(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/3/36/Smithy.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Smithy) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/e/e0/Council_Room.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Council Room) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/2/29/Highway.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Highway) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/3/36/Trading_Post.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Trading Post) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/e/ef/Venture.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Venture)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c8/Vineyard.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Vineyard) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/2/2f/Beggar.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Beggar) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/7/71/Menagerie.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Menagerie) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/5/5a/Village.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Village) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c1/Herald.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Herald)
Vineyard, Beggar, Menagerie, Village, Herald, Smithy, Council Room, Highway, Trading Post, Venture
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20141014/log.516d2718e4b082c74d7b0fd3.1413321218191.txt
I can't ever remember actually opening Village/Smithy in a game of Dominion which is why I wanted to post this game. I'll highlight the key reasons for why I chose to open in this manner.
1.) I don't want any extra treasure - With Highway for cost reduction and Council Room for +Buy I want to work my way up to multi-Province turns. This won't happen if my deck can't be drawn in its entirety
2.) Cycling is really important - I think this is one of the most underlooked at aspects of high-level Dominion play. Being able to cycle through your deck quickly to get to newly bought cards faster than your opponent is crucial in a large number of games. Opening Village/Smithy allows for a net +4 Cards in cycling.
3.) Necropolis is present - The presence of the extra +2 Action card significantly reduces the rick of playing Smithy and drawing Village dead.
4.) Trading Post trashing is essential - You absolutely need to get to $5 to start swapping out Coppers for Silver. Assuming Smithy doesn't draw Village dead the only way you miss $5 is if all 3 Shelters are in the hand that you play Smithy. The increase in cycling from Opening Village/Smithy instead of Smithy/Silver is well worth the risk of missing $5.
Despite my opponent getting a 5/2 start, opening Trading Post, trashing OE/H to yield another $5 my decks slightly greater reliability and cycling strikes the Provinces first and is able to maintain the lead by ensuring that the game ends on my turn.
As an aside, Vineyards are also present in this game. In most cases going for Vineyards would be essential. However in this game this is not the case. To get Vineyards you need to buy Potion and then use a Buy on Vineyards which is a buy that can't be used obtaining more actions. To make Vineyards equal to Province you need 18 action cards. In our game both of us ended with 10-11 action cards in our decks. In order to get more Actions you need buys. The only +Buy comes in the form of Council Room which will allow your opponent to not stall on emptying Provinces on their own. With the Highway cost reduction buying Provinces en mass is not an issue when compared to emptying them when they cost $8.