Because you aren't getting a Gold via trashing Squire. You are going through a process that takes a really long time. Probably longer than it takes Transmute to get a Gold.
Not at all. Transmute requires you to:
1. Buy Potion.
2. Use a buy (early) on a 0P card.
3. Save a green.
4. Collide a green/Transmute
5. Use an action.
It slows you down in multiple ways. Squire, unlike Potion, is not a dead card. At worst it is a copper. This makes a big difference when you are going to engines, but unlike Transmute if you don't collide it, you still are pretty close to hitting $5. With Transmute you are carrying around
three dead cards (potion, transmute, estate) waiting for the collision, with Squire you are carrying
one at most. Transmute requires you use a $4 buy - something you virtually never see on a junk I-just-trashed-two-cards hand while Squire is just $2.
So I need a strong trasher, Upgrade/Remake/Remodel, Squire, a $5 attack to what? Get a Gold? at the earliest you get to use this Gold by your third shuffle. And that assumes you open Squire+trasher, collide the two turn 3 or 4, then collide the attack card the next shuffle. And if you open chapel, my guess is that there is a better source of money on the board than Gold. Something like Bridge or Conspirator or something. Even if there's Grand Market, my guess is it's faster to just thin your deck and buy the GM's with $. Keep you attack cards you buy, keep the squires to gain silver and for actions, now you have more components in less time because you spent your time using your trashers to thin as opposed to gaining Gold.
Okay Upgrade Chapel going for GM:
T3/T4: Most likely hands are something like CCCEChap/CCEEUpgradeC/C. We trash CCCEE, gain a Silver, buy a Silver.
Now our deck is C/CCCESSChapUpgrade
T5: CCCSChap - Trash CCC.
T6: EUpgradeSSChapC - Trash E -> S, trash C
T7: SSSUpgradeChap - Trash Chap (gain Silver) buy Gm.
T8: SSSSGmUpgrade - Buy Gm
T9: SSSSGmGmUpgrade - Buy Gm x2.
T10: SSSSGmGmGmGmUpgrade - buy Gm x2
Note The Upgrade was never "wasted" on a copper it always hit a leftover estate, the Chap never collided with the Upgrade and this gets us to a T6 Gm.
Now with Squire:
T3/T4: CCCEChap/CCEEUpgradeC/C. Trash CCCCE, buy Sqr. Deck: CCCEESqrUpgradeChap
T5: CCESqrChap- Trash CCESqr. Gain Sab
T6: UpgradeCESabChap: Upgrade (Sab -> Gm), trash CE
T7: UpgradeGmChap: Upgrade (Chap -> S) -> Gm buy Sqr x2.
T8: SqrSqrGmUpgradeS: Upgrade (Sqr -> S/Sab) -> Gm -> Sqr (gain S): Buy Gm.
T9: SqrSSUpgradeGmGmSab: Gm -> Gm -> Upgrade (Sab -> Gm) -> Sqr (gain S): buy Gm.
T10: SqrSSUpgradeGmGmGmGm: Gm x4 -> Upgrade Sqr (S/Sab): buy Gm x2.
Sqr gets its first Gm a turn earlier and ends on T10 with the same number of silvers plus a Sab that can either be played or turned into a freebie gold. And I gave both sets as close to the same shuffle luck on T5/6. Alternatively, Sqr has the option of skipping silver entirely and having far fewer stop cards at the expense of pounding Gm a turn or two slower. Upgrade/Chap/Sqr is just as fast as going for the money direct. Squire's silver gaining coupled with its cheap price and bonus gain on TfB lets you make up a slow T6/T7 with strong T8/T9. Now sure, if there is some better source of action-cash, then go for that ... but if the action cash costs $5 or $6 and your ultimate deck doesn't want silver, then Sqr can well be faster and better.
I've played I don't know, 3000 games combining IRL and goko. Dark Ages was my very first expansion too. I have never, ever seen squire trashing to gain attack cards to then upgrade them as anything but a cute trick you can do once in a while under specific circumstances.
Wonderful, and we care why again? 95% + of my Goko games don't require me to play in top form to win, IRL is higher with my wife and gaming friends, but you just don't need to play that well in the bulk of your games. The point is, shuffle luck sometimes hands you bad odds. You open Chapel/Upgrade and draw ChapEEEC on your first hand. Do you not get rid of the Chapels? Do you buy a Silver on 5C/Upgrade the next turn? Do you then save a copper on ChapCCCC the following turn? Squire is a tactical trick to remember when playing on boards where draw slots are less valuable (either through heavy trashing or easy drawing) than value gain.
Another easy example is something like Butcher/Scrying Pool. Will I mass Butcher coppers & estates to Squire? Yes. Will I, once I have a reliable draw deck with the Pools butcher a couple of Squires into Sabs and then Butcher those into Provinces? Yes. Particularly if there aren't other good +$ actions, I will take a turn delay over trying to fit gold into a Pool engine. Will I go engine with Butcher/Pool/Squire without an attack out at all? Sure, but if I'm deciding between two options of close value, the possibilities of even a crappy attack are worth recalling.
Exactly, it's a tactical trick. It happens, but really it's just so slow to turn you Squire into Golds. Transmute is bad, this is worse for Gold gaining.
No on your life. Transmute is massively slower. T3/4 to buy. T5/6/7 to get the gold. And it sucks down one of your better opening hands - a $4. It actively anti-synergizes with anything else that wants to preferentially trash estates (Salvager, Upgrade, Butcher, etc.) and is actively hurt by stronger trashing.
Squire shares none of that. At
worst you carrying around one dead attack you are afraid to play. The better your trashing is, the easier it is to line up Tfb (Sqr -> Stuff); stuff -> better stuff. It works well with Salvager and Remake and you can even pick it up off of $2 hands (e.g. CCCCSteward).
