Hello, I've been lurking here for awhile, but decided to register today to ask what a couple questions.
1. Is it ever correct to attempt to build an engine (ie attempt a deck that can draw itself and/or play all of its actions) when there is no way to gain more than one card per turn? So no +buy, no gainers, no remodel-type cards, no digging in the trash, etc. In this scenario, what could make an engine any faster/better than a money-focused deck?
Welcome aboard f.ds
Is it ever correct? Yes, sometimes.
Here's a very general statement: if your opponent starts getting VP before you do, you need to get more VP
per turn than they do to catch up.
If thanks to
Militia your opponent can only hit $8 every other turn but you can hit Province every turn, you're scoring 6 VP/turn to their 3 VP/turn on average. That satisfies the requirement. It doesn't matter that it takes you two turns to double-Province, what matters is that you get more VP per turn than your opponent. Here's a thought experiment: pretend that two turns are one; then you double-province to their single province in "one" turn. Then explain why it would matter that it happens across two turns.
The most
common way of scoring more points per turn than a big money player is payloading more money
and buys than them, but we're deliberately skipping those cases. The other ways are by making yourself score more points per buy* (
Colony,
Dominate, etc.) and by making them score fewer points per buy; attacks help accomplish the latter.
(* playing a
Monument doesn't expend a buy, but buying the Monument does. If it helps, you can attribute the VP gained by each Monument to the buy that gained you the Monument. Then the VP for that buy is the number of times you play the Monument. If you look at it that way, Monument and similar cards is also a way of scoring more points per buy.)
Here's why it might matter that you double-province across two turns rather than one: your opponent draws cards in their clean-up step, so they see more cards in total. This plus the second buy makes it more likely that they'll also double-province. Attacks makes them draw and/or keep fewer cards (and/or worse cards in case of junking), which is sometimes enough to keep them at single province.
One game which is approximately an example of this is the one below. Adam Horton plays a DoubleTac deck with
Bishop,
Treasure Map and
Militia. It goes through a pair of T'Maps every three turns, so it's 16/3 = 5.33 VP per turn on average (less than reliably single-provincing). The Militia makes it very hard for Qvist to hit Province. (To see the same game from Qvist's perspective: <youtube>/watch?v=KuXwudapuiY)
(Technically Adam gains multiple cards on some turns, but I think a restatement of your question that captures much of its essence is "if I'm capped at 6 VP per turn, is it ever right to go for the engine?", and that certainly applies to this game. That way of phrasing the question excludes the more-points-per-buy stratagems, though.)