Dominion
by Rio Grande Games
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Category: Toy
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Product Summary
Manufacturer: Rio Grande GamesBrand: Rio Grande Games
Audio: English (Unknown)
Release Date: 2009-01-01
Model: RGG370
Product features:
- For 2-4 players
- Tactical card game
- Takes about 30 minutes to play
- Lots of expansions available to add depth and complexity
- Quick to learn, many ways to win
Toys and Games Reviews of Dominion
Customer Review: Voted game of the year for good reason
Summary: 5 Stars
This was, by far, the best card or board I have played. Dominion is a deck building card game that a ton of replayability due to the fact that it is easy to learn and there is a ton of variety.
The base set comes with 25 different types of kingdom cards, 3 different treasure cards, a set of curse cards, and 3 different types of victory point cards. Every play starts the game with 10 cards in their deck (7 copper which are worth 1 coin each and 3 estates which are worth 1 victory point each). They shuffle up their deck and draw 5 cards from it. You then use the coin you get to buy a kingdom card. Of the 25 different types of cards (each set of kingdom cards has at least 10 cards... meaning if you are playing with the card "Village" that there are 10 Villages available to buy into your deck) you use 10 each game. When you buy a card into your deck you put it into your discard pile. At the end of your turn you discard any unplayed cards in your hand as well as all cards that you played that turn and draw a new hand of 5 cards. When your need to draw a card but are out, you shuffle your discard pile and it now becomes your deck.
Now those 2 kingdom cards you bought on your first 2 turns are part of your deck. Maybe on your first turn you got 4 coin and bought a Moneylender and on your second turn you had 3 coin and bought a Silver. That means your deck will now contain 12 cards (7x Copper, 3x Estate, Moneylender, and Silver). As you progress through the game you will buy more and more cards into your deck.
The object of the game is to finish with as many victory points as possible. The problem? Victory point cards are dead cards. When you draw them into your hand during play they do nothing. So do you want to buy a lot of the smaller Estates and Duchies (worth 3 points each) or hold out until your deck can produce more coin so you can buy Provinces (6 points each)? Do you keep buying the kingdom (also known as action) cards? Or focus more on treasure (Copper, Silver and Gold) cards? It all depends on what cards are in play and what you draw. What works one game, may not work the next.
The turn order is easy to remember if you know the alphabet. ABC. You start with 1 action (there are cards that give you more actions which allow you to play more action cards). After you are finished with the action(s) you get a buy. Again you normally only have 1 buy though there are cards that modify that. Last is cleanup. Discard your unused cards, put your used cards in the discard pile, and draw a new hand.
The game ends when either the Provinces run out OR ANY 3 other stacks of cards run out. That includes other victory cards, curses (if they are in play), treasure cards, and action cards. Generally in 2 player games Provinces will end the game but not always. In 3 or 4 player (or 5 and 6 if you have the expansion) the 3 stacks will kill the game more often. Most victory points at the end wins.
When you get the game I'd suggest grabbing the rule book and looking in the back of the book for suggested game setups. Play each of these a few times to learn some of the strategies of the game. Each setup has 10 specific cards to introduce a new strategy or two to the game. Keep in mind that some cards are far more powerful than they originally seem and others are weaker than they sound. Try new things when you are learning the different cards and you will see what works over time.
After you have a good grasp on the game start using random setups. The best way I know to do that is to take all of the placeholder cards for the kingdom cards (the ones with the dark blue boarder on the back of the card) and shuffle them up. Deal out 10 of the cards. These will be the 10 that you use. If you are using random setups there are 3,268,760 different possible game setups. That is what I meant by a ton of variety. You could play thousands of hands of Dominion and chances are you'll never see the same setup twice.
If you buy Intrigue the number of random setups increases to 10,272,278,170. Throw the promitional cards (Black Market and Envoy which are available at certain places online) and that increases to 15,820,024,220 different game setups. When Seaside comes in October and adds another 26 Kingdom cards to the set, there will be a total of 78 different kingdom cards giving 1,258,315,963,905 possible setups. That is right... over 1 trillion possible setups. Like I said, the game will give you a ton of variety. And as they release more expansions the number of possibilities will keep increasing.
One suggestion I have is if you play a lot consider card sleeves. Personally I have removed all of my placeholder cards (dark blue border on the back) and put all of my cards in black sleeves. For random games, I put my placeholder kingdom cards in purple sleeves (so they don't get mixed into the normal cards accidentally) and just store them in an old Magic the Gathering box. A cheap baseball card box would work too. The reason for this is these sets are $35-45 each and if you play a lot the constant shuffling will wear them out fast. I'd rather spend ~$80-100 in sleeves and never have to rebuy the game rather than buy a new copy every few months. As you play each game you may shuffle your deck dozens of times. This will wear the cards out very quickly without sleeves. As for the blank cards, the trash cards, or the treasure/victory card placeholders... I just leave them in the Dominion boxes and leave the Dominion boxes at home.
At my local hobby shop it is not uncommon to come in on board game night and see 2 or 3 different games of Dominion going. I have friends that have said that they have children that love the game, hardcore gamers that love it, people that normally hate card or board games that love it. Anyone that I've taught the game to has enjoyed playing. And many of the people I've played with have either bought it or considered it.
Description of Dominion
In Dominion, each player starts with an identical, very small deck of cards. In the center of the table is a selection of other cards the players can "buy" as they can afford them. Through their selection of cards to buy, and how they play their hands as they draw them, the players construct their deck on the fly, striving for the most efficient path to the precious victory points by game end. You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion! In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner. But wait! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury. Your parents wouldnBoard Games Toys
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