Dominion

My favorite game to play is Dominion. I just wanted to do a brief review of the game and give my thoughts on why I like it so much.

Dominion is a deck building game made for two to four players and can take anywhere from 30 to sixty minutes to play. I have played a five player variant that can be fun or drag on depending on the kingdom cards in play. I think that the two player game is very different and runs best at three to four players.

The object of the game is to have the most victory points at the end of the game. In every game there are certain cards that are the same and some that are different. The green cards are the victory cards. The Estate worth one point, Duchy worth three points and the Province worth six points. The yellow cards are the money which is used to purchase other cards. There is Copper worth one money, Silver worth two money and Gold worth three money. These six cards are the same in every game. In addition, there are ten other cards that are used for each game that are determined randomly, by choice or selection. These cards are called Kingdom Cards. Kingdom cards can be Victory, Money or Action Cards. These Kingdom cards are the heart and soul of Dominion along with its game mechanic, deck building.

What is deck building, you ask? Dominion came out in 2008 and was the original deck builder. A deck builder is essentially using cards that you have to gain more powerful cards, remove weaker cards and have some sort of synergy or card interaction with other cards to create powerful combos. In Dominion, every player will have the same deck of three Estates and seven Copper. These cards are then shuffled and in turn order the active player will draw a card hand of five cards. During your turn you can play one action, have one buy, discard and then draw. The active player may choose to play an action. Generally, on your first and second turn you will not have any action cards to play. Next the active player will reveal their yellow cards or money and add the total up. This player will be able to buy one card. This card that they buy will go into their discard pile. Then they will discard the rest of the cards in their hand. The final step is to draw back up to a hand of five cards. This will be the end of the active players turn and the next player will follow the steps listed. At the end of turn two, the player will need to draw their hand size back up to five. Since they are not able, the active player will shuffle their discard pile so that this step can be accomplished. Shuffling will put all their purchase into their deck or hand. If the player used their two buys in turn one and two to purchase cards, they will now have a deck of 12 cards instead of 10. This process will be repeated, reshuffling their discard pile anytime they need to draw cards and can’t.

The game ends on the turn when there are no more Provinces or three of any combinations of cards of piles are empty. Each kingdom card pile generally has ten kingdom cards per pile unless they are green victory cards which will have twelve.I say generally a lot because this rule can be broken. Anytime a card breaks a basic rule, the card rule takes precedence. For example, kingdom cards will let you draw extra cards, give you more actions to play more kingdom cards on one turn, give you more money to spend during your buy phase or even harm other players hand or draw deck. They may even let you trash cards. When you trash a card, you will take the card out of the deck and put it into a pile that will be out of the deck. This can get rid of your bad cards or get rid of your opponents good cards. At the end of the game, each player will count the number of victory points they have and the player with the most victory points wins!

I love Dominion! One of the reasons I like it so much is because of its replay value. With 25 different cards in the base game, there are a lot of different 10 card combinations you can make. Where this game really shines, in my opinion, is all the expansions there are. I generally play with three to four people and randomize the cards. When randomizing the cards and using a couple boxes, there are a large amount of card combinations that can happen and the interactions between the different cards makes it so cool. It is awesome to try and figure out what the best path to victory is. And what is great, is that everyone starts with the same cards so no one really has an advantage over the other. It comes down to the strategy they use and mitigation of how the cards show up in their draw pile.

What people don’t like about this game is basically how old it is. Because it is older, game theme was not as relevant as it is now. Now theme seems to be very important in games. This game doesn’t really have a theme. The names of the cards are based off of old English times, but there is no tie in to why certain cards do certain things or what each round represents. There is no theme as to why a Smithy lets you draw three cards, a Laboratory lets you draw two cards and gives you another action or Chapel lets you trash up to four cards from your hand. Another reason I think that people don’t like this game is because I think playing it more or being the math guy gives you an advantage. There are cards that work better together and doing certain things in a certain order will work out in your benefit. If you have not played the game or are newer, it is harder for you to win. This can be mitigated by playing with someone of your skill level so you don’t get crushed, pick up strategies as you loose for a few games or play with someone who doesn’t taunt you when they win will get over this barrier.

There are many games that have tried to create a better deck builder, generally with a better theme. For me, this beats all that I have played. Ascension, Marvel Legendary, Thunderstone Advanced, Trains, Street Fighter and Naruto Shippuden. I would say that Star Realms or Hero Realms are a better two player game. If I wanted to play a two player game I would probably rather play that but overall, I have more fun playing Dominion and I think it is a better game. I think Thundersone Advanced come pretty close but I don’t think there are as many options and I just like Dominion better.

Thanks for listening. If you have never heard of Dominion and like card games I suggest giving this a try. If you like Dominion, I am thinking about writing some basic strategy articles in future posts.