Dominion

I rate Dominion 8/10 on Boardgamegeek, where the average rating is over 8/10 as well. It took a few sessions for me to really get Dominion, but when it clicked, I suddenly wanted to play it again and again immediately! The first game to do that for me in years.

Dominion is a new kind of game - a deck building game. If you play CCGs like Magic: The Gathering Magic 10th Edition Booster, Pokemon Pokemon, Platinum Booster, Trading Card Game or Yu-Gi-Oh! Yu-Gi-Oh Starter Deck, you'll be familiar with building a deck of cards before playing. In Dominion, you build your card deck during the game. Actually, that is the game! You use actions and money to build a better deck faster, with more Victory Points in it before the end.

Dominion has hundreds of cards in the box. Dominion is not a CCG; 2-4 players can use just the one box. There are 3 kinds of card:
Victory Points (1VP, 3VPs, 6VPs, and -1VP Curses)
Money (copper=1 silver=2 gold=3)
Action cards (25 different Actions, 10 cards in each).
All the cards have a purchase price. You win by getting the most Victory Points (VPs).

You start with 10 cards - 3 1VP cards and 7 Copper. You shuffle your 10 cards, place them face down as a Draw deck and draw 5 cards into your hand. On your turn, you get to play 1 Action and then perform 1 Buy. Playing Actions and doing Buys will get more cards into your deck. All your cards, used or not, go into your own Discard pile. Then you draw 5 more cards. If your Draw pile is exhausted, you shuffle your Discard pile up, and turn it over into a fresh Draw pile.

Sounds strange? It is strange. It's a new game mechanism and it takes a little getting used to. You gradually build up your deck by starting small and growing. You get Action cards to get more cards. You Buy cards to get more cards. You try to convert your Copper into Silver and Gold. You are constantly pushing to get Victory cards, but if you bloat your deck with poor cards, you'll find it hard to buy what you want.

The Action cards are really varied, but have simple ideas. Some Actions let you draw more cards immediately; the Smithy card says +3 Cards, so you immediately draw 3 cards from your Draw deck into your hand. Some let you get more Actions this turn; the Village card says +1 Card +2 Actions, so you draw one card and have 2 more Actions this turn. Some let you pick up cards directly (the Workshop card says Gain a card costing up to 4p, so you just get to take a card and put it on your Discard pile - an Action not a Buy), or attack other players, or defend against attack and so on. There are 25 different Actions in the base game, and you can choose 10 sets or just pick them at random. This way, each time you play, it's a different game.

Lots of the cards work in combinations (combos). Play the Village, draw a Smithy, play the Smithy because the Village gave you more Actions, draw 3 more cards, and you still have an Action left to do something else. Maybe you drew another Action card - or do you have enough money to Buy what you want? Can you get 8 money into your hand to Buy the 6VP card?

After you have done your Action(s), you get to spend any money in hand on Buying a card. Remember, some of the Action cards give extra Buys, or extra money, so shop carefully.

Two warnings - firstly, the cards will get a lot of wear. You are constantly shuffling and sorting cards. Get some cheap card protectors.

Secondly, when you start playing Dominion, it feels like a 4 player solitaire game, and that's what it felt like the first three times I played. But on my fourth session, I suddenly realised how you do interact with the other players. Watch what they are doing. Have they got a good card combo that you can copy? Are they getting more Gold into their deck? Have they started buying the high VPs? Are they being aggressive, with the Militia, or Thief, or are they being defensive, with the Moat card?

Dominion will appeal to most people. Kids can play just as well as adults, new players can easily beat experienced players. It's simple to learn, with loads of choices and lots of replay value.

I really enjoy Dominion now, and I don't mind if I win or lose. It's just a really fun game to play. I like working out a good combo, I like the race for better money and VPs, I like the speed of decisions and trying to discipline myself, resist buying rubbish. Like I said, this is the first game in years I will play back-to-back.

I really am not into most strategy games. My daughters and their partners have continually tried to get my wife and I interested but frankly we usually get bored after 10 minutes.

However having got us to play, and enjoy, Guillotine, a very simple strategy game, they introduced us to Dominion. After a very short time we were both hooked. It is absolutely fascinating because of two things a)you can vary the action card sets used in each game permutating 12 packs from the 2 dozen supplied. b) the innovative concept of building your own deck of action, victory and cash cards. Every game has different challenges and requires a slightly different strategy from the players.

I got my own copy of the game for my birthday last week and it will be played a great deal. It is just as good with 2 players as 3 or 4 by the way. Games are usually completed within an hour. Just right.

Great game hidden in a well-designed box. After few introductory games we got the point and started experimenting with various tactics. Good exercise for statistics and discrete planning ("should i get another cheap copper card or not?"). If you don't take the box it makes an excellent travel game too!

Some people say that cards are not durable - hmm, i think they are of decent quality but of course if you want to invest in 500 plastic protectors they would last longer.

Checked 2-player and 3-player and works well with both. Highly recommended. The danger is you will want to buy extensions soon :D