Dominion
A turn in Dominion comprises three basic steps: play one or more action card from your hand, buy one or more cards from the supply, and clean up the mess you just made in front of you. You end each turn by drawing the top five cards from your deck, and those cards constitute your hand for your next turn; when your deck runs out, you shuffle your discard pile and begin drawing again, so except for a few special cases when you acquire a card it’s yours to keep.
There are three major card types: money, actions, and point cards. You can use money cards to buy any type of card on the table, including more money cards (copper cards have buying power of 1 and cost 0; silver have buying power of 2 and cost 3; gold have buying power of 3 and cost 6). Your total buying power on any turn is determined by which money cards are in your hand, so you can have plenty of money cards yet be unable to buy on a turn because you didn’t draw them, leading to two strategic considerations – the ratio of money cards to other cards in your deck, and whether it’s better to have lots of copper cards or to concentrate your buying power in silver and gold. You need point cards to win the game, but they have no active function during the game and thus drawing one is a wasted spot in your hand.
The action cards, shockingly, are where the action lies in the game, although more action cards is not necessarily better. Dominion comes with 25 different action card types, but in any particular game you only use 10 of these, which may come from a predetermined set or be chosen at random, leaving you – assuming I did the math right – 3.2 million different combinations, meaning that the game need never be the same twice if you so desire. That in turn means that you can’t approach Dominion with a single strategy, because some games will be more skewed toward action cards that provide you with additional buying power when played, while others may be heavy on cards that grant you extra actions (fun, but not always practical unless you have a deck full of action cards), and so on. Some cards’ value is fairly straightforward; for example, the Village card grants you two more actions and the right to draw a card, but since you have the right to play one action card every turn, the net result is just that you get to take an extra action, which might be useless if you’ve got four money cards in your hand. Choosing the right action cards, including the right mix of action cards and then the right mix of action versus non-action cards, is the key to the game, but the variety of setups mean that there’s no single right answer, and even within one specific setup there will usually be multiple ways to win.
The artwork is nice enough, but the names of cards typically have no connection to the benefits each card provides (why would a village allow you to draw a replacement card and take two more actions?), so you’re not building a “dominion” as the game’s description implies – just a deck. There’s less imagination involved in playing this game than there is in Stone Age or The Settlers of Catan
The lone negative I can see in the game is that there is one very simple attack that works most of the time if you’re the only person executing it – spend the vast majority of your turns buying silver/gold cards and, when you’re able, buying the Province cards (which cost 8 units) that give you 6 Victory Points apiece. When the pile of Province cards is exhausted, the game is over, so if you buy more than half of those, it’s extremely difficult for anyone to beat you through the lower-value point cards. The strategy won’t work if multiple players chase it, and the Gardens action cards throw a wrench in it, as can the Thief action cards, but it’s simple and straightforward enough that it almost felt like a hack. Against experienced players, it would be worthless, but it could really mess up a casual game night. Beyond that objection, I strongly recommend Dominion, especially if you find games like Settlers of Catan or Stone Age intimidating.
Speaking of Settlers of Catan, I came across an article from Wired, written in April of 2009, on the game’s rise in popularity so long after its initial release, unusual in any business but even more so in one as seemingly dormant as boardgames, with notes on the history of the game and why German-style games are becoming more popular. (It also includes a great phrase for deriding older, “classic” board games: “roll the dice, move your mice.”)
I’ve been wanting to pick that game up, but it’s so expensive I was scared it wouldn’t be worth the money. After reading this, I think I’ll make it my next purchase.
I remembered an article I read in the economist last year on Germany and its affinity for board games, since you seem to be interested in those: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TNDDJSNR
KLAW-
Not sure where else to post this, but I found this quote in Posnanski’s latest blog post:
“Of course, it’s interesting how Enron/Minute Maid Field has gone from an extreme hitters park to a neutral park to even something of a pitchers park over the last decade or so.”
