Rio Grande Games - Dominion: First Edition

Dominion is a deceptively simple game which encompasses endless variation. The basic game contains the following major components: 1. 25 groups of action cards, victory cards, and money cards, in total over 250 cards. 2. Card storage and organizer box designed specifically for organizing the game components. 3. The Rules. Game Play: A game starts with each player holding an identical 10 card deck. As the game begins a group of 10 special action cards are selected from the 25 categories in the box. The rules outline specific selections for scenario play or you can design your own lay out. There is no banker or moderator; all players start entirely equal with access to the exact same cards. During each player's turn they may take actions and purchase new cards from the communal decks. Each player has to balance the need to buy new cards and money with the purchase of victory points (which remain in the player's deck but don't help them until points are totaled.) The decision of when to stop building one's deck and start buying victory points is one of the most critical choices the player will make. Too early, and you'll find yourself bogged down with a deck full of moderate victory cards while other players' resources have increased to the point where they blow by you. If you wait too long, all of the good cards will have been bought out and you won't have anything to spend your resources on. I have to be honest, when I first heard about Dominion I didn't understand why my wife and several of our friends were so worked up over the thing. It sounded terribly dry, particularly to a person like myself who has played collectable card games like magic the gathering for many years. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Dominion has something for everyone, from the collectable card game nut, to the poker player, to the family looking for an alternative to trivial pursuit. Since everyone starts out with access to the same selection of cards and the same resources for advancement, everyone has an equal chance of victory. Because there are 10 different categories of action cards with each category having at least 10 cards in its pile, there is plenty of room for strategy as the game progresses and certain resources are bought up to the point of extinction. The game is set up in such a way so that you can play cut throat games with lots of player-vs.-player actions or less interactive games where the victory is determined by who fields the most effective resource acquisition strategy. Those familiar with CCG drafting will feel right at home in this environment, while those with no card based gaming experience won't be at a disadvantage. My only criticism of dominion (as has been said on several other forums) is that while the game is entirely self contained, I can easily see the cards (which are essential in exactly the numbers provided) wearing out or being lost. Because there are so many of them I recommend using card sleeves (available at most hobby stores from companies like rook and ultra pro.) I started out one night thoroughly expecting to dislike this game and found myself 3 hours later wondering where the evening had gone. Dominion is completely addictive and doesn't loose its fun factor after the player has played multiple scenarios in one sitting. Simply put, this is the best interactive casual game I've played in 32 years. Note: It's four years later and I still endorse this game without reservation. The basic set is still just as fun as when I played for the first time, while the addition of other optional sets have magnified the enjoyment.

I will divert from the mechanics of the game and deliver on the game and how it relates to me. There are many other great reviews that explain how to play the game in great detail and I suggest that you continue reading those other reviews for that reason. However, this review is to explain how this game relates to my family and my friends. I have 3 daughters between the ages of 6 and 10, they are advanced academically, however, they all love this game. I know the game reads like it'd be too advanced for my youngest 6 and 8 year olds. However, my 8 year old won the first 3 games we've played, beating everyone else, no handicap or reduced play on my part! My 6 year old feels this is her favorite game of all time, on the honest side, she only lasts about 3/4 of the game and then begins to lose focus on the game. If we could reduce the amount of options (reduce game play time) it may increase her ability to stay in the game. Typically she starts off strong and then towards the end we're having to coach her and/or make decisions for her. This is not a fault of the game, or the length of the game, but rather due to the fact that my daughter is only 6 years old and she is of the mindset that she must live life to the fullest. The game typically takes 1.5-2 hours with my young children due to the fact that we try to teach them the strategy and rationale for making their decisions, but when playing with my buddies typically takes about 45 minutes at the most. Eventually, I truly believe my 6 year old will be able to play a game from start to finish w/out any assistance. This game is an amazing game, it's baffling that a bunch of cards could lend to so much replay-ability and so much fun. It gives us an excuse to all gather around the same patch of floor or table and work together towards a common goal - building the best kingdom! The possibilities are endless with this game. We've played multiple games and each time you're still left with other options to build around. This is one of the only games that I can sit and play with my 6 year old and have as much fun as I do playing with my 30-50 something old friends. I promise this lends credence to the game, it is not indicative to the banality of my friends. My core group of friends tend to gravitate toward video gaming. We meet at least once a month for a game day in which we typically do nothing but drink and play video games. I have tried for the last 8 years to get them to play more than video games, with board games, 'scene-it' type games, card games, and everything in between...but nothing has ever worked as well as video games. This game was the first time that i've ever been able to get them to come back to a game, ever. Dominion is great family fun and great 'Man Fun' too! Definitely worth the buy.

