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[Davio]

ghost ships yourself (bad)

I don't agree with this one. Surely Taxman would be weaker if the gained treasure went to discard instead of on top of your deck? So the "ghost ship" effect here is a good thing, not a bad. (Unless you're counting the handsize reduction, but you already covered that with Cutpurse).

It depends. In the early game, you want to draw your newly gained Silver rather than one of your Estates or Coppers, but in the late game, you want to draw your engine components rather than the Treasure.

In the late late game when you're going mainly for green, it's great to dump a Duchy buying hand, possibly Cutpurse your opponent so he can't buy a Province/Duchy and buy a better VP card next turn.

In the late game, you should be able to draw your deck every turn, but the more green you add, the more likely it becomes that you'll draw a hand of Wharves and junk without Villages or vice versa. And the more Treasures you topdeck before your next turn, the more likely it is that your next turn will be one of those turns.

Please be aware that not every game offers mega-turn engines.

[Awaclus]

ghost ships yourself (bad)

I don't agree with this one. Surely Taxman would be weaker if the gained treasure went to discard instead of on top of your deck? So the "ghost ship" effect here is a good thing, not a bad. (Unless you're counting the handsize reduction, but you already covered that with Cutpurse).

It depends. In the early game, you want to draw your newly gained Silver rather than one of your Estates or Coppers, but in the late game, you want to draw your engine components rather than the Treasure.

In the late late game when you're going mainly for green, it's great to dump a Duchy buying hand, possibly Cutpurse your opponent so he can't buy a Province/Duchy and buy a better VP card next turn.

In the late game, you should be able to draw your deck every turn, but the more green you add, the more likely it becomes that you'll draw a hand of Wharves and junk without Villages or vice versa. And the more Treasures you topdeck before your next turn, the more likely it is that your next turn will be one of those turns.

Please be aware that not every game offers mega-turn engines.

No, but an engine is pretty much the only scenario where a Taxman can potentially be better than something else you could have gotten instead (such as a Silver).

[Davio]

I don't think that's true and I don't think such oversimplifications make you a better Dominion player.

I get the impression you think there is only BM and super duper engines while the space in between is vast and quite interesting.

[Awaclus]

I don't think that's true and I don't think such oversimplifications make you a better Dominion player.

I get the impression you think there is only BM and super duper engines while the space in between is vast and quite interesting.

Oh, not at all. There are also rushes, slogs and sometimes combos.

The spaces in between them, while I grant you that it's vast and quite interesting, is also incredibly weak compared to the extremes. Strategies are good because you build a deck with cards that work well together and try to achieve a win condition that also works well with those cards that you have in your deck. That's why they are strategies. Then, every turn, you use your five cards, your one action and your one buy to use the full potential of that one thing to reach your win condition as fast as you can. If you start mixing strategies, you will have to split your free resources between two different strategies, which makes it take a lot longer before you can use the full potential of your cards, and when you're done, you still have a deck of cards that don't even work well together.

[popsofctown]

The weakness of the space between engine and BM reminds me of the weakness of the space between lategame decks and earlygame decks in Magic.  There's decks that try to force the game to be long and also to excel more the longer a game goes, and decks that try to force the game to be short also excel the shorter a game is.  Just like engine vs. BM it's inherent to the strategies that the extremes will be preferable.

In both cases what actually makes stuff in the middle happen is when you have specific cards that in some way force you into the middle.  In Magic it's several cards at medium mana costs that work really well in a certain way and force you to play the middle because those cards are just so good.

In Dominion, it's stuff like, Stables, kinda, that encourages you to keep your coppers.  Fairgrounds is pretty sweet, as an average cost wincon.  There's not quite as many examples as I wish there were.

[c4master]

I don't think that's true and I don't think such oversimplifications make you a better Dominion player.

I get the impression you think there is only BM and super duper engines while the space in between is vast and quite interesting.

Oh, not at all. There are also rushes, slogs and sometimes combos.

