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[Polk5440]

Cards in supply: Border Village, Caravan, Chancellor, Coppersmith, Develop, Farmland, Laboratory, Moneylender, Noble Brigand, and Smithy

Here's the log.

Caravan, Laboratory, Border Village, and Smithy make great engine components and my opponent goes for this using Develop and Moneylender to get there.

My thinking is this: I want to build a NB-proof almost-engine with Coppersmith providing the money. I use the same components -- Caravan, Laboratory, Border Village, and Smithy -- but the goal is not to get to $8 but to $6 consistently and use Farmland to both get Provinces and engine components (Caravans from Estates).

I think it was close. I stalled out with one Province to go. Is this a viable strategy that can beat the traditional engine consistently? Can I improve my play of it? For instance, turn 7 I passed up a Province for a BV & Smithy with $10 under the assumption I needed to build before greening more, but I regretted it later. I also struggled with when to switch from BV-x to Farmland and whether I should have picked up a Noble Brigand.

What do you think?

[zahlman]

If you are getting to $6 consistently and also getting Farmland in hand consistently, you could be getting to $8 consistently if the Farmlands were Silvers. At $6, they could be Golds, but then, they're also worth 2VP - so you're basically using Farmland like Harem here (which is probably a common use for them). You have extra flexibility in that you can remodel bad cards, but reduced flexibility in that you have to use $2 of "deck improvement power" on a remodel instead of a purchase. Not to mention, taking Farmland comes at the opportunity cost of, say, BV + Smithy.

But really, I don't think NB is enough of a threat to make you not want to take Gold and Silver here, because you're going to be insulating your treasures with lots of engine components. Or at least, if your plan is to draw a lot of cards and have extra actions to play Coppersmith, then $8 seems like a totally viable target. Not to mention, nobody ended up grabbing NB anyway. If you thought that "being NB-proof" was important, and you saw your opponent trashing Copper to Moneylender and going for Gold and Silver - why not buy NB yourself? (I think it's because you subconsciously agree that it wasn't important )

[eHalcyon]

Skimmed the log and didn't see anyone play with the BV-Farmland interaction.  Farmland that BV into a Province.