All right, so the wife and I were looking for a game we could play together. There are woefully little video games that allow two people on the couch to play together (at least games that any two people can agree on) and many classic board games are far too repetitive for me. Based on the reviews here at Amazon and other sites (internet search for dominion review, if you're interested), I decided to give this one a try. The game mechanics are fairly simple to learn, but the included instructions aren't well-written at all. My advice is to read the instructions and then play a few hands to get the hang of it. Once you get the rules down, this game is a blast to play. The one thing that really stands out for me is the variability. All the different cards and events that can happen help keep the game fresh; changing cards every game is a wonderful way to keep you guessing and thinking about the best tactic to win. Eventually the expansion packs are needed to add some variety. Children 8 and up could easily pick this game up, depending on their individual intellectual abilities. There is a lot of opportunity to learn in this game; not necessarily learning facts or gaining knowledge, but exercising critical thinking skills, planning, and understanding consequences of actions. For me, strategic planning and critical thinking is far more important than memorizing facts; this game certainly offers the potential to keep you thinking. The only drawback I can think of is the packaging, storage, and durability. It is a card game, so I don't expect the world, but the sheer amount of handling, shuffling, and dealing gives these cards a beating. They are well made, but the inclusion of some protectors or lamination on the cards might have been an option for anyone concerned with the product being damaged. The box it comes in is sturdy and well-made, but the plastic storage trays inside seem odd to me. It's too easy to drop, tip, or otherwise disturb the box and have the carefully arranged contents inside become chaos. Maybe a simple box made as a row with labelled dividers would have sufficed and kept the cards in place?

We got this game to try with game-vet family (all over 40) when we knew we'd be stuck in a room together for a few days. We'd tried three new games in the last day (including Smallworld and Forbidden Isle), yet after cracking the box, doing the initial set up, and trying to understand the rules was a bit harsh and put everyone on edge. We did NOT look up rules online or read other descriptions before trying to muddle through with the included papers: this was an error. The manual(s) that come with the game do a bad job of describing the rules and how to get started, most of the game reviews and wikipedia pages do a better job of saying how the game is played. It's very simple. cards you can acquire and cards in your possession which are broken into cards in your deck (undrawn), drawn cards in your current hand (usually 5), and drawn cards that are in the recycle pile ('discarded') that will shuffle to create your next deck. Task is to build up all your cards so you have a deeper and richer deck to draw from and so that at the end of the game you have the most victor points (land). At first, we were all confused about the distinction between hand, deck, and discard and the (almost every turn) frequency with which we each shuffled our own deck, until we got in a couple rounds, it made no sense to us. But, once we got rolling, the basic play mechanics became very straightforward, and we enjoyed exploring how different card combinations worked together and which things seemed like a drain. The first game, using a slightly wrong initial setup/card set, took 90 minutes and the second took a little less than an hour. With lots of joking, a bit of wine sloshing around, and a casual, interrupted play speed. After three games, all four of us enjoyed it and it has been the clear winner of the set of new games we have to spend the weekend with. Recommended, but not perfect because of issues others have pointed out: not as much inter-player interaction as it could have, games can end abruptly, included rules are a bit weak, game storage box seems to have been laid out by someone who didn't understand their task, no included markers for some of the complex iterative situations (throne room, village, market, village, market....) where the forums discussing the game seem to indicate most people wind up having some kind of indicators to keep track they add to the box, lots of shuffling will wear out the cards physically, could use a board or mat for the middle of the table for the 'world of cards' that are in the game, etc. So, definitely recommended, but improvements would make it a 5 instead of a 4. It's a 5 if you ignore the problem of bootstrapping into the game from the included papers alone. It could be a 5 if it came with markers and slightly saner initial card holder layout. It could be a 5 if there were more Spy-type non-or-low-damaging 'attacks' or if buying cards from a pile increased the costs of the ones further down the pile (or some other way that one player's turn interacts with the turn of the next players...) A solid game, could be for gamers or maybe even folks who aren't sure they are gamers.

