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[Ozle]

When isa it quicker to use University to gain cards rather than going for the silvers instead and buying them direct?

For example:
Fairly straight forward that it will be quicker to one $5 card by going Silver/silver over potion/silver
But what about two?
Or 3? (maybe 2 $5 and a Village to play them?)

[Galzria]

To be fair, doesn't that vary QUITE vastly on the 5 coin cards that you're purchasing? Terminal draw 5's (Say Embassy or or Margrave) would probably be better for Silver/Silver - So that there is no worry about drawing your University dead (And in Margrave's case, provide a +Buy to boot).

So I'm not really sure quite where to go with this one.

[Ozle]

Im assuming terminal 5's. But happy with broad examples!

Its just when there is a university on the board I can never decide if it will work or not. For example, just played a game and decided to go with Conspirator engine with Bazaars and a few others and I realised after a few turns that the Uni would have been better, but wanted to make sure I got enough Cons.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Well in very general terms, if you want a couple of big actions and then green, take the Silvers. If you want to spam a deck full of actions for a mega turn or some other reason, get the Universities.

[DG]

This is just the old question about card gaining. Hasn't changed since the workshop. Can you make use of two cheaper cards or do you want to buy golds? To really make the card gainers worth while you need to use a number of them in a turn or get big spending plus the card gains.

[Galzria]

Strictly speaking, I would have to imagine:

CCCSE - Turn 3
CCCSE - Turn 4
CE (reshuffle) XXX

You COULD have a 5 card every turn after 2.
You COULD also have none until  7.

CCCCE - Turn 3
CCSEE - Turn 4
CS (reshuffle) CEE - Turn 5
CCCCE - Turn 6
CSSS (reshuffle) X

With University, at worst, you draw your silver and potion (with 3 coppers) on turn 5.
At best, you get it turn 3, play it and gain another turn 5.

I'm not sure there is a GREAT answer to this. It's judgment based, and up to you if your deck wants / needs vanishing villages.

[jomini]

There are far too many numbers to run here. University, like all card gainers will increase the rate at which you acquire cards at the expense of how soon you get them. However, unlike other card gainers, university is itself an engine component. So a deck of university/margrave can be better than straight margrave/cash. Even if we limit ourselves to non-terminal draw cards, the actions on university are nothing to sneeze at; being able to run university/menage/mandarin is quite good at both hitting 8 and cycling.

Likewise, the opportunity cost of potion is extremely variable. Afterall, if you miss the university you have essentially bought an estate if university is the only potion card out; this can be extremely bad if you have no good 2s out. On the flip side, having strong cards like apothecary or even weak, but useful ones (like transmute) can reduce the opportunity cost. Having a trash for benefit can also come into play as something like apprentice or upgrade can use a late game potion.

Other cards can get you similar, or superior effects. Going for border village will get you the actions and a strong 5 card without limiting you like a potion buy. Haggler can juice a deck extremely well (of course haggler/university can also be strong for buy a province - gain 3 plats) and often build engine density faster than university. Even simple things like scheme and throne room can decrease the usefulness of detouring to university.

So all in all, you can only "run the numbers" on an extremely limited set of circumstances.

[eHalcyon]

Likewise, the opportunity cost of potion is extremely variable. Afterall, if you miss the university you have essentially bought an estate if university is the only potion card out; this can be extremely bad if you have no good 2s out. On the flip side, having strong cards like apothecary or even weak, but useful ones (like transmute) can reduce the opportunity cost. Having a trash for benefit can also come into play as something like apprentice or upgrade can use a late game potion.

Not sure what you mean by this?  University costs $2p, so if you miss the university then you don't even have enough to buy a good $2 card -- your hand would have to be EEEPC.

of course haggler/university can also be strong for buy a province - gain 3 plats

You mean Colony, right?  And for Haggler/University, do you mean using University to gain multiple Hagglers and using the actions from University to play them all?  Without strong card draw, University+Haggler probably won't be able to come up with enough coin to reach Colony.  You would need 2 Universities to play 3 Hagglers (to gain 3 plats), and that's your whole hand already.

[blueblimp]

This seems like too subtle a question to give hard numbers, but here's the rules of thumb I use, anyway. At minimum you are going to need powerful draw to cycle your deck (something like +3 cards or draw-up-to if you have some trashing/discarding available). Otherwise, the number of times you're even going to get to play that university is going to be small, and then you won't see its product for a while too. (It's the same problem Hoard can have: the speed at which the produced cards enter your deck can be very slow.)

That said, merely having powerful draw is not enough, because as a village, university is bad. Since it only gives +2 actions, it's effectively a Shanty Town that never draws. So I would only consider it if either there are better villages available or if the board is appropriate for a solid draw-up-to engine. (Maybe Torturer is an exception here if there's no way to mitigate its attack.) Well, or if there's enough trashing and the board is super good for engines (e.g. Ambassador). But don't try to play University/Smithy.

Finally, as with all engines, there needs to be some pay-off for building the engine. That means you will probably want +buy and/or a chainable attack like Torturer or Rabble.

[jotheonah]

University/Library is good when it gets going. University/Conspirator I imagine wouldn't be bad.

[jomini]

Sorry, misrecalled the cost of university. The opportunity cost of the potion is still variable though, missing 2P is a dead turn without P cards (vineyard and transmute). Having the option to grab a transmute (which sucks alone, but can be better than nothing) mitigates this damage; vineyard/university, of course, is an excellent combo in its own right.

Yes, that should be colonies and getting plats. Getting to colonies with multiple hagglers/universities requires draw, but you have a good number of options, library in particular shines quite well at it. As BB said, you need either good draw or strong trashing, but there are enough boards out there with either that going straight haggler isn't necessarily better than engine building.