I have to
confess that Dominion
is completely out of style with the games I normally like. In fact, I
probably would never have played it except for my brother's family. The
year it was published, it was quite the rage. Yet, its reputation as a
themeless game put me off. So did the constant
card shuffling I heard about. Then why,
in the end, did I end up giving it a rating of 9 out of 10? After all, I like games that drip with theme,
telling a story as they are played. I
was just as surprised as you.
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| Incredible fun in 30 minutes! |
That year, when
my brother and his wife came back from visiting one of their kids, they raved
about Dominion. For my brother to do this, it must be a huge
success as a family game. His motto is,
“If it starts to feel like work, I’d rather work.” This game he was anxious play with us. For Christmas they gave my son a copy. I still wasn’t convinced. Not until we sat down to play it a few months
later was I completely won over. We got
home late the night of our first play, but still took the time to break the
seal on my son’s copy and get it ready to play.
A few days later I bought a copy of Dominion:
Intrigue, which is the first expansion, but is also playable as a
standalone version. This way, when Big D
(he has grown taller than me since I started this blog!) goes off to college, I
am sure to have a copy.
Dominion is a card game which is
supposedly building up a kingdom, a dominion, by adding various places, people
and features to it as the game goes on.
However, the game doesn’t really feel like you are doing any of
that. Typically, this is where I take a
pass. The game play in Dominion is so good, however, that it
makes up for any lack of flavor.
Players have
a deck of cards that sits at their
left hand, and are holding five cards.
At your right hand is your personal discard
pile. More cards of various types
are on the table for purchase, including cards which represent money and cards
that are victory points. On your turn,
you can play one card from your hand for an action
and/or buy a card from the table, and then you “clean up” by discarding
everything you bought, played and your hand.
Five cards are drawn from your deck for the next turn. An action allows you to draw more cards, make
more than one purchase, play more actions, attack or defend or some combination
thereof. When your deck runs out, you
shuffle the discard pile and make it the deck and keep going. When the game ends, the person who has the
most victory points wins.
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| Some of the cards from Dominion (Image by Gary James) |
That’s not a
thorough description without going into the cards, but it does go about that
fast: 30 minutes for a complete game. It’s
not terribly complicated. (Little ones
will have trouble with shuffling and reading text on the cards though.) Your deck grows as you buy cards and they
eventually cycle around. The fun is in
the interaction of the cards. I love
trying to buy cards that will work in combination to allow multiple actions or buys,
or more valuable buys.
The game
components consist exclusively of the cards and the rules. While available at Target and Barnes & Noble,
don’t look for it on the same rack as Rook,
or Monopoly Deal. This game comes in a full size box. That’s because it doesn’t have the usual 50 –
100 cards; there are 500 cards in the box!
The artwork is adequate, though not awe in inspiring. As I said, the excellence of this game is in
the game play.
If I haven’t
convinced you yet, consider that Dominion
was the 2009 Spiel des Jahres winner.
Since its publication, the game mechanism of buying the cards you will
play with later in the game has appeared in a
lot of games. I haven’t played any
of them, since I love this game so much.
It’s hard for me to justify another game that largely plays the same
way.
I gave this game a 9 / 10. That's pretty high praise from me; it's a rating for games I don't imagine giving up.
It's Your Move!
Dominion:
ages 8 and up, 30 minutes, 2-4 players.
