Fool's Gold, Fishing Village, Loan, Lookout, Tunnel, Bazaar, Council Room, Laboratory, Farmland, Grand Market
Yey, a great engine...
is what I first thought when I saw this board. Loan and Lookout to thin, Lab and maybe CR for draw, mass Grand Markets as payload - what could possibly go wrong here? Many things, as it turns out, especially the way I played it. I opened FV/Lookout (in retrospect, I think this is one of 5% boards where Silver>FV) and starting thinning. As it happens, reaching $6 with just FVs, and Bazaars and Loan was not an easy task, so I was forced to add a Silver and a Gold to my deck - just to buy this ever-imporant Grand Market and steamroll it from here. My opponent, who forsake trashing for the sake of economy, got an early lead, and I was only able to catch up and win due to some fortunate Farmland shanenigans in the last few turns.
Now, my question. After the game, it dawned to me that I gained my 1st province only on turn 16, and I started to wonder if simple Council Room+ Fool's Gold would have easily crushed both mine and my opponent's strategy. Just open FG/FG (or FG/CR if you're lucky), spam these FGs and you should have an insurmountable lead by turn 15.
So, what's the optimal strategy on this board? Is it truly BM or did I just horribly misplayed an engine? Should I have included FG in en engine as a payload? I thought about massing FG early, coupling it with trashing and using them to buy GM - but it seemed to slow and unreliable. So, how would you play this board?
eta: I forgot to add game link: http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151127/log.0.1448643354195.txt