So, I'm checking out my Popular Buys page for what info I can find, and I come across a few rather puzzling entries: Namely, Gold and Platinum. My “Effect With” for gold is -0.23 and my “Effect Without” is 0.76. And it's not just because I skip to Platinum in Colony games: Platinum's “Effect with” and ”without” are -0.00 and 0.58.
In other words, it looks like, for me, buying Gold is as strongly associated with losing as skipping Fishing Village is, and skipping Gold is as strongly associated with winning as buying Fishing Village. And Platinum scores similarly to crappy old Saboteur.
WTF? I know correlation isn't causation and all that good crap. And certainly if I don't buy Gold, it's usually because I have some sort of draw engine going strongly enough that I don't feel the need for it — if my 2 Silvers and 4 Coppers can buy a Province every turn, why bother? But it doesn't seem like it's that often that I go for that sort of gambit and win … or does it? And it's not like I can write this off as a fluke; Gold is in every game …
So I guess what I'm asking is, what does this tell me about my play style? Anything? Something I do well? Something I do wrong? (I'm at level 22, so I'm not doing /everything/ wrong, but I ain't no Theory either :-) ) More generally, what can one glean from one's Popular Buys page? There's so much data there, gathered from every game you play; it seems like there must be some good way to leverage it. But it also seems remarkably easy just to get confused by it …