'm not opposed at all to fixing the bug if there is a desire. It just would make for a longer game.

I agree, it would slow the game down. If implemented please do it as an option.

I think playing online is much faster than IRL anyway. This is game rule so it should be fixed.

I see this both ways. Most of the time it doesn't matter; but sometimes it matters a LOT.

I have a potential solution for this for your consideration galehar -- it involves giving people the option to force a check, with the default option being as it is right now.

Taking inspiration from both Res Arcana's "Wait for previous player's collect" option and Welcome To's "Confirm (x)" prompts I think the following could be a workable middle-ground.

Firstly, before I say anything else the intent is that none of the existing logic gets thrown out.
What I'm thinking is the player selects what they want to make which invokes a call to server and the next phase regardless. They're then asked to say how they want to pay for it, this gets sent to server and validated... up until now this is how it's working right now.

So at this point the server knows what card is being played and can reveal to others AND knows the player can afford to buy it because they already submitted valid payment 'plan'.

The player then gets a prompt similar to Welcome To's countdown where no response in 10s is automatically finishing their turn/accepting what they've done as to not stall the game.

In this case it's however asking "Would you like to see what opponents have played, before using these cards to pay" with the options "[Commit to this payment (x)] [Wait to see] [Cancel]" -- the "(x)" in the option is a 10 second countdown, and if the other options is not clicked they commit to using their payment 'plan' to pay for their item. Giving them a clear "Cancel" option means the first time they see this or in a situation it may matter they're not required to decide in 10s when it could take longer to work out the implications.

If they DO click the other option that's where additional gamestate logic is needed to reveal all played cards to all players; and those that chose "Commit to this payment" go through as normal; those that chose "Wait to see" have to then select either the same, or a new combination of valid payment for the card they just played.

Perhaps the game remembers their planned payment and asks "How would you like to pay for %item%? [Pay using the cards previously selected] [Select alternative payment]" (The previously selected cards are rendered below similar to explore result, or have the big 'X' over them)

From a design POV and notwithstanding bugs we know they can't be in a state where a card was revealed and they can't pay for it because they were required to submit a valid payment for it, and that went through the existing logic to validate that works to pay. The game doesn't get slowed down where people don't opt to take additional turns; and it could possibly be controlled by a user-level preference if they even want to be asked this.
I can imagine other opportunities for bugs however, such as when the payment isn't just cards -- e.g. using New Military Tactics -- in the case where it was used in the first case that needs to be rolled back until they commit to it.

In the case of Arena and Tournament those that use this a lot will have more turns come up, thus more waiting time, and a higher likelihood of default loss on timeout in the event they overuse it.

Hopefully this helps as a potential solution to this, or at least inspiration for a way to make this happen!

If doing this can you make it easier to see other players tableau's on your screen? Any more than a 2p game I can't see what they're up to without excessive amounts of scrolling, especially when selecting cards etc pushes everything even further down the screen. On a widescreen i tend to have a lot of blank real estate that could be put to better use.