Thanks to everyone for the enthusiastic replies. I'm glad so many people liked this format and learned something because of it.
Those responses will get me to write up an episode #2 someday for sure.
And... I learned something myself too. I seem to have picked a kingdom where it's really hard to decide whether to go engine or BigMoney. That itself was a very good thing. In fact, my own opinion has shifted from leaning towards BigMoney to engine after reading these responses (sorry WW
), but still only by a very small margin. Fortunately the conclusion isn't near as important as the argumentation in the learning process. I guess I was a bit overcompensating for my natural desire to go engine every board.
And even though I may want to play engine on this board the next time I see it, I'd still advice 99% of the players not to, including myself it wasn't for the extensive analysis of the past days. It's very easy to slightly misplay this engine, and as soon as you do you set yourself up to be three-piled. Also I think some players testing this set single-player and finding significantly better results for the engine may have underestimated the danger / impossibility of running piles low. Getting too many Ironworks, buying even a single Province, not balancing the villages-courtyards out, getting the first Mine too late, going overenthusiastic about the schemes... so many ways to get it wrong. Playing BigMoney-X near-optimal the first time you see it is much more doable.
Finally, Robz, I'm sorry reading your response. I didn't want to embarrass you at all, and I hope it makes you feel a bit better if I say this happens a lot to me. My opponent starts out with a money-plan, which is somewhere between good and great. Then he sees me building an engine, switches and loses for sure in stead of taking his chance with the money. Without really realizing it, that's probably one of the reasons I tend to over-value engines.
Ah. And I learned how to spell Academy
. Weird that I got that one wrong, because it's "Academie" in Dutch, same e.