As an extensive board, RPG and card gamer since birth, I have had opportunities to play a ton of games. Some I have played a lot (AD&D, WH40K, M:TG - quite literally tens of thousands of hours of that life sapper), some I have tossed asunder after a round or two. Overall, though, I found that I always come back to the same games when the new stuff drifts into the dusty recesses of my shelves. Magic: the Gathering was the one that kept resurrecting itself until after more than a DECADE playing it, I retired from competitive play and then from any play at all. That said, I still miss certain aspects of the game. Obviously the competitive nature of it was tantamount to its attractiveness - you versus another where you were taking his life away; but the STRATEGY of construction and deck testing was the best part of the game. At the highest levels of MtG, the Pro Tour, players spend what amounts to overtime each week (40 hours of labor or more!) constructing, dissecting, testing, discussing and refining their customized decks to determine the strongest ones. With the internet, they yammer endlessly about mana curve and and broken cards with other top players throughout the world. It is a JOB, but it is a fun job. Within the arena of construction can be found the base addiction to the game, always looking for another combination that could create a deck so powerful the Wizards of the Coast had no choice but to ban a component card or errata away the potency for tourney play. The quest for the unbeatable deck...rages on even today nearly reaching two decades and tens of thousands of different cards. Enter a wife and two wonderful children (actually second wife, MtG may have been a contributing factor in the disappearance of the first /grin). Gaming time drops to near zero... My wife is an adamant non-player. We played poker a lot back before the kiddos, and some low-strat board games. After the kids, we no longer had time to play decent strategy games - most of which required a lot of preparation or extensive attention for several hours to really feel like you'd done it justice. Two items that were simply out of stock for newly-parents. I still checked up on the world of board games, salivating over Settlers of Catan and Agricola and Carcassone... Then I saw Dominion popping up with incredible reviews - so I took a flyer and bought it to play on holiday with my venerable opponent - my brother, a single dad who had a very similar history. We played it to death once the kids went down for the night, while my wife chit chatted with us and paid a little attention to the game. Endlessly we played, shuffling cards over and over, and we found the strategic intricacies to be incredibly deep. Thanks to the shifting of the available cards each game, no two games were the same - basic strategies emerged for every card and for combinations of those cards, but the improvisational-deck-building-mechanic was incredibly addictive. My wife watched, but did not bite. The holiday ended, and I moped that I would no longer have the time or the opponents to play the game to which I was now deeply addicted. Then DW surprised me and said she would play it with me as a Christmas gift. Her revelation to me was that games that required strategy seemed too "brainy" for her - that it would require so much thinking as to ruin the fun nature of playing - whereas in Hold 'em, it was less what you had than knowing what your opponent had and a little clevage could throw him off his game. I nursed game one along so that she got a feel for the mechanics, and she won. I certainly did not give 100%, because a win for her meant the potential of a game two for me. She won game two - this time a little less passivity on my part. Then game three...and the night was over, but my addiction had been satiated for a day. Today, she ASKED to play again. She ASKED to play a high-strategy game. I'm setting the hook to pull in a lunker. Dominion can bridge the non-gamer gap - the basics are simple enough that nearly anyone can play. The depth of the game is deep enough to whet the appetites of all but the most intense miniatures players or historical war gamers. The Magic playing friends will absolutely love the draft-style construction, and the casual gamers will appreciate that a game takes only 30 minutes in most circumstances after a couple learning games. Dominion is really fun with two players, but adding up to two more increases the fun-quotient. Rio Grande has released several expansions which seem to add even more depth and breadth to the mix - Intrigue can be merged with the base set to allow for games of up to EIGHT players; which would seem to get very hairy, but no less fun. I very heartily suggest Dominion for those who are looking for a strategy game with the convenience of a card game without forgetting that card drawing will diminish strategy - since you are building your deck on the fly, refining it leads to the odds and probability factor that you see in games like MtG. The prices here at Amazon are amazing - if you feel like a spending spree, they've recently offered a base set + a couple expansions for a great price, with a bonus of a card mat to help the layout of the game - it seems well worth it if you are fairly confident you want to give this game a go. I don't think I could be happier with this purchase.

I don't read board game news too much, but the little I do read has been buzzing about this game. I got it for my birthday and this past weekend provided me with time and people to play it with. It easily falls into my top games. Read on for more. Summary: Dominion is a strategy card game built around the idea of deck building. The box claims a 30 minute playtime but I have experienced more around 45 minutes, which is still fairly quick in the strategy game category. I am sure that the more we play it this will go down to about what the box suggests. It is medieval in theme. Components: This card based game comes on with cards, 250 of them to be exact. They are simple to understand and fun to look at. Since we are dealing with only cards, and there is much shuffling that will happen I would expect them to hold up as well as any cards would, not too well. Card sleeves would be recommended to protect the cards if you think it will get lots of play. Based on the games I have played, I think it will. Rules: The rules of Dominion are very simple and easy to learn and teach which make it one of Dominion's great strengths. After only playing two times I was able to teach an entirely new group the rules in about five minutes. Game set up is easy as well as each person begins with the same starting deck of ten cards. Game play follows a quick three phase structure starting with the Action phase, where a player may play an action card that gives them bonuses during their turn and/or attacks the other players. Next is the Buy phase where players buy new cards from the supply of cards on the table to add to their decks. Last, players go through the Clean Up phase where they discard all the cards they used in their turn. Then play passes to the next person. This makes for short turns which help to keep everyone in the action. Depth/Strategy: From what I have seen, the strategy in Dominion is simple. Find a way to get as much money as you can in your hand so that you can buy huge quantities of victory points. How you get there, however, is extremely varied. The game comes with twenty five Kingdom decks (the different action card you use throughout the game) but you only use ten in a game. So the different combinations of these in different games will change the way you go about your strategy. Even though the strategy is fairly straight forward the depth is great. Re-playability: This is easily Dominion's greatest strength which is very important in a game. It also means that you might end up replacing cards from wear sooner than you w

