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[Rabid]

I though I would post this log from this very close wharf game.
Comments or discussion on our play are welcomed.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/08/game-20120908-043756-895e80d7.html
Festival, Inn, Lighthouse, Mining Village, Monument, Mountebank, Native Village, Oracle, Watchtower, and Wharf

I can see several ways to play this board:
Wharf + Money
Wharf + villages
Wharf + villages + monument
Wharf + villages + Mountbank
With added lighthouse (either before or after opponent goes mountbank)
Watchtower + festival + villages + monuments

With any of the engines you also have to decide on single or double Provence.
And when to trash Mining villages can be tricky. (I drew mine dead on T16)
Also in wharf mirror matches watching the 3 pile ending is important as you both have lots of +buy.

I open Monument / Lighthouse against Oracle / Silver
In hindsight I think Monument silver would have been better, I missed that you can buy lighthouse with the + buy from wharf. Making it easier than normal to add lighthouse after they waste (?) a buy on the attack card.

On my Turn 9 with $11, I buy wharf + MV+ NV, I think this should have been either Prov + silver or Wharf + gold.

I go for single buy prov on turns, 11, 13, 14, 17
Stef goes for double buying prov+ prov on 14, 15 buying Prov + duchy + MV, 18 double duchy, 19 prov.
Careful counting on turn 18 by stef can take a draw with prov + duchy, but takes double duchy (no estate) if he buys the estate I win with 2 estates on my turn 19, then Stef wins by 1 on turn 19.

[DG]

I think monument is a weaker opening here than silver. The deck is going to take a mountebank and wharves, so the monument is likely to clash, and the loss of spending could be important in deck with rapid acceleration. On turn 5 you're already buying a festival when it should really be a wharf, just to solve your monument problem, but turn 6 rescues you with another 5 coin hand.

[Rabid]

Good point thanks, I was thinking the 4VP tokens helped, and that monument never clashed, but missed the effect it was having on my other buys.

[Young Nick]

I think monument is a weaker opening here than silver. The deck is going to take a mountebank and wharves, so the monument is likely to clash, and the loss of spending could be important in deck with rapid acceleration. On turn 5 you're already buying a festival when it should really be a wharf, just to solve your monument problem, but turn 6 rescues you with another 5 coin hand.

Nah, it's just too easy to defend with Lighthouse. Pick up 3 of them, only playing one a turn and you're all but guaranteed total safety. I am curious about the Wharf-less engine, though.

[clb]

It seems to me that for a Festival + "Draw to X" engine to work, you need a lot of Festivals. Having 3 of them won't allow you (without also having good trashing) to draw more than 2 or 3 cards on most turns. As appealing as that engine is for many engine builders, the large number of $5 cards needed to pull it off will make it slower than any of the Wharf strategies. I understand Wharf costs $5, too, but you can do a lot with 2 or 3 Wharves (or more with good village support), which is in contrast to what I expect you would see out of 2 or 3 Festivals, even with a number of Watchtowers.