So, I bought the base set about a week ago, and my wife and I have played about five games now. We played the "first game" twice, and the first time I kinda just bought things willy nilly not really trying to win, but buying things that she wasn't buying to sort of intrigue her about what they might do. But about ten turns into that, realizing that this game was going to take for-ev-er, and and not wanting to burn her out on thinking this was a really boring game, I switched to a village/smithy tactic, and, sadly, won very heartily. But what I learned is that my wife is a VERY competitive person. So we played it again, and this time she went straight for village/smithy, and I went big money. Still won, but not as harshly.
A few games later, and she is now pretty involved. She spends a lot of time on her buy phase reading every card and contemplating, and she won't communicate with me at all about what she plans to do. I consider this to be a very GOOD sign that she is going to like this game once she picks up a few more basic concepts.
That being said, I think it will be a good long while before I buy any new expansions. I just think she needs to win a game first, and I have to admit that I don't like to lose. We also don't play that often, due to life and all that jazz, so I can be a little bit patient there.
In general, I'm just excited that she actually seems to enjoy playing and considers losing a good reason to play better.
I still have trouble getting her to put her discards in the right place, and for some reason she always wants to throw her action cards on the table in a very disorganized manner and tries to buy things with her treasures still in hand, but hey, you gotta crawl before you walk, right?