If I'm deciding between something like Sqr engine/strong trashing and slog/Sqr I'm certainly going to see what options I have with attacks and TfB. In a close matchup between spamming Silver with Squire (or say Squire + B-crat), I can be swayed towards engine if there is a strong attack (e.g. Rabble) or a strong setup for leveraging a weak $5 attack (e.g. Butchering Sabs into provinces).
That's why when I hit $7 early, I still buy the component. It does way more good than the gold. Like, way more. And if it's an attack, chances are you want to play it, not turn it into a gold. Buy the component, play the attack, Gold always comes later in an engine. Or even when there are even mildly strong attack cards.
So why not get the Sqr/Component mix instead? Why not, if you then no longer need the Squire, but do need $, turn the Squire into a Gold?
Squire/scaling TfB/crappy $5 attack is a push towards going engine. If you do get $7/$3 instead of $5/$5 you can use Component/Squire to become Component/Gold rather than having just Component/Silver or Gold/Silver (or with a more flexible TfB, like Butcher, you can turn it into Component/Component).
On a fifth or Squire boards there may be attack cards worth gaining. But really, with trashing already at hand you won't need to trash Squires to get the $5 cards. It's those Estates taht stop you early on, and if you trash them you're fine. So use the Upgrade to turn the Estate into a Silver, keep the Squire for your engine and buy the attack card. I think the key word here is "somewhat." Just buying the cards is already "mostly" viable, so a somewhat vialbe trick that requires luck in essentially useless. Never mind the whole thing about not trimming you deck when you use your trashing ability to trash the Squire.
Depends on what I want to do. Take Remake, I can't buy actual value on a hand of RemakeEECC. So I can go E->S x2, buy Sqr. Sqr is no worse than a copper and with Remake having just punching two of three E -> S, I'm really unlikely to draw CCCESqr. However going Sqr -> attack is quite likely. Sqr here is literally competing against
buy nothing on the inevitable $2 hands Remake gives you regularly. Buying able to get
something out of those $2 is pretty good. And again even as a crappy Necropolis, Squire is not bad on these types of boards.
Regarding the deck thinning thing, eh not if the attack has draw. I have a hand of SquireRemakeSCC. Okay what are my options? Well I could:
1. Skip the Remake and gain a silver/buy a Margrave.
2. Skip the Remake and buy Margrave.
3. Remake CC
4. Remake CC buy a Sqr
5. Remake CC buy a S
6. Remake SqrC buy Sqr, gain Margrave, gain Silver.
7. Remake SqrC, gain Margrave/Silver, buy Silver
Option 1 nets me -1 cards, -1 a, and +$2 effectively.
Option 2 nets me -2 cards, -1 a, and +$0
Option 3 nets me -2 cards, +0 a, and -$2
Option 4 nets me -1 cards, +1 a, and -$1
Option 5 nets me -1 cards, +0 a, and +$0
Option 6 nets me -2 cards, +0 a, and +$1
Option 7 nets me -2 cards, -1 a, and +$2
For + 3 card attacks, almost invariably the move that makes your ability to draw deck go up the fastest is to kill the estates and then to preferentially turn Sqr into attacks and buy more Sqrs rather than just dumping coppers. Yeah luck can change if this actually works, but on balance I'm going to spend most of my plays on option 4 (if I'm deficient on action balance) and option 6 (if I'm about where I want to be on balance or expect to get there before the shuffle) with a few shots of option 7 nearing game end when I'm looking at getting $16 in deck total vs just $15 (or similar breakpoints). Your expected time between shuffles is the same if you burn two cards or you had (net) 2 draw. If I have something more useful than silver at $3 (like a village or maybe even Great Hall), then trashing the Squire, gaining a cantrip, gaining the Attack and buying a replacement Squire makes deck effectively
thinner than just junking the copper (we'd have an option 8 of -3 cards, +0 actions, and -$2 which is obviously better than just trashing CC - option 3).
And while something like Remake is good here, even stuff like Steward or Chapel can make Squire stronger this way. I open Chapel/Silver. I hit ChapelSilverCCC, well that sucks - no attack for me and I have all those crappy estates ... but I get the Squire while tossing coppers. I then have the
option of making a SCCSqrChap hand later into Sqr/Attack - and net trashing 2C or trashing 2C and buying Sqr or S.
Margrave, Torturer, and especially Rabble all make a strong case for killing the Squire - they very often make your deck effectively smaller than just trashing a C instead. Minion and Scrying Pool are special cases, but can make it massively better to trash the Squire than the coppers and just buy your way to $5. Cultist, Gship, and the odd Knight are less persuasive, but they can be the right move if you have a good $3.
About a fifth of boards with Squire are ones where the on-trash is something to consider. If Squire/trashing/attack is already a no-brainer, then we are talking about tactical play. What is the best way to gain the attacks. I found that be non-obvious. Is it better to open Potion/Silver or Trasher/Squire on a Pool board? Not an easy call. If I'm got some other potion, like Apothecary, that goes towards getting Pools with a Potion even if I have to delay trasher purchase. If I have a strong enough setup, I may just forget potion entirely (e.g. Remake/Scheme/Goons/Pool is a 0 potion game where I spam Squires and remake them into Schemes/Goons after I get the first Pool off my Squires). Likewise, if I come down to end game, what is a better shot with a spare $3 bucks if I need to dip into the duchies? Going for Silver for more buying power? Getting an estate for tie breaking if I make even on duchies & provinces? Or grabbing an extra Squire so I can trash it to a $5, draw the attack, and then trash it into a duchy?