The spaces in between them, while I grant you that it's vast and quite interesting, is also incredibly weak compared to the extremes. Strategies are good because you build a deck with cards that work well together and try to achieve a win condition that also works well with those cards that you have in your deck. That's why they are strategies. Then, every turn, you use your five cards, your one action and your one buy to use the full potential of that one thing to reach your win condition as fast as you can. If you start mixing strategies, you will have to split your free resources between two different strategies, which makes it take a lot longer before you can use the full potential of your cards, and when you're done, you still have a deck of cards that don't even work well together.

That's a little bit too abstract. If there is an engine possible, but it's rather weak, then being able to play a Taxman every other turn can push me a little bit towards the engine. This is because the trash/discard effect hurts big money more than it hurts the engine: Maybe I can pick up another component by using a gainer. Or maybe I just need to spend $4 or $5 and not $6 on this turn in order to get another engine piece. With big money, on the other side I really like to have $6 or $8. So "taxing" a silver mid- to late-game will hurt ma opponent if he has a hand with a silver and $9, $8, $7, $6 or $5. It doesn't hurt the $7 hand if you're already in "duchy over gold"-mode. Still, the chances to hurt my opponent are pretty well. Doing this 3-4 times can be just enough to overcome big money even if my strategy cannot draw the whole deck every turn.

[Awaclus]

That's a little bit too abstract. If there is an engine possible, but it's rather weak, then being able to play a Taxman every other turn can push me a little bit towards the engine. This is because the trash/discard effect hurts big money more than it hurts the engine: Maybe I can pick up another component by using a gainer. Or maybe I just need to spend $4 or $5 and not $6 on this turn in order to get another engine piece. With big money, on the other side I really like to have $6 or $8. So "taxing" a silver mid- to late-game will hurt ma opponent if he has a hand with a silver and $9, $8, $7, $6 or $5. It doesn't hurt the $7 hand if you're already in "duchy over gold"-mode. Still, the chances to hurt my opponent are pretty well. Doing this 3-4 times can be just enough to overcome big money even if my strategy cannot draw the whole deck every turn.

Sometimes the payload is good enough that you want even a weak engine that doesn't work properly. Highway and a spammable +buy such as Market Square would be a good example of that. Taxman not so much.

[Davio]

Look at it this way.

We have BM, you can always play BM because it only requires cards that are available every turn.
BM is a rather bad and vulnerable strategy, so we can add some cards that help get our biggest treasure cards in play more often, like a sifter such as Warehouse. But if we add too many Warehouses and not enough money, we start feeling like a village idiot. And because Warehouse is non-terminal, we can add other terminal cards. Hey, look at that Taxman that we can now play every 2 or 3 turns! And maybe we can include a card which gives us a +Buy, such as Pawn.

At which point does this stop being BM and become and engine?

That's the point I was trying to make. In games with no virtual coin or cost-reduction (or cheeky gainers like HoP), the only thing you can use to buy stuff is actual Treasure cards. And not every strategy which has to use Treasure cards can be turned into a super engine, simply because it lacks a few key cards. But that doesn't mean you're only allowed to buy Treasure cards or VP cards. You can keep adding helpful cards to a point where it's neither BM nor a full fledged engine.

I reckon that there are enough kingdoms where playing such a strategy is the best option and that there are enough of those kingdoms where Taxman is a viable card.

They are neither slogs, nor rushes, just regular Province games where you can shave a few turns off the default 4 Province for BM average (was it 17 turns?) by incorporating enough other useful cards.

[Awaclus]

Look at it this way.

We have BM, you can always play BM because it only requires cards that are available every turn.
BM is a rather bad and vulnerable strategy, so we can add some cards that help get our biggest treasure cards in play more often, like a sifter such as Warehouse. But if we add too many Warehouses and not enough money, we start feeling like a village idiot. And because Warehouse is non-terminal, we can add other terminal cards. Hey, look at that Taxman that we can now play every 2 or 3 turns! And maybe we can include a card which gives us a +Buy, such as Pawn.

At which point does this stop being BM and become and engine?

I don't know, but it stops being better than just pure BM with no Actions at the point where you buy your second Warehouse over a Silver.

[Davio]

But you wouldn't call that an engine, right?

I find the terms BM and engine too narrow and I often miss a good word to describe something in between.

[Awaclus]

But you wouldn't call that an engine, right?

