Rio Grande Games Dominion Strategic Card Game: Award-Winning Deck Building for 2-4 Players

I don't read board game news too much, but the little I do read has been buzzing about this game. I got it for my birthday and this past weekend provided me with time and people to play it with. It easily falls into my top games. Read on for more.Summary:Dominion is a strategy card game built around the idea of deck building. The box claims a 30 minute playtime but I have experienced more around 45 minutes, which is still fairly quick in the strategy game category. I am sure that the more we play it this will go down to about what the box suggests. It is medieval in theme.Components:This card based game comes on with cards, 250 of them to be exact. They are simple to understand and fun to look at. Since we are dealing with only cards, and there is much shuffling that will happen I would expect them to hold up as well as any cards would, not too well. Card sleeves would be recommended to protect the cards if you think it will get lots of play. Based on the games I have played, I think it will.Rules:The rules of Dominion are very simple and easy to learn and teach which make it one of Dominion's great strengths. After only playing two times I was able to teach an entirely new group the rules in about five minutes. Game set up is easy as well as each person begins with the same starting deck of ten cards.Game play follows a quick three phase structure starting with the Action phase, where a player may play an action card that gives them bonuses during their turn and/or attacks the other players. Next is the Buy phase where players buy new cards from the supply of cards on the table to add to their decks. Last, players go through the Clean Up phase where they discard all the cards they used in their turn. Then play passes to the next person. This makes for short turns which help to keep everyone in the action.Depth/Strategy:From what I have seen, the strategy in Dominion is simple. Find a way to get as much money as you can in your hand so that you can buy huge quantities of victory points. How you get there, however, is extremely varied. The game comes with twenty five Kingdom decks (the different action card you use throughout the game) but you only use ten in a game. So the different combinations of these in different games will change the way you go about your strategy. Even though the strategy is fairly straight forward the depth is great.Re-playability:This is easily Dominion's greatest strength which is very important in a game. It also means that you might end up replacing cards from wear sooner than you w

I will divert from the mechanics of the game and deliver on the game and how it relates to me.There are many other great reviews that explain how to play the game in great detail and I suggest that you continue reading those other reviews for that reason. However, this review is to explain how this game relates to my family and my friends.I have 3 daughters between the ages of 6 and 10, they are advanced academically, however, they all love this game. I know the game reads like it'd be too advanced for my youngest 6 and 8 year olds. However, my 8 year old won the first 3 games we've played, beating everyone else, no handicap or reduced play on my part!My 6 year old feels this is her favorite game of all time, on the honest side, she only lasts about 3/4 of the game and then begins to lose focus on the game. If we could reduce the amount of options (reduce game play time) it may increase her ability to stay in the game. Typically she starts off strong and then towards the end we're having to coach her and/or make decisions for her. This is not a fault of the game, or the length of the game, but rather due to the fact that my daughter is only 6 years old and she is of the mindset that she must live life to the fullest. The game typically takes 1.5-2 hours with my young children due to the fact that we try to teach them the strategy and rationale for making their decisions, but when playing with my buddies typically takes about 45 minutes at the most. Eventually, I truly believe my 6 year old will be able to play a game from start to finish w/out any assistance.This game is an amazing game, it's baffling that a bunch of cards could lend to so much replay-ability and so much fun. It gives us an excuse to all gather around the same patch of floor or table and work together towards a common goal - building the best kingdom!The possibilities are endless with this game. We've played multiple games and each time you're still left with other options to build around. This is one of the only games that I can sit and play with my 6 year old and have as much fun as I do playing with my 30-50 something old friends. I promise this lends credence to the game, it is not indicative to the banality of my friends.My core group of friends tend to gravitate toward video gaming. We meet at least once a month for a game day in which we typically do nothing but drink and play video games. I have tried for the last 8 years to get them to play more than video games, with board games, 'scene-it' type games, card games, and everything in between...but nothing has ever worked as well as video games. This game was the first time that i've ever been able to get them to come back to a game, ever.Dominion is great family fun and great 'Man Fun' too! Definitely worth the buy.

