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 would like.  As mentioned above, the game comes with twenty five Kingdom decks but you only use ten at a time.  This means that the combinations you can play with are many.  On top of that the creators of the game are heavily supporting it.  There is already one expansion out which adds twenty five new Kingdom decks and another expansion on the way.  If you enjoy the basic game play (what is there not to like?), this promises a game that will be played for years to come.

Player Interaction:

This is one of the reasons I sit down to play a game.  I really enjoy that face-to-face interaction that only a board game can provide.  Some games feel like a multiplayer solitaire game (boring!) and others feel like an all out slug-fest.  This one falls in the middle of this spectrum.  There are ways to interact with other players but they are limited enough that you don’t feel picked on all the time.  The first expansion (Intrigue) promises to bring even more interaction between players.

One of the great things about this game, and why I think it can appeal to a broad audience, is that it is flexible.  If you want lots of interaction you can make the game play that way.  If you don’t, you can make it play that way, all by the Kingdom decks you choose to play with.

Final Word:

Dominion is a great game.  It ranks easily in my top three.  It is easy to learn, play, and customize so that you get the experience you want.  The re-playability is off the charts and it strikes a unique balance in player interaction.  The only downfall of this game is the durability of the components but that is hard to avoid with a card game.  Get some card sleeves.  They will come in handy since this is a game that will be played for years to come.

Update: The game is for 2-4 players.  With 3 or 4 players it plays the same.  With 2 players there are some cards that get removed to maintain the same feel as the game with more players.  The first expansion, Intrigue, allows you to play with 2-6 players at one table or 8 players at two tables.  I am waiting on my copy of Intrigue and will update you when I try these options out.

Update #2: After playing the game with 6 players I can say that it is just as fun.  It does produce a little more down time for each player but the turns are still fast and enjoyable.  We played with 2 people who had played and 4 that had not.  All players said they wanted to play again.  Success!

Update #3: I have had this game for around 6 months now.  We have played Dominion more than any other game I own.  This is due to its shorter playtime and its extreme variability.  It has also become a very quick favorite with all our friends and family who have played it.  I don’t think I have played a game with more universal appeal than this one (when it comes to more complex strategy games).  Every group we have played it with has wanted to play it again.  And again.  Really.  If this game isn’t in your closet or on your table being played it should be.   On another note, even though we have played this game a lot, the cards have held up very well.  I am impressed.

This time finally came a couple weeks ago.  We had a Sunday afternoon so I sat down and read the rules and then taught everyone else to play.  It is a blast.

Summary:

Race for the Galaxy is a card based strategy game that is a fairly quick to play, around 45 minutes.  It is science fiction in theme so the player will be colonizing worlds and building futuristic developments; right up my alley.

Components:

Since this is a card game, there are, of course, cards.  The good news is these cards seem to be pretty tough.  They should hold up well through the many times we will play it.  The only other pieces are the cardboard victory point chips that are printed on both sides.  Simple enough.

Rules:

The rules are fairly simple once you get into them.  The most daunting piece to learn is the icon system the game uses.  Once you learn it though, it makes complete sense and works very well.  The rules don’t take very long to learn and are easy and quick to teach others.

Depth/Strategy:

I have played it only four times so far and I can tell that I am only scratching the surface of all of the strategy options here.  There are many directions you can choose to go to win.  Will you be a military power?  Will you rely on your developments?  There are numerous possibilities.  But even with so many options, the game is very accessible.

Game Play:

Game play moves swiftly using a five phase system.   Each player chooses an action (phase) card that they want to take in the coming round.  Only the actions chosen will be done in that round and the player who chose that action gets a bonus during it.  You can explore (acquire cards), develop (play development cards), settle (play world cards), consume (earn victory points or cards), or produce (produce goods on the planets you have settled which can later be consumed).  The person with the most victory points at the end wins.

Final Word:

This game’s strength is that it is accessible yet deep, involved yet short, and very balanced.  All of the games I have played so far have been very close and it always comes down to the last round.  The only complaint I have is that there is little player interaction but this is supposed to be fixed to some degree in an expansion coming later this year.  All in all Race for the Galaxy is one of my new favorites.

Brian

The game revolves around powering and connecting cities in your power grid. This process is broken up into steps and phases, like many “Eurogames”.  The three different steps break up the game into parts in which different rules apply.  Different aspects of the game are important depending on which step you are in.  The different phases break up the rounds of play into a bidding phase (for power plants), a buying phase (purchasing resources), a building phase (powering and connecting cities), and the burning phase in which you burn the resources to power your cities and earn money.

