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[Markov Chain]

Farmland : In a hand of Gold - Gold - Silver - Copper, you can turn your gold into province (play gold, silver and copper, buy farmland, trash your gold and gain a province). After that, you can turn your farmland into province.

This isn't the best strategy unless the game is about to end.  Instead, just buy a province; you now have the same deck but a gold instead of a Farmland, and the gold will be more useful later since you can turn it into a province with $6 or just spend it with $5.

Like most upgrading cards, the Farmland is best if it upgrades a card you weren't using that turn.  With gold-silver-copper-curse, the Farmland is $4 if you turn the curse into an estate, or $3 and a useful card if you turn the curse into a Pawn/Lighthouse/etc. 

[Captain_Frisk]

is it ever worth it to buy nothing with 4 on a hunting party stack game? or more specifically, when is adding silver worse than nothing?

Good question: as a larger corollary question for all games - Is it ever worthwile to skip late/midgame $3-$5 buys?

I've skipped midgame $3-4 buys before in colony games.

[Captain_Frisk]

Should you really limit the amount of Silver you pick up in a HP game?  The reasoning would be that extra Silver makes it more difficult to get a HP or two in your initial hand.  But other than that, extra Silver doesn't really hurt, and it can actually help in the late game.  If your HP sputters out before finding the next HP or your Gold, you might still make $8 with a couple of extra Silver drawn via the +1 card.

I would tend to say no in a province game.  In practice, its really hard to buy more than 4 or 5 silvers, and even then you must be having bad draws. 

[Eevee]

Should you really limit the amount of Silver you pick up in a HP game?  The reasoning would be that extra Silver makes it more difficult to get a HP or two in your initial hand.  But other than that, extra Silver doesn't really hurt, and it can actually help in the late game.  If your HP sputters out before finding the next HP or your Gold, you might still make $8 with a couple of extra Silver drawn via the +1 card.

I would tend to say no in a province game.  In practice, its really hard to buy more than 4 or 5 silvers, and even then you must be having bad draws.

Thats what I meant though. Standard hunting party + x game without colonies, lets say x is cutpurse. I already have a cutpurse, a gold, two hunting parties and three silvers (so turn 8 I guess?). I draw 4. Should I buy the silver or click end turn?

[brokoli]

Farmland : In a hand of Gold - Gold - Silver - Copper, you can turn your gold into province (play gold, silver and copper, buy farmland, trash your gold and gain a province). After that, you can turn your farmland into province.

This isn't the best strategy unless the game is about to end.  Instead, just buy a province; you now have the same deck but a gold instead of a Farmland, and the gold will be more useful later since you can turn it into a province with $6 or just spend it with $5.

No, because the farmland can be remodeled later into a province.
Even in middle game, I always try to buy a farmland. Because it give two extra points and it may be important at the end game, but more importantly, 6$ + Farmland in hand = Province.
(I forgot to mention : Farmland is very nice with border village).

[eHalcyon]

Farmland : In a hand of Gold - Gold - Silver - Copper, you can turn your gold into province (play gold, silver and copper, buy farmland, trash your gold and gain a province). After that, you can turn your farmland into province.

This isn't the best strategy unless the game is about to end.  Instead, just buy a province; you now have the same deck but a gold instead of a Farmland, and the gold will be more useful later since you can turn it into a province with $6 or just spend it with $5.

No, because the farmland can be remodeled later into a province.
Even in middle game, I always try to buy a farmland. Because it give two extra points and it may be important at the end game, but more importantly, 6$ + Farmland in hand = Province.
(I forgot to mention : Farmland is very nice with border village).

But if you just buy a Province and keep the Gold, you can turn the Gold into a Province as well.  With Gold + $6 in hand, you should buy the Province and keep the Gold unless it's late enough in the game where you want the extra 2VP from Farmland, Gold->Province.  Having the Gold instead of the Farmland might mean the difference between a Duchy and a Province later on.

[AJD]

King's Court -  JoaT/Govenor reasonably quick games are going to eat half the provinces while your still setting up KC (assuming a province game a colony game ups KC's value) othertimes KC isn't good is when you get a very very meh board of terminals, (even cantrips are villages with KC)

I'd still buy KC over gold or Governor if I hit $7 in a Governor game: have it in hand with your Governors and it's worth two Governors; match it up with your opponent's Governors and you might snipe a province. No?

[jonts26]

I find people play Farmland way too aggressively. It's certainly a nice endgame bonus point trasher and can lead to a few nice interactions, but it should not be bought before the end game maybe ever.

[Qvist]

I find people play Farmland way too aggressively. It's certainly a nice endgame bonus point trasher and can lead to a few nice interactions, but it should not be bought before the end game maybe ever.

Generally I agree. But never is such a hard word. I played today - as you can read in the Round 4 thread - a game where my opponent could buy Farmlands with a Hoard in play to remodel a Curse into a Native Village (which was YW bane). So basically he remodeled a Curse into Farmland (+3VP) and got a free Native Village and a Gold. I think that's pretty handy.

[shark_bait]

I find people play Farmland way too aggressively. It's certainly a nice endgame bonus point trasher and can lead to a few nice interactions, but it should not be bought before the end game maybe ever.

Agreed, I have seen on many occasion people buy Farmland, and then trash an Estate.  That is probably the epitome of a bad Farmland purchase.  You increase your net points by 1 and get a $4-cost card.  Better to have a $6-cost card now that can later be turned into a Farmland/Province turn for a net 8 point turn in the end game.

[werothegreat]

Scrying Pool is insane if you're able to trash away Estates and Coppers and do an action-only deck.  That's really the main theme of Alchemy - Actions.  Get University to hoard up on actions, get SP to draw them all into your hand, and then get Vineyards in the end game (Herbalist for multiple buys!) to maximize your VP count.

Now, if you're going for a Treasure or alternate VP deck, I would favor Alchemist over Scrying Pool.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Farmland is like a Harem that only can spend its money for Provinces, and that does something useful immediately when you buy it.

If you buy a Farmland, trash an Estate and turn it into a useful 4, you've replaced an estate with a 4$ card and a Silver with a restriction.  So it's kind of like you underspent your 6 on a 4 so you could turn an estate into a Silver that can only pay for Provinces.

Depends on the 4.  Much less useful card in sets with good trashing.

Trashing Estates is almost never a worthwhile use of Farmland. Trashing early-game $4 cards to get Gold? Sure. Trashing a Curse for an Estate nets you 4 VP.

I'm with pops on this one.  It doesn't come up every game, but if you're building a draw engine with a $4 village, it's great. There are times when you'd even pay $6 for a Worker's Village just to get the engine going. You don't need much Gold, because you're not buying Provinces until you can draw most of your deck, and you can buy components without it. In this situation, by buying a Farmland, you remove an Estate, and get a $4 village and what amounts to a Harem (since you're going to be drawing most of your deck, you'll often be able to draw it with another $6).