Dominion - A Quickie Review

[maskmanjoe]

Maskmanjoe's Quickie Review of Dominion
A fast, medieval fantasy card game that will test your on-the-fly deck-building skills.

In the Middle Ages, it was dominate or be dominated. Kings and royalty fought for land and labor to further their influence, control society and rule over vast territories. For most, they were born into power, but for a cunning few, they built their way up. Having within their hands the right combination of key assets, they were able to slowly gain power. And in the game of Dominion, putting the right combination of key cards (and making sure they become available when they need to), spells victory.

Skyrocketing out of virtually nowhere into BGG's listing last year was 2008's "Golden Boy", Dominion. Without notice or warning, this card-driven game stormed through the gates of Essen and brought down the house with a game of on-the-fly deck-building. In Dominion players rush to rule over the rest by acquiring territories. Their invading army: a deck of cards. Throughout the game, players take turns building their decks by buying key component cards at the right quantities to enable them to acquire territories. Different deck builds abound just as there are different means to conquer lands. Players can employ cards that provide more treasure to purchase lands, others steal in order to get ahead, and some rely on the occult to curse the rest and make it more difficult to gain points. Dominion is all about having the right card at the right time, and here lies the challenge of the game. The subtleties of a balanced deck based on what is available to you can be difficult to see. An overall great faced-paced game that would certainly sit well among ccg players.

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My quickie reviews are called likewise since I tend to write something short and quick to read. My goal: build enough curiosity to pull any reader to at least reading more about the things I review. There are people out there who are virtuosos with reviews; I leave it up to them to wow you readers with the details. As long as I pique your interest even slightly then I am a happy reviewer Cheers!

[Adrian (the other one)]

the Northern Mafia was able to play this game at GC yesterday, thanks very much to Gaebril's copy!

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with the game.  I read the rulebook 3 months ago, and thought I would not like it that much.  I guess my low expectations worked to make me like the first play.  Not enough to want to own a copy... but maybe play it once in a while. 

When they say this game is fast... it really is.  You're not even done shuffling your deck and its your turn again.  Also, there is not much to be AP about (aside from choosing which card to add to your deck).  After that, its about managing the thickness of your deck to get to the cards that you want.  Again, it helps to know why you wanted that card in the first place.  Every card in your deck should have a reason for being there.

Also, it helps to have this good opinion about the game when you win your first try at it. hehehehe.

[maskmanjoe]

Also, it helps to have this good opinion about the game when you win your first try at it. hehehehe.

LOL

Good to hear that Gaebril was able to join. Been trying to have him join the meets for a while now.

[Alger B C Lim]

hmmm... so fast paced game ba siya? oh and how about the learning curve? from what im reading it looks like you guys picked it up pretty fast hehe but what would you say pag mga new players?

nice review btw

-alger

[Titus]

Yes, it's very fast-paced and easy to learn. Probably why it ranked so high on BGG in a short amount of time.

The game is all about deck building. There is no hand management and you have no 'tableau' like RFTG. You only draw 5 cards and discard your whole hand at the end of your turn.

You only do two things on your turn: play an action card and buy a card and put it into your deck. That's it. Of course cards that you buy into your deck can give you additional actions, allow you to draw more cards, allow you to buy more than one card, and allow you to buy more expensive cards. Some even allow you to remove cards and replace them to make your deck more efficient.

It's that simple. The learning curve is figuring out what the cards do and how it will interact with your other cards. Some cards also affect others by attacking or cursing them. So the cool thing is you can pull off awesome combos. The drawback is you do a lot of shuffling so you absolutely must put the cards in sleeves or they won't last long.

I enjoyed my one play of the game. I was afraid the simplicity might turn me off but instead I liked the fast pace, and there is strategy and interaction. And the different card sets make the game very replayable. My desire to get my own copy has gone up.

[viscoos]

Its really fast, because the game is very simple.  It is very newbie friendly  but ive just tried the newbie set of cards. people who like to shuffle (like me) will enjoy this game 

The thing that I dont like is that theres only one way of winning and thats whoever gets the most green cards (+6 or +3 of course) wins. But there are multiple ways to build your engine in getting the cards. 

Its one of those games that after playing you know that you can do better next time with different card combos.

Thanks to GAEBRIL for dropping by and visiting and playing and being patient and showing us all the love in the w0rldz!  Hope to see you soon with Dominion again.

but after saying that I feel that GtR > RftG > DMNM

[Adrian (the other one)]

For now, I feel GtR = RftG > Dominion.

But maybe if I play the other cards outside the Dominion basic cards, this may change.

[ChineezPnoy]

Here's my take on the card games I played as of late:

Legend:
"[]"   means absolute value
">="  means greater or equal to.

Equation:
Dominion >= San Juan > [RftG]
AND/ OR
Dominion >= (Hera + Zeus) > [RftG]

GtR is a variable that yet to be defined.

Solution:
Try out GtR someday to see its place in the equation. 

[Gaebril]

Having played Dom, SJ, RftG, and GtR (thanks to Adrian ), I'd say that

Dom >= RftG >> SJ = GtR

GtR is actually the most complicated of these, but the set collection aspect sort of turns me off. I dunno. Waiting to draw the right colors is kinda more of a Ticket to Ride kind of thing (although the Jacks do help somewhat).

SJ and RftG are very similar, except that SJ is simpler. But people can get turned off by the icons in RftG, At least it makes RftG harder to teach than it should be. I do own San Juan, and will be getting RftG (even after ~10 plays on mmj's set) (and that's after ~20 plays of Puerto Rico). So yeah, I do like them.

I think Dominion deserves the hype. I've played it with both people who aren't into boardgames, and also with people who win big CCG tourneys, invariably with requests to play again. Strategy is very deep; however note that it's 5% in playing the cards and 95% in choosing what cards to buy. I find that the luck factor is small because you draw all the cards in your deck, over and over again. Your good cards can't hide from you, and you can't hide from the bad cards. Replayability is through the roof; I've had around 20 plays of Dominion in the past 10 days, and it's far from stale. When you think that two expansions have already been announced for 2009... well, that's going to be a lot of plays.

[maskmanjoe]

I'm pleasantly surprised at how the hype of Dominion is built on a really good, highly enjoyable game. From what Gaebril described, it would easily surpass our gaming group's plays of RftG in this month I am also pleasantly surprised at how (apparently) the deck building can easily be grasped by non-ccg players and new players. I have to see this myself, but if this proves true then it may already be light enough for a gateway. Not enough reason here to by myself a copy though.