REVISED REVIEW: I admit, at first, I hated this game a lot, if you want to know why, you can see my OLD REVIEW below. However, after playing about 50 games, using a mix of cards from the original, and the expansions Intrigue, Seaside, and Prosperity, I have found a great appreciation for the Dominion SERIES, however, the original is still lacking in strategy and player interaction, when compared to the expansions. I think one of the reasons I was so hard on the game was it was my first deck-building game, and although it seemed like a great mechanic, the game didn't see fun to me. I laid out 3 reasons this game was bad (see below), but I will now admit that there is really only one flaw in this game, and thats with player interaction. There is more strategy to Dominion than I originally thought, but it takes playing with other players that are knowledgable about the game to see it. Now that I have played several decked building games over the years like Thunderstone, Ascension, and Legendary, and the shuffling doesn't bother me at all anymore. I have revised the overall score to 3 stars, but I give Intrigue and Prosperity 5 stars, that is a great combination, making a very strategic and interactive game. I hope this helps anyone buying this game, if given the choice, I would buy Intrigue over the orginal as a stand alone game, and then consider expanding it once you have the hang of it. Although, there are a few cards in the orinigal that are really good cards, but I'm not sure if buying the whole game just for a few cards is worth it, considering you have the choice (when I bought Dominion, there were no expansions yet, for the record). OLD BLISTERING REVIEW (revised due to many of the comments below, playing the games more, and the expansions) I feel like I'm the only gamer that hates this game on general principle. When I first bought this game I really wanted to like it; in fact I HAD to like it because EVERYONE likes it. I don't like ANY aspect of this game, but instead of going through them all, I will stick to the 3 things that KILL this game. ONE: its 4 player solitaire. There is so little interaction between players its boring. I have heard that some of the expansions fix this problem, but I hated this game and I'm not spending $50 more dollars on the off chance I might like it. TWO: It looks like a strategy game, but there's really only one strategy, BUY GOLD. Nothing beats this strategy, and even thought you are given a plethora of action cards, most of them just add useless cards to your deck, whereas more money always puts you in the best place for every situation. Of course, some would say, doesn't that just mimic real life, if you have more money, you can do more. Of course it does, but who ever thought a game was good because it mimics real life? Quite in the opposite in my opinion. THREE: Shuffling, MY GOD the shuffling. I really don't mind shuffling cards, but after the 300th time, I get sick of it. Yes, you could go out and buy an automatic card shuffler, but, and I'll ask it again, WHY OH WHY, would I want to spend MORE MONEY on this train wreck. Any game that makes you spend more, or buy expansions, just to make the game good isn't a good game.

This game is great. It's fun and interesting to play with just my wife, and equally good with my 2 girls (ages 12 and 14). I admit it did take some time to sort through the somewhat intimidating, book-like instructions, but once you figure out how the game works, it's quite straight forward (easy to play). It only takes a few minutes to explain to someone how to play. I especially like it is fast-paced (once you get the hang of it). For example, with 4 people, you wait less than a minute for your turn to come around again (unlike Settlers). In addition, because you use different cards each game, the strategy and feel of the game changes, which keeps the game from getting boring, and requires you to use different strategies. It is a good balance of (mostly) strategy and (perhaps) a bit of luck, however, it does not feel like a brainy game in which strategy is front and center. It is also not clear until the end of the game who is the likely winner, which I like (versus games you know you've lost half way through). When I read the description of this game I thought it sounded a bit like Settlers of Catan, a game I just don't like. This is too bad, because so many people love Settlers, but I find it boring and uninteresting for some reason. The obligatory trading porting is uninteresting, and if the dice don't roll your way it can be a disheartening game. This is not the case with Dominion. If the cards are working for you, it's your fault because you picked them. If you pick poor cards from your own deck, you will likely pick better cards from your deck in the next turn. The game stays interesting, and finishes quickly ... 30 minutes (once you learn how to play). Overall, there are not too many games out that that remains fun even when you are losing, and Dominion is one of them. By the way, my favorite game of all time is "Carcassonne Hunters and Gatherers", which is also especially enjoyable with 2-3 people. Enjoy!