Board Game Review part 2

For part 2 I have chosen Dominion. This is a pretty interesting game and one I knew nothing about prior to testing it at Gen Con. Its not new, there are like 4 expansions to the original game at this point, its just that its made by Rio Grande and almost every one of their games is a resource management game that either confuses or bores me to tears. Dominion is quite an exception to Rio's normal M.O. Sure you still have to manage resources, but thats not the focal point of the game. The game is focused on deck building. The box set comes with around 500 cards, divided into treasure, victory points, and action cards. So a break down of the game.

There are i believe 24 different action cards. You start the game by picking 10 of them. You can do a random draw or a theme game from the list in the rule book. Place the 10 chosen action cards in the middle of the table, usually in order by cost. Then at the top place the stacks of Copper, Silver, Gold, then the Estates, Duchy's, and Provinces. Each player begins the game with a 10 card deck. Those 10 cards are 7 copper and 3 estates. The Estates provide your with 1 victory point each, but they have no in game effect, so drawing them during the game is a hindrance. Copper each give you 1 point of money, (we usually say gold, but it can be confusing since there is a card named gold.)

Each player then draws 5 cards from his deck and play begins. On your turn you look through your hand, you are allowed to play 1 action and buy 1 card. As you progress through the game you will buy action cards that can give you bonus actions each turn, additional buys, the ability to draw more cards from your deck, or even bonus money. Once you have played every card you are able and purchased a new card, you then discard every card remaining in your hand. Draw 5 new cards and your turn is over. Play continues in this manner until one of the two end conditions are met. Either 3 of the action decks have been bought up or all of the Provinces are bought out. Provinces are the highest victorys point card so people tend to buy them whenever they are able, it has been the most common ending condition for us. Once the game is over you go through your deck, pull out all your victory cards and count them up to see who is the winner.

The game plays very quickly, and we have found it to be a fast favorite among our group. The only issue has been getting the game sleeved, to protect the cards from wear and tear. Dominion is definetly one of my favorite games, we have picked up one expansion. Its called intrigue, and it comes with more treasure and victory cards to allow the game to be played by up to 6 players.



I Have played this game a good 10 times since Gen Con and I am still itching to play it more, so my rating is going to be a very solid A.