All right, so the wife and I were looking for a game we could play together. There are woefully little video games that allow two people on the couch to play together (at least games that any two people can agree on) and many classic board games are far too repetitive for me. Based on the reviews here at Amazon and other sites (internet search for dominion review, if you're interested), I decided to give this one a try.The game mechanics are fairly simple to learn, but the included instructions aren't well-written at all. My advice is to read the instructions and then play a few hands to get the hang of it. Once you get the rules down, this game is a blast to play. The one thing that really stands out for me is the variability. All the different cards and events that can happen help keep the game fresh; changing cards every game is a wonderful way to keep you guessing and thinking about the best tactic to win. Eventually the expansion packs are needed to add some variety.Children 8 and up could easily pick this game up, depending on their individual intellectual abilities. There is a lot of opportunity to learn in this game; not necessarily learning facts or gaining knowledge, but exercising critical thinking skills, planning, and understanding consequences of actions. For me, strategic planning and critical thinking is far more important than memorizing facts; this game certainly offers the potential to keep you thinking.The only drawback I can think of is the packaging, storage, and durability. It is a card game, so I don't expect the world, but the sheer amount of handling, shuffling, and dealing gives these cards a beating. They are well made, but the inclusion of some protectors or lamination on the cards might have been an option for anyone concerned with the product being damaged. The box it comes in is sturdy and well-made, but the plastic storage trays inside seem odd to me. It's too easy to drop, tip, or otherwise disturb the box and have the carefully arranged contents inside become chaos. Maybe a simple box made as a row with labelled dividers would have sufficed and kept the cards in place?

As an extensive board, RPG and card gamer since birth, I have had opportunities to play a ton of games. Some I have played a lot (AD&D, WH40K, M:TG - quite literally tens of thousands of hours of that life sapper), some I have tossed asunder after a round or two. Overall, though, I found that I always come back to the same games when the new stuff drifts into the dusty recesses of my shelves. Magic: the Gathering was the one that kept resurrecting itself until after more than a DECADE playing it, I retired from competitive play and then from any play at all. That said, I still miss certain aspects of the game. Obviously the competitive nature of it was tantamount to its attractiveness - you versus another where you were taking his life away; but the STRATEGY of construction and deck testing was the best part of the game. At the highest levels of MtG, the Pro Tour, players spend what amounts to overtime each week (40 hours of labor or more!) constructing, dissecting, testing, discussing and refining their customized decks to determine the strongest ones. With the internet, they yammer endlessly about mana curve and and broken cards with other top players throughout the world. It is a JOB, but it is a fun job. Within the arena of construction can be found the base addiction to the game, always looking for another combination that could create a deck so powerful the Wizards of the Coast had no choice but to ban a component card or errata away the potency for tourney play. The quest for the unbeatable deck...rages on even today nearly reaching two decades and tens of thousands of different cards.Enter a wife and two wonderful children (actually second wife, MtG may have been a contributing factor in the disappearance of the first /grin). Gaming time drops to near zero... My wife is an adamant non-player. We played poker a lot back before the kiddos, and some low-strat board games. After the kids, we no longer had time to play decent strategy games - most of which required a lot of preparation or extensive attention for several hours to really feel like you'd done it justice. Two items that were simply out of stock for newly-parents. I still checked up on the world of board games, salivating over Settlers of Catan and Agricola and Carcassone... Then I saw Dominion popping up with incredible reviews - so I took a flyer and bought it to play on holiday with my venerable opponent - my brother, a single dad who had a very similar history. We played it to death once the kids went down for the night, while my wife chit chatted with us and paid a little attention to the game. Endlessly we played, shuffling cards over and over, and we found the strategic intricacies to be incredibly deep. Thanks to the shifting of the available cards each game, no two games were the same - basic strategies emerged for every card and for combinations of those cards, but the improvisational-deck-building-mechanic was incredibly addictive. My wife watched, but did not bite. The holiday ended, and I moped that I would no longer have the time or the opponents to play the game to which I was now deeply addicted. Then DW surprised me and said she would play it with me as a Christmas gift. Her revelation to me was that games that required strategy seemed too "brainy" for her - that it would require so much thinking as to ruin the fun nature of playing - whereas in Hold 'em, it was less what you had than knowing what your opponent had and a little clevage could throw him off his game. I nursed game one along so that she got a feel for the mechanics, and she won. I certainly did not give 100%, because a win for her meant the potential of a game two for me. She won game two - this time a little less passivity on my part. Then game three...and the night was over, but my addiction had been satiated for a day. Today, she ASKED to play again. She ASKED to play a high-strategy game. I'm setting the hook to pull in a lunker.Dominion can bridge the non-gamer gap - the basics are simple enough that nearly anyone can play. The depth of the game is deep enough to whet the appetites of all but the most intense miniatures players or historical war gamers. The Magic playing friends will absolutely love the draft-style construction, and the casual gamers will appreciate that a game takes only 30 minutes in most circumstances after a couple learning games. Dominion is really fun with two players, but adding up to two more increases the fun-quotient. Rio Grande has released several expansions which seem to add even more depth and breadth to the mix - Intrigue can be merged with the base set to allow for games of up to EIGHT players; which would seem to get very hairy, but no less fun. I very heartily suggest Dominion for those who are looking for a strategy game with the convenience of a card game without forgetting that card drawing will diminish strategy - since you are building your deck on the fly, refining it leads to the odds and probability factor that you see in games like MtG. The prices here at Amazon are amazing - if you feel like a spending spree, they've recently offered a base set + a couple expansions for a great price, with a bonus of a card mat to help the layout of the game - it seems well worth it if you are fairly confident you want to give this game a go.I don't think I could be happier with this purchase.

