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[LuciferousPeridot]

I noticed in forum discussion and after a re-read of Geronimoo's classic article on the first set engine that a deck is only considered an engine if it draws all your cards. Is this the general definition?

I'm slowly getting better (by ranking at least), but I have detected a reluctance in my play to build up the cards to draw my entire deck and play long chains. I think that reluctance in some part comes from playing in RL regularly and not being entirely comfortable taking very long turns.

Deck thinning plus a village/smithy engine I feel comfortable with, but more involved engines with large numbers of the same engine components I just don't seem to get. Recently I think my play improved because I forced myself to stop and think properly about the board before my first buy. But mid game when building something like an engine I slip back to bad habits and find myself making hopeful buys rather than calculated buys.

When building an engine do you work how many of each component you will buy before the game starts? Is it just a matter of self control and a plan or do you work things out as the game progresses?

Thanks for any advice!

[soulnet]

I noticed in forum discussion and after a re-read of Geronimoo's classic article on the first set engine that a deck is only considered an engine if it draws all your cards. Is this the general definition?

I would say that any deck that is built to try to play several Actions every turn is an engine deck. Drawing your entire deck is a possibility, but definitely not the only one. You can see this, for instance:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/01/23/the-five-fundamental-deck-types-the-engine/

(I recommend the full five article series)

[Mic Qsenoch]

When building an engine do you work how many of each component you will buy before the game starts? Is it just a matter of self control and a plan or do you work things out as the game progresses?

I do not make exact plans like this before the game starts, and I would encourage you not to. The main reason is that the shuffles and your opponent are unpredictable. You must adapt your strategy to the cards you draw every turn, as well as how your opponent is doing (their shuffles and decisions). Sometimes the shuffles let you do better than you would have reasonably planned for, and sometimes they force you to make compromises from your plan.

However, there are engines where you can know with high confidence what your deck will be capable of each turn. This usually happens in the middle or latter parts of a game. If you reach that point, now is a good time to start planning ahead, maybe several turns in advance. What do I want my deck to be capable of two turns from now? What pieces do I need to gain to reach $16 and two buys? I kind of suck at this, because I find it a little boring, but this is exactly the kind of play that makes Stef clearly better than everyone else (at least, I believe this is a big factor).

Thinking ahead in these situations should include thinking about how/when the game will end: start watching piles and figure out the score if you don't know it already. What can you do to end the game with more points than your opponent?

The other general case where you can make plans on exact numbers of pieces is when your opponent isn't contesting you for a card. If you have unrestricted access to all 10 cards, it is sometimes worth it to figure out how many you want to buy. But this also depends on how the game is progressing, and you can't know these things before the game starts.

[dondon151]

In some cases you can probably figure out ahead of time at least how many of a certain card you need, but nothing that you determine ahead of time is something that you can commit 100% to.

[DG]

Number of components, well it depends on the type of cards you are using. If a card like laboratory is important then you just want to buy a lot of them, probably more than your opponent. Terminal actions still need to be accounted for even if you have a lot of villages so it is a good idea to know how many you want of each terminal and a sequence in which you'll buy them. If there are multiple useful cards at the same price then it is again a good idea to know the sequence in which you'll buy them, and that sequence implies a count - for instance you could plan to buy apprentice, wharf, wharf, many stables.

[AHoppy]

I think what everyone is trying to say is you need to figure out which cards you think are going to build your engine.  What you need to draw, what card you will use for attack, and what card you will use to generate money, etc.  Then, a lot of it is feel.  If your torturers keep colliding, you know you need to pick up another village.  If you are constantly short on money, grab another Gold/conspirator/harvest (ok, Harvest and gold probably aren't good engine examples of money generation, but it's what I can think of right now).  If you're getting cursed/ruined really hard, pick up a trasher.  At the beginning of the game you should know what cards you are probably going to buy (and what you might buy to counter what your opponent is buying) but you don't need a turn by turn layout of your buys. 

[KingZog3]

Personally I always try to make a complete plan of what I'm going to do. That doesn't mean I stick to it, bcause you really do have to adapt to your shuffles.