ghoti_mhic_uait

Boggle. I would have expected the game with Witch and Militia to become a slog: your deck would rapidly get diluted with curses, and you'd often be playing with only a three-card hand. That would make getting to a spend of $8 very difficult, so it would be a slow, painful scramble to get as many VP as possible, taking as few Curses as possible, before three piles had run out — and Curses would probably be the first of those three!

With Chapel and Smithy, I'd expect decks to become lean and mean almost at once, resulting in a rapid accumulation of Gold, then Provinces. This is the game I'd expect to be really quick. (Start by buying Chapel and Silver, then keep trashing Copper and Estates, buying Silver and Gold. Very quickly you're down to a deck of only four or five cards word more than $8. Then start buying Provinces, buying more Gold with $6 or $7, picking up one Smithy the first time poor shuffle luck means you drop below $6, picking up the odd Duchy for the tiebreak as the Provinces run low.)

With Throne Room and Gardens, I would expect a game of intermediate length which ends with a rush to deplete Gardens and two other piles. I'd expect people to build an engine out of some mixture of Workshops, Villages and Throne Rooms, also buying Gardens and Duchies. If it looks like becoming a Mirror, I'd pick up Workshop and Gardens first because I can't afford to let my opponent get the majority of Gardens, otherwise, hmm… Workshop and Village, then Throne Room and another Workshop, then an explosion of Gardens, picking up Duchies when I can, more Workshops and Villages with $3 spends, Estates with $2 and always at least buying Copper.

I'm guessing the three games you played were more similar than that?