Although this game rated really highly on Boardgame Geek, I was not motivated to add this to my collection for the following reasons:1) I had watched video reviews and still couldn't understand it, or how it could be fun.2) It's a card game. There are no cool fiddly bits like figurines or houses to play with. It's just a big box of cards.But this was my husband's pick and since it's rare for him to request games, we went with this one. Several plays into the game, here are my thoughts:PROS:1) Well-thought-out game. It has brilliant gameplay and highly-addictive. I can now understand why it gets the rating that it has.2) Easy to learn. We introduced it to our non-gamer brother and he admitted that he actually enjoyed it.3) High replay value. It's a big box of cards for a great reason: you can mix and match the cards and hence change the game every time. I would even say that out of all the games I've played, it's got the highest replay value.4) Gorgeous card artwork. The artwork was compiled by various artists and I still enjoy looking at the cards when I buy them.CONS:1) The theme gets lost during the game. The cards you buy have medieval headings, but for the most part, I don't connect that I'm actually buying a Market, a Village or whatever you might be purchasing.2) Not as much interaction with the other players. It does depend on what cards you choose to be in the game, but it's easy to get so caught up in what you're doing that you forget what others are doing at the same time.In the end, I'm glad we got this one. It's a great game to pull out when you've got a mix of non-gamer and gamer friends. One reviewer said that it "scratches a lot of itches" and I think that about sums it up right.

Dominion is a game that has already garnished a lot of rave reviews, and I generally wouldn't see it necessary to write a review myself, HOWEVER this game is really outstanding, and I can say, in all honesty, that if you're on the fence on getting this (as I was) or board/card games in general, believe me- it is well worth it.Mechanically speaking this game has it all- balanced play, a good amount of strategy, little luck, and variety in gameplay. Oh, and it's addictive LIKE NO OTHER BOARD/CARD GAME. By setting it up differently every time with different kingdom card decks you can ensure that you will get a unique game almost every time. And if you want even more variation there's about seven expansions to the game that offer ever more ways to add variety to the game (more are in production).The only flaw might be that it is a little light on theme and that some newcomers might lose to experienced players due to more advanced strategies (ex. "Big Money"). However, the light theme also allows the game to be learned quite easily and intuitively and the action cards allow you to counteract a lot of the prevailing strategies, advanced or not. It really takes little amount of play to learn what might be some good strategies/cards worth investing in.Where Dominion really shines is in its combos. By stringing actions and/or buys in a turn a player can make some impressive buys and/or damage to other players. Negative interaction is usually pretty low in this base game, although how much (if any) interaction that occurs between players depends on the decks of kingdom cards chosen. So, you can easily design the game according to the crowd your playing with and what preferences they might have.All in all, this is a great game that is destined to become a classic (if it hasn't done so already). It receives my highest recommendation for any board/card game.

