Review
Winner of 7 gaming awards to date the Dominion Card Game is a definite must buy and well worth the 30 odd pound price tag. In short this game gets a 10 out of 10 for its simplicity, longevity and greed-inducing playability. Donald X. Vaccarino, we salute you.
Never heard of Dominion? If so then I’m guessing your first reaction is “that looks like the crappiest game I’ve ever seen” or “what is that supposed to say?” but sketchy artwork and indecipherable fonts aside there is a hidden gem lying within the box. The description on the box will tell you that ‘you are a monarch’ and ‘you want a more pleasant kingdom’ etc. but all the waffle aside you want to build the greatest, grandest, scariest, most pocket poppingly expensive deck the middle-ages have ever seen! A deck you say? What would I want with a deck? A deck is everything sir! All your land, all your gold, all your attacking and defensive means and anything else that’s of use all go into your deck. In short this is where the game gets it’s pointy-looking name, your deck is your Dominion, so use it well! Servant, bring my gold, there are lords that need outwitting!
So how do you build up your deck and why is it a good game? Firstly, this game is incredibly easy to learn (none of this 80-page, see article 2.b malarkey). You start the game with a deck of 10 cards, this represents your measly estate and the pittance you call ‘your life’s savings’, the shame of it. From this deck of 10 you shuffle them and take the top 5 into your hand, which you can now look at, the rest of your unused deck stays hidden. Once all players are setup you can begin the game, each player has 3 phases per turn: (1) Action Phase - this is when you do stuff like adding cards to your hand or attacking / stealing from your neighbour, etc. By default you only have one action per turn. (2) Buying Phase - spend as much or as little of the money in your hand on cool cards that do stuff, more money or land. By default you can only buy one item per turn. (3) Cleanup Phase – you don’t hold all your cards at once, you’d need 7 hands with 60 fingers on each, instead at the end of your turn all your cards go on your discard pile (don’t worry you get these back again) then take 5 cards from the top of your deck again - done. It’s the simplicity and genius of the turn system that really makes this game what it is. Rather than giving away all your money when you buy something and then getting it all back again after you’ve collected your wages (or passed ‘go’ for example) you simply keep your money when you buy something and don’t receive any wages when the next turn begins, how cool is that? Simple. However, seeing as you can only take 5 cards at the start of your turn you need to make sure you put your well earned kingdom cards (cards that do stuff) to good use and not have a hand of 5 estate cards that do a big fat load of nothing – this is where the strategy comes in.
What does that mean? Explain yourself! Well here’s how it works. Even if you bought the Dominion Card Game five hundred times and finished the game with 65,000 treasure cards (the game has no actual currency – just ‘coins’) it won’t matter one bit because the game is won by having the most ‘victory points’, i.e. land. The catch is that every card in your deck that is land is essentially useless during your turn, those victory points are useless right up until the end of the game in fact. However, better land means more victory points so having 3 province cards worth 18 victory points isn’t so much a burden as having 18 estate cards worth 18 victory points. It’s all about increasing your chances of having a useful hand whilst making sure your deck is balanced with victory points. Money works in a similar way, whist your treasure cards are never useless if you have a hand of 5 copper treasure cards, you can only buy something worth 5 coins, if you have a hand of 5 gold cards you can buy something worth 30 coins. Nothing is ever that expensive in the game but if you have kingdom cards that allow you to buy 2 or more itmes then you can spread the cost and go on a ye olde shopping spree! Capital!
A rundown of the cards:
- Treasure Cards: Copper = 1 coin, Silver = 2 coins, Gold = 3 coins.
- Victory Cards: Estate = 1 victory point, Duchy = 3 victory points, Province = 6 victory points.
- Kingdom Cards: These cards are the bread and butter of your Dominion. When you start the game you layout 10 decks of kingdom cards (there are 24 different decks in total). Some allow you to take more actions, some allow you to buy more than one item per turn and some allow you to attack and defend your Dominion. Some allow you to trash or swap your unwanted cards and some add more coins to your Buying Phase.
- Curse Cards: All curse cards are worth minus one victory point. Bah.
- Kingdom/Victory Cards: These cards are worth victory points AND they have special attributes associated with them too. Some are worth gold, some multiply your victory points and some allow additional actions (see Intrigue and Seaside).
- Trash Card: This is where you place cards that have been removed from the game – and can never come back! Until the next game.
A summary of the best bits: It’s set loosely around the middle ages, so that’s always fun. You get this greed that comes over you and the nicely printed cards become irresistible and you begin referring to the province and gold cards as your ‘precious’, which is fun too. You can play this game loads before it becomes repetitive because there are so many kingdom cards to choose from yet you only use 10 sets per game so it feels like there are endless combinations, especially if you mix in the new cards from the expansions. First you can play all of the recommended sets of 10 kingdom cards, then you can pick your own or pick 10 at random! There are kingdom cards I still haven’t used yet and I play this game as often as I can!
Is it good for the whole family? Definitely. As long as one of you knows the rules fairly well before all sitting down to play they’ll have no trouble grasping the concept within minutes.
Artwork: Okay the cover artwork has received a lot of punishment since its debut but I think it’s time we forgive it. The cards themselves are actually pretty good and there’s something about them that make you want to hold them. There are indeed a few cards that stick out like sore thumbs that have been nicked by the smithy’s great whopping smithy hammer, but whilst the cards looks aren’t all up to the usual high standards of Fantasy Flight’s artwork the game does make up for this blotch on its character with sheer gaming genius. Surely that’s what it’s all about?
Many refer to Dominion as a euro-style game; simple rules, shorter game time, no dice, fewer pieces, easier game setup, you get the idea - a game such as Arkham Horror is not a euro-style game. For more great euro-style games check out Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan.
If you’re hungry for more knowledge then by all means watch all the video reviews by Tom Vasel (one for each game/expansion) or download the official .pdf rulebook.
Well that’s the end of my Dominion review. I seriously doubt you’ll dislike this game it really is more than just a big box of cards. Go on, give it a go, before you know it you’ll be going on about it as much as I have.
by David 31/01/2010
