I don't think you played like a n00b... your potion missed the first shuffle so you were probably doomed from the get-go.
I have noticed this problem with having treasure as a payload for a university deck before - for university, which
1) is super-slow and
2) takes up a card spot in hand, to work,
the deck needs to have a high frequency of draw cards, and silver just breaks this (the potion is already really hurting things).
to me the key card for deciding to go the engine strategy on this board, weirdly enough, is outpost. without outpost i think this board is too weak for university -- catacombs is great, but it's probably better just to buy it and play big money, as the time investment for gaining them via universities is too great and the hands where you draw university without catacombs are awful in the ltae game.
although Lespeutere is getting his 4 provinces really fast, so perhaps that's wrong too.