This game is great. It's fun and interesting to play with just my wife, and equally good with my 2 girls (ages 12 and 14). I admit it did take some time to sort through the somewhat intimidating, book-like instructions, but once you figure out how the game works, it's quite straight forward (easy to play). It only takes a few minutes to explain to someone how to play. I especially like it is fast-paced (once you get the hang of it). For example, with 4 people, you wait less than a minute for your turn to come around again (unlike Settlers). In addition, because you use different cards each game, the strategy and feel of the game changes, which keeps the game from getting boring, and requires you to use different strategies. It is a good balance of (mostly) strategy and (perhaps) a bit of luck, however, it does not feel like a brainy game in which strategy is front and center. It is also not clear until the end of the game who is the likely winner, which I like (versus games you know you've lost half way through). When I read the description of this game I thought it sounded a bit like Settlers of Catan, a game I just don't like. This is too bad, because so many people love Settlers, but I find it boring and uninteresting for some reason. The obligatory trading porting is uninteresting, and if the dice don't roll your way it can be a disheartening game. This is not the case with Dominion. If the cards are working for you, it's your fault because you picked them. If you pick poor cards from your own deck, you will likely pick better cards from your deck in the next turn. The game stays interesting, and finishes quickly ... 30 minutes (once you learn how to play). Overall, there are not too many games out that that remains fun even when you are losing, and Dominion is one of them. By the way, my favorite game of all time is "Carcassonne Hunters and Gatherers", which is also especially enjoyable with 2-3 people. Enjoy!

Truly amazing game! My wife and I were searching for something we could both enjoy together, just the two of us as well as with other couples. The problem is, I am an avid gamer whereas she typically loses interest quickly. But she has been the one demanding that break out the cards more than me! It's a great game to bridge that divide. There are certainly higher level strategies and builds to keep in mind but in the end, there's not really a wrong way to play it and a portion of it simply comes down to luck of the draw which helps to level the playing field. That's not to say that winning is arbitrary, you certainly feel like you contributed to your win. It's just that even if I approach a certain build with what, on paper, is a flawless strategy to capitalize on the cards available and I'm chaining together tens of cards, my wife can still beat me without putting as much thought into it.Another big plus is the play time. Once you play a couple rounds and get a feel for the flow of the game, they really fly by. This holds especially true with just the two of us. Usually we're completing rounds before the other person has even finished drawing! 30 minute games are the norm rather than the exception. Plus with the way the game works where you only use 10 of the 25 action cards in each game, there's so many combinations and possibilities to work with that we haven't even scratched the surface on game types. Add in the 8 expansion sets and you've got a game with near endless replayability.So if you're looking for an easier, accessible game for you and a loved one or even just a bunch of friends, I cannot recommend Dominion highly enough. It may lack some of the depth and involvement of other board games but in this case, simpler is better. Bonus enjoyability if you only ever play while the soundtrack to Skyrim plays in the background.

「Dominion」が気に入ったので、日本語版ではないもののシリーズとして購入した。自分で鑑賞している分については問題ない。ただ、中に入っていた。栞のようなものがカード類に挟まれてくしゃくしゃになっていたのはいただけない。輸入品の扱いの雑さがここでも際立っている。

Mucha repetibilidad, pues siempre que lo jueges tendrás nuevas combinaciones de cartas. Lo pueden jugar desde niños de ocho años.

its our face fammily game and loved the prompt delivery ;)

As a family of four with children of 7 and 12, we are often looking for games that all of us can play. I was a little concerned about whether or not the 7 year old could play. He was able to play.It is a deck building game that requires some basic concept training for little kids and adults alike, however learning it is not difficult at all. Some combinations are more difficult than others, making the length and style of play different with each game.One thing negative aspect is that there are 500 cards and if you choose to sleeve your cards, you may end up spending about the same amount as the game itself. I sleeve all of my game cards so it took me a long while to sleeve the cards. And then, after sleeping them, the didn't fit into the box anymore. Fortunately for me, I don't mind using alternate storage containers.Either way, the game itself is 5 stars.

Such a fantastic game. It may seem complicated at first, but you get the hang of it very quickly. The game changes every single time you play. With 25 action cards to choose from, and only using 10 each game, that gives you a potential of 3,268,760 different game layouts, just with the base set. And then there are 8 additional expansions that you can get, each adding more and more variety to the game.Absolute must for any boardgame lover.