Just because the number of engine-enabling cards goes up doesn't mean that engine playability follows suit. I think hope we can all agree that most engines require
1)Solid Trashing
2)Village
3)+draw
4) Payload (of some variety)
5) Gainers
Not a perfect or cumulative list (and I didn't post on the Engine-debating thread from a few weeks back because that's not something I feel qualified to give an opinion on), but I believe the 5 types from above are nearly almost always present on the boards where Engines clearly surpass BM. If a board is missing even one of those 5, the engine still might be the best option, but now the BM at least deserves a lot more consideration.
That's not really the case. You need payload and either +draw or any trashing at all (doesn't need to be solid necessarily). Splitters are only required if the draw or the payload requires them, and gainers are not required at all.
For instance, if you have Highway and Market Square and Trader in the kingdom, you can definitely play an engine by trashing your Coppers (but not the Estates) with your Trader.
I don't really want get into a big discussion about engines with you, considering you have more analysis and experience with your own personal definitions, but I'll give it a go.
First off, if we harken back to the days of old when there were only 5 classifications of a deck, I'd consider that to be more of the combo deck. Whenever I see Highway with Market Square/Market/Grand Market/Worker's Village, you'd better believe I'm going to try to find a way to make it work since that 2 card synergy makes for a fun and simple megaturn. However, if you want to insist that this is an engine, I'll try to break it down by the 5 standards I made up on the spur of the moment.
Trashing: Trader is far from a good trasher normally, I'd agree. But this scenario is a little different than a more common engine for a few reasons. First off, since it's your only terminal, you're never going to have a turn where you have collision and have to neglect playing a payload-esque terminal (like, say, a militia). Next, let's say you do trash one estate for the silvers (because you're going to need to get very lucky to hit 5 otherwise): that means you only need to play the trader 9 times total to guarantee you can draw your whole deck (Trash all but one copper, leaving yourself 4 total stop cards). And that's a guarantee draw - you'll be able to draw most if not all a few turns before then as well. And since your number of stop cards is continuously decreasing, you can play your Trader at an accelerating rate.
Villages: None here, clearly. But when you say "Spltters are only required if the draw or the payload requires them", you make it sound like the number of engines involving draw or payload requiring splitters is comparable to the number that don't require splitters. Which I don't buy at all. 9 engines out of 10, you're going to need at least a couple of splitters, since there just aren't that many great nonterminal payload or nonterminal draw. I'm not saying no engines can function without them - just that there are far more than can't than those that can.
Draw: Normally, I'd consider cantrips to not count as draw, since it doesn't actually increase your hand size. But since you'll be drawing most, if not all, of your deck before too long, I'd give this board half-credit.
Payload: Highway + buys is plenty payload.
Gainers: Market Square (Sorry if I hadn't made it clear before, but when I say gainers, I mean 'cards that enable you to gain more than 1 card a turn. Which includes +buy. And if you did figure out what I meant before and you still thought gainers are not necessary, then to say an engine can outpace BM when you're only gaining 1 card a turn, then that engine had better have good trashing and some very good payload other than +$, which in turn will probably need some +action and +card to enable it. Meaning that engine will very likely need to satisfy the other 4 categories).
So that totals .5 + 0 + .5 + 1 + 1 = 3
I might've been able to get away with rating trashing and draw higher too. But I don't consider a Highway/Market Square to be representative of the standard engine. Also, I stand by what I said before with
I believe the 5 types from above are nearly almost always present on the boards where Engines clearly surpass BM. If a board is missing even one of those 5, the engine still might be the best option, but now the BM at least deserves a lot more consideration.
Play the Highway/Market Square (or most engines with not all of the 5 components) against a sub level 40 player who will just play a standard Smithy-BM game. You'll clearly win but the final score will be a lot closer, you'll have to play much more accurately, and you won't have as much room for bad luck
Please don't think I'm an anti-engine person because of these posts. I'm not very good at playing engines myself, but I still think an engine-variation is the correct play 80,90% of the time. But I do have to say one last very controversial thing:
just because an engine is the CORRECT play doesn't mean it's the correct play FOR YOU. There are complicated engine boards where players in the top 10 or 20 so can make something out of what looks like nothing, but if you're ranked significantly below that and you try to follow, you're going to make mistakes (I can say from experience). That's a fact, right up there with death and taxes. And if you're not playing the engine perfectly on a board that requires a lot of thought and effort to make it work well at all, then a simple bm could give you an equal chance as your half-realized engine (Not that I'm saying you'll win. Play bm against a top-10 on an engine board, and it's a forgone conclusion). But as a mediocre player, for people around my skill level, if it's not obvious how long an engine will take to build or how powerful it has the potential to be, even after trying to use bm-draw as a benchmark, that should be an indicator that if you don't trust yourself in a competitive match to play it perfectly, at least give consideration to the bm.
So I have no math or research to back this claim up, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong here, but I believe engine capabilities have decreased with every new expansion and will continue to do so. Since the ShIT release with Empires, maybe it's because I don't fight as hard as most to find and play the engine, but I've played plenty of bm games.
Math to show that you are wrong: Effect is close to zero after 3-4 expansions. With your simplification that cards of each type have same effect one could generate board by first selecting types(as probablility of each stays constant) then select cards for each type. Board could be unrealizable because we don't have enough cards of one type in which case we try again. Probability change could be bound by prob of unrealizable board, if there are 5 cards of same type it requires to have 6 cards of one type in board which is unlikely.
I'm dumb and bad at math, so I need you to hold my hand and walk me through this to make sure I'm getting you correctly. First, let's say my simplification that cards of the same type do the same thing, and also that cards will only satisfy one type, is offset by that not all cards will even fit into an engine strategy at all (off the top of my head, Taxman, Prince, Counting House...there's three cards that will rarely see use in an engine). You're saying that deciding if an engine is playable is equivalent to first generating 10 types of cards (based on what I came up with for the need types), and checking to see if we did indeed get 5 different types in those 10. It's your last sentence that confuses me - getting 6 copies of one type isn't the only way that we can get a not-so-perfect engine. It could be a board with something like 3 of A, 2 of B, 2 of C, 3 of D, none of E. Probably still an engine, but again, now one that's much more comparable with a bm strategy.
You guys make my head hurt:(
That's 2 of us, believe me.
TL:DR
In my opinion*:
All of 5 of the card types - great, play an engine!
4: Play the engine if you're really good at Dominion. Otherwise, give some consideration, make sure you know what you're doing, think about every turn.
<=3,3.5 - Time to really think about that BM
*All with exceptions, such as Highway/Market Square. Also, plenty of weird cards like Procession and Remodel twist around what constitutes an engine in the first place.
Everybody, feel free to give me hell below!
