Dominion

This week, my group played Dominion. This is a deckbuilding game for two to four players, and is recommended for ages 13 and up. It was created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games in 2008. Each game takes about 30 minutes, but the time can vary based on which cards you are using in your game, and if you are playing with any expansions. For our playthrough, we just used the base game.

Components

Dominion is a fairly large game, requiring a good amount of table space, though the only ‘board’ is the trash pile. There are 33 unique decks included in the base game, but you won’t use all of them at once. You’ll have 10 different Kingdom decks, 3 treasure, and 3 victory point decks, totaling to 16 decks each game. These are what you’ll use to build your dominion to try and secure victory!

The cards are very durable, and have lasted through dozens of playthroughs of this game. Each deck has its own art, featuring different people or locations.

Gameplay Mechanics

Dominion is a very standard deckbuilder. You buy cards to build your deck, and attempt to have the most Victory Points in your deck at the end of the game. 

You start the game with 3 Victory Points and 7 Copper. These get shuffled together and made into your dominion. 

On your turn, you spend your Treasure to buy cards from the Kingdom. You can buy more Treasure, Victory Points, or Action cards, but you can only buy one card per turn, unless you play an action card that allows you to buy more. Action cards can be played from your hand before or after your Buy phase, and can give you extra money, the ability to buy more, or can even be used to hinder your opponents.

What makes Dominion stand out, to me, is the variety of cards in the game. 26 of the included decks are Kingdom decks, which give you actions. These increase the amount of cards you can buy each turn, allow you to perform offensive or defensive actions, give you extra Treasure, and many other things. 

Treasure is your currency in Dominion: it comes in the classic forms of fantasy currency: Copper, Silver, and Gold. 

Victory Points don’t affect gameplay until the end of the game. They are important to have, but you should  be careful when buying, as you don’t want to bog your deck down too early.

Game End

The game ends when, at the end of a turn, any three or more of the Kingdom Decks are empty, or if the Province pile (one of the types of Victory Points) is empty. At this point, you’ll add up all of your Victory Points. The player with the most Victory Points wins!

My Thoughts

Dominion is a game I pull out almost every game night. It’s different each playthrough, and it is very easy for newer players to get the hang of. There can be as much or as little player interaction as you want, as you can customize the cards you have available for your game. 

For more variety throughout playthroughs, the game also includes a special deck with one of each card, so you can randomly select which cards you play with. This is incredibly useful to help change up the gameplay.  

I would highly recommend Dominion for any group who enjoys or wants to try out deckbuilders. There is a large amount of variety in just the base game, and there are 16 expansions currently, with a 17th soon to release. 

Depending on your group, time between turns can be quite long. The more players you have, the longer this time will be. This is especially true if members of your group spend a lot of time thinking on their turns. This can bog down the gameplay, leaving some players bored during their downtime. However, this can be somewhat mitigated by including a lot of player interaction cards to help keep everyone engaged. 

This is a game that stays fresh  dozens of times with just the base game, and although I have yet to pick up any of the many expansions, I’m sure they help tremendously with replayability.

In Conclusion

Dominion is a great option for groups who are interested in deckbuilders. It’s very easy to teach to new players, and incredibly replayable. This game offers hours of fun, excellent artistic eye-candy, and durable components.