Me and three friends have picked up Dominion and several of the expansions and we love it.
Congrats! which sets do you have? Hard to suggest sets of 10 cards without knowing which ones you have!
Had played about 10 games before I started playing what is called Big Money. Seemed too easy to me that that was the best strategy for a game that won the Spiel des Jahres.
Indeed. (Did you figure out BM+X, big money plus something else? or just pure silver-gold-province? I assume the former.)
So I came here to see what I was missing... oh boy. I should have known I was in trouble when I saw that you all have simulated probabilities for beginning turns. 
Welcome!
I have read through some of your articles and thoughts and would like to share the idea of streamlined engines and strategies etc with my friends. I realize the core set is always a good starting point, but can anyone recommend a basic 10 Action cards that we can start with that have the various strategies well represented so we can begin to learn how to really play this game and build good decks? For example, randomizing is more fun, but to learn, I do not want to start with 10 that all do the same thing. Like all are +cards or +actions or are all minion based, etc. Any ideas on perfect a 'training' starting 10 would be appreciated, and why would also help.
I, personally, disagree with what you're looking for. The 'training' 10 shouldn't have lots of things represented - that leads to a situation where you can make a mistake by playing a sub-optimal strategy and miss that it's better than BM+X because it's worse than something else around, or you can mistakenly think you've hit on a good strategy because somebody else is playing something that seems better than BM but isn't. And so on and so forth - complexity and multiple options is good as a test of how well you've learned, but not necessarily as a method for learning. You should build up complexity gradually.
I'd say that it's better to have multiple sets of 10 - each which highlights one aspect or one strategy. You learn that one strategy, compare it to BM, and then file it away and see whether you can see it in random sets.
For example, one whole class of strategies which beat BM badly are rush strategies - where you aim to buy some cheap VP card (not provinces) and end the game fast by three-piling. The board which has like ALL the possible enablers for that is:
Gardens, Silk Road, Crossroads, Ironworks, Workshop, Bureaucrat, Trader, Woodcutter, Duchess, Ill-gotten Gains.
IGG alone, or (Gardens OR silk road)+(Ironworks OR workshop OR bureaucrat OR trader OR woodcutter) make for the rush.
At one point, I taught my friend how to make engines; here's the googledoc with a few sets.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TRVImznfSm9ZqIaXK0zq0T6LkhxMmcnjnxCmGa2HysI It uses cards from the base set, Intrigue, and Seaside. It's also optimized for two-player, but you can adapt them.
If you have Prosperity, there's a few options for no-green-card-at-all engines with Goons and Bishop. Don't have one set to share.
Also, in reading articles and just basic understanding of probabilities, I understand that fewer cards are better, [/qubut what is a good ratio of Action to Treasure to VP? As your deck grows in Treasure and VP you need to add more actions right?
That completely depends on what strategy you go for!
For example, BM+X is really a quite viable strategy. In that, you typically want just a few actions, 1-3, and the rest treasure and VP; by the time you would want more actions in the deck, you really should only be buying VP. Fewer cards isn't necessarily better - it might not be worth the time to clear out the coppers.
There are some decks which want zero treasure AND zero green cards - for example, a big goons or bishop engine might want ONLY actions.
A more typical engine will want a little bit of treasure to get going, then buy mostly actions until you draw your whole deck and then add vp. There's no one right answer, though - it depends on the cards.
