My thoughts on our first 4 games...
Game 1 was the most ineteresting one. It's reasonably clear how this engine is supposed to work in the end, but how to get there is a really tricky question.
My first analysis...
* Once powered up, this engine is very powerfull
* I want to open Remake.
* To continue effective remaking, I want big hands.
* Big hands can be done with governor, but that helps him a lot too. Getting to $6 fast for Border Village/Courtyard is preferred.
I was a bit in doubt between (a) Remake/Silver and (b) Remake/Courtyard.
In favor of (b)
* If I get the Remake turn 3 and the courtyard turn 4 that's so good it's almost game-winning.
* A clash on turn 3 is not so bad, I can just put the remake back.
In favor of (a)
* This feels like the lesser risk. I have a reasonable chance of hitting Remake and $5 in t3/4
* If the two cards clash on turn 4, I just have to play the remake. A dead card in this hand implies only $1 left so no buy.
Looking a day later at these arguments, I'd open courtyard/Remake on the same board next time. Not yesterday, and I got the courtyard turn 4. This is also where our plans start diverging, as he opted for a second Remake. That didn't feel good to me, as I wanted to hit $6 quick.
This still feels like a good plan, but since I hit $6 on turn 5 without using the courtyard, I can't claim it worked. I continued to get Border Villages and more courtyards though, and in the end using one Remake more effectively proved a lot better then using two Remakes.
His desperate move to get Pirate Ships seemed like a reasonable gambit. I couldn't think of any third pile to deplete, so I just kept buying points untill the game ended.
After the first game,
Game 2 was a bit of a horror. It looked like it was going to be a minion-upgrade mirror (really nothing else to do) but he wanted almost all of the minions for himself. Two questions that could have been interesting, but were completely irrelevant on these draws.
* You open with a silver and a) woodcutter b) fortune teller c) another silver
* On your first $5, do you get a minion or an upgrade? does it depend on the # of "Silvers" you already have?
I went for Fortune Teller because I thought I'd get the woodcutter long before I needed the buy from an upgraded estate anyway, and it's attack just might help enough to be worth that.
Game 3 featured a powerfull Wharf engine with some of it's best friends: A cheap village (Native Village) and cheap money (both Fools Gold and Quarry).
I really like the quarry here, and in a 3P or 4P game I'd love to just open Quarry/Silver or even Quarry/Native Village. But in 2P, I just can't give him 10 Fools Golds. Right after I decide to compete for the Fools Golds, with the shuffle-nightmare from last game still fresh in my mind, I find out that he opens 5/2 on this board. Oh no's!
After this bad news I was really glad to find out he only drew his Wharf turn 5. He still was going to win the split, but at least we had some sort of a game.
On turn 6 I think he makes his only serious misplay in this series, getting an Expand over a Native Village/Wharf. Native village is a superstrong addition to the wharves; almost as powerfull as the Bazar but $3 cheaper. And more draw just means more Fools Golds sticking together...
He skips on Native Villages completely, and adds a single Quarry and Potion that didn't feel too strong at the moment. A few turns later it really feels like I get to steal a lost game.
I lacked 1 buy the turn before, and apparantly he also lacked 1 buy to get it in the last two turns.
Game 5 is just too complex, and with Black Market a lot can happen. I thought a while about not building an engine at all, but I think you'd lose bigtime. In hindsight I feel really sorry for not opening Young Witch, and since his opening was better then mine I think he really deserved to win this one. But it still could have gone either way. A lot of turns were just "play the golem and close your eyes" (the other way around is significantly worse
)