I find the terms BM and engine too narrow and I often miss a good word to describe something in between.

The word is "bad".

[Davio]

But you wouldn't call that an engine, right?

I find the terms BM and engine too narrow and I often miss a good word to describe something in between.

The word is "bad".

I guess you think you're some kind of super engine hipster who never needs a second Silver.

You're not. Or you might be, but it's a really sad club.

[Awaclus]

But you wouldn't call that an engine, right?

I find the terms BM and engine too narrow and I often miss a good word to describe something in between.

The word is "bad".

I guess you think you're some kind of super engine hipster who never needs a second Silver.

You're not. Or you might be, but it's a really sad club.

A second Silver is fine when you need a lot of $5 cards, especially if getting rid of it later is easy.

[ehunt]

But you wouldn't call that an engine, right?

I find the terms BM and engine too narrow and I often miss a good word to describe something in between.

The word is "bad".

I really do think the dichotomous thinking between "engine" and "not engine" is bad for the community... there are just so many boards where you want something in between.

[Awaclus]

I'd like to see a board where you want something in between. Hard mode: no Governor.

[Davio]

It's an interesting challenge and shouldn't be too hard, but I suck at constructing kingdoms.

I'll try later this evening (if I have some time) to just randomize kingdoms with a generator and see what comes out.

But even if I find some, we might still disagree on what we call an engine and what we don't.

[WanderingWinder]

I'd like to see a board where you want something in between. Hard mode: no Governor.

I assume this is all a matter of what you call engine and what you call BM. That's what I find these disagreements usually come down to, and, well, that makes the whole thing rather without much meaning in my eyes.

[liopoil]

Is, say, Hunting party stack + Herbalist + Money an example of a big money strategy? Or Engine? Or in between? I'd call it an engine,  but engine is a large category, and I can see it being interpreted differently.

[popsofctown]

It can be useful to classify decks by how many terminals they intend to play per turn.

[jaybeez]

Is, say, Hunting party stack + Herbalist + Money an example of a big money strategy? Or Engine? Or in between? I'd call it an engine,  but engine is a large category, and I can see it being interpreted differently.

I'd call that an engine, because the point is to hopefully play the whole HP stack every turn, and then your Herbalist and your treasures is your payload.

[blueblimp]

Is, say, Hunting party stack + Herbalist + Money an example of a big money strategy? Or Engine? Or in between? I'd call it an engine,  but engine is a large category, and I can see it being interpreted differently.

I'd put HP+X in its own category. It doesn't really follow the usual rules for either BM or engines. For example, in an engine you would almost always be building to something more impressive than single-province turns.

[Burning Skull]

in an engine you would almost always be building to something more impressive than single-province turns.

Objection, Your Honor!
There are lots of situations when BM deck is crushed by one province per turn engine, even without attacks.

[popsofctown]

I just think it's better to classify decks by how many terminals they play per turn.  I group any deck that intends to play 1 terminal per turn with BM.  If it's 3+, it's an engine.  If it's two, it must be that weird Walled Village deck and I don't know what to call it.

A true tweener deck has no clear idea about how many actions it wants to play per turn.  It involves swapping between modes on nobles, or crossroads, or Stables BM decks that grew up and wanted to become an engine without trashing their big money components.

[Mic Qsenoch]

I just think it's better to classify decks by how many terminals they play per turn.  I group any deck that intends to play 1 terminal per turn with BM.  If it's 3+, it's an engine.  If it's two, it must be that weird Walled Village deck and I don't know what to call it.

This isn't going to capture the usual meaning of engine though (chaining several actions every turn). Hunting Party/Lab/Stables/Menagerie/Advisor/SP all can provide full deck drawing with some trashing. These can be clear engine decks that only play a single terminal. Or really strong trashing can make a thin deck with many cantrips viable. These are engines and the number of terminals doesn't really matter. Upgrade is a good example of a card that works in engines with only one terminal as it provides trashing and extra VP gains at the end.

There's lots of nonterminals that do the things terminals do.

Here's a log:
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150215/log.505d732a51c359e6597efeb8.1424052315959.txt
This is obviously an engine and there's no village in sight.