Review: Dominion

Posted by Brian on Oct 19, 2009 | 10 comments

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 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!

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