The only luck that comes in to play is the order in which the power plants come up for bidding.  The rest of the game is pure strategy.  In some cases you can keep people from getting the resources they need by buying up all of the ones they need.  You can power cities in a way to block others from getting to other cities.  You get the point.

One of the most interesting mechanics in the game is the market where you purchase your resources.  The way they have created it, it simulates a market brilliantly.  You really need to see it in action to understand.  Overall, the whole game is brilliant and I don’t have a single complaint myself about it.  I will say it again, though, if you don’t like games with deep strategy you might not enjoy this one.  But don’t let me discourage you.  I think anyone can like this game.  I love it.  My copy should be arriving today.

Brian

No, I am not in Puerto Rico.  The title just worked.  You will see.

I know that the weather won’t stay this cool for long, so I wanted to quickly capitalize on the coolness outside, cementing it in histroy by writing about it on my blog.  I stepped out of my house this morning to a bisque fifty-something degrees.  I absolutely love breathing in that cooler air.  It is very invigorating.  The last couple days have inspired me to grow, what I am calling, a trial-beard.  I know that the temperatures will go back up for a couple more weeks so I won’t keep it long but at least I can act like the weather will stay this way from here on out.  I believe that fall is my favorite time of year.

One of the great things that fall brings besides the weather (actually because of the weather) is opportunities to do inside activities, like board games!  Most of you who know me know that I am not talking about your Monopoly-type-games here.  Even thought those are great games there are many games that I have found or been introduced to that far outpace the Monopolies of the world.

I don’t know exactly how to categorize these games.  Most of them are designed in Germany so I guess it is safe to call them Deutschland games.  That might be too much of a mouthful so maybe I will just go with G-games.  I digress.  We were introduced to one of these G-games last night at a couple’s house from church.  It is great to find other people who enjoy these games with the same intensity that we do.

I have wanted to play Puerto Rico for a while now but haven’t had the money or opportunity to.  Let me just say that it is a great game with deep strategy.  Since last night was my first time to play I know I am just scratching the surface but I can see how deep this game could go.  At the same time it was very accessible.  My wife and I both picked it up quickly and had fun playing in our first play.  It is no surprise that this game has gotten the great reviews that it has.  Check it out a FunAgainGames.com.

If the above is all you need to know to be happy, great.  If you want to know some more details then read on. Puerto Rico is all about commodity producing and trading.  The trading aspect isn’t between players, it is with a market.  This does limit the player interaction a bit but this wasn’t an issue for me.  The turns revolve around taking the actions of some set professions.  There are (I believe) seven professions and the players choose which profession they want to use that turn based on the actions the profession can take and the special abilities it has.

For example, if someone chooses the Settler, they take the Settler action and the get the Settler bonus.  Everyone else will take the settler action in turn but does not get the bonus.  The settler cannot be picked by anyone else that turn.  You try to pick the profession that will help you the benefit you the most and help other players the least.

You produce resources using plantations of different kinds of resources (corn, indigo, sugar, and coffee) and matching them with factories.  Not only do you have to have both of these, you have to have both “peopled” to produce a product.  “Peopled” just means that you have to have colonists working both the plantation and the factory in order for them to work to produce a product.  The colonists come from the Mayor profession.  There are other buildings in the game that you can build that provide other benefits.

Once you have produced resources (using the Craftsman profession) you can load them on ships (using the Captain profession) to earn victory points.  You can also earn victory points at the end of the game through the buildings you have built throughout.  The person with the most victory points at the end wins, but that should be obvious.  Play time for people who know the game would probably be about an hour and a half or so.

The game is much deeper than what I have described here.  If I had put all of the ins and outs of Puerto Rico in four paragraphs then I would probably have a job writing instruction manuals for board games.  I am happy to say that I have finally played this game and I look forward to playing it again, and again.

Brian

In this game you play as barbarian tribes invading the collapsing Roman Empire.  You go through two stages in the game: first plundering, then conquering.  Many of the mechanics still exist from Settlers that make it recognizable but there are many new additions as well making it a great new experience with a mix of elements you are familiar with.  We finished our first game of Catan Histories last night with some friends.  This first full play through took quite a bit of time as we were still ironing out the rules as we went but Settlers was the same way.  I expect that the more we play it the shorter the games will get.

If you enjoyed Settlers of Catan you just like a good strategy game you should try this one out.  If you are looking for a good place to purchase board games that you might not find in a local retail store, you should try out Fun Again Games.  They have the largest selection I have found.  Amazon.com would be another spot to check. Occasionally they have better prices than FunAgain.  Happy gaming!

Brian