How does a field/stadium, outside of physical changes to the dimensions or surrounding structures, change from a hitter’s park to a neutral park to a pitcher’s park? Wouldn’t this require some sort of massive weather shift? Otherwise, a stadium is a stadium, right? I don’t know what numbers Joe was looking at, but whatever they were would imply that they were at least somewhat impacted by who was playing there, no? Can you explain this?
Change in the league, for one thing.
“less imagination involved … only a drawback for a limited number of players.”
Do you mean this is a drawback only to those (limited amount of) players which actually have imaginations, or is it a drawback when only a limited number of players (i.e. 2 or 3) are playing in a given game?
KLAW-
I’m still not getting it, I guess. How does the change in the league matter? I assume you mean in the quality of the players. But isn’t the impact of a ball park absolute, and not contingent upon who is playing there? Otherwise, it’s not the ballpark’s impact, it’s the players, right? Either a place is easier to hit HRs in or it is not. Either a place has more foul ground or it doesn’t. Either a place has the wind consistently blowing out or blowing in. I just don’t gather how it is truly a measure of the BALLPARK’S effect if it can change, despite the park itself not changing.
PS: I trust you know I’m not trying to be snarky (not that you’d mind) or otherwise difficult or naive. I’m genuinely confused on this issue and wonder if we’re really measuring one thing and calling it another.
To BSK . The measure of whether a park is a hitter’s park, a pitchers park or neutral is based on the results achieved in the park vs results achieved in other parks in the league. IF runs and homers are down everywhere and your park is down it doesn’t mean it a park is all of a sudden a pitchers park relative to other parks. Results in a park need to be compared to the other parks not other years in that park because of changes to the players playing in that park. There has been an influx of new parks to the American league and changes to some of the older parks so a park can have the same results compared to previous years but the other parks change the norm and shift your parks status compared to other parks. There is a weather component on results as well as scheduling games to different parts of the year but they generally only effect one year. Curt Schilling made a big deal of an analysis the Red Sox showed him in 2003 to convince him to agree to be traded to the Red Sox. They showed him that Fenway Park was not going to be a bad park for him to pitch in even though he was a fly ball pitcher. Fenway had changed over the years because of additions made to the park as wells as changes to other parks in the AL east. They also showed him an analysis where his fly ball outs had been made the previous 2 years and overlaid them to Fenway to show that his is fly balls were to the deeper parts of the park and would not affect his preferred pitching style.
Keith – I’ve been a fan of Settlers for a few years now and Carcassonne more recently. What should be the next German-style board game I get?
I’m not Keith, but I am a strategy game nut. I would go with Puerto Rico or Agricola next. Agricola plays very well with 2, 3, or 4 players, which is one of the things I also love about Dominion. If you think you would like a game with an okay auction mechanic and some math, try Power Grid. Also, if you like Dominion, you will probably enjoy the two expansions, Intrigue and Seaside. Adding these expansions creates an almost innumerable amount of differing games and strategies, as you are randomly pulling 10 cards out of 76 for each game.
Bob-
So, it sounds as if it’s somewhat relative, yes? As in, it might be easier to hit a HR in Fenway than in some generic, cookie cutter park. But if every other park in the league becomes SIGNIFICANTLY easier to hit a HR in, then Fenway, relatively speaking, will not be such a boon compared to the others. Or, in the instance of Enron/Minute Maid, it might be more desirable to pitch in now than 10 years ago, but only because all the other fields became that much harder to pitch in, right?
Is this accurate?
If so, how do you compare it across years? Assume a park didn’t change for 50 years. If a player played there in 1950 and hit 25 HRs and was magically transported to 2000, with the exact same skill set and playing against the exact same level of competition, he would still hit 25 HRs, right? Regardless of what happened at other parks, the guy is still a 25-HR hitter in that park (I recognize his road numbers would be different, but let’s just talk home splits). But if this ballpark was a hitters park in 1950 and suddenly a pitchers park in 2000 (relative to the league), the guy’s advanced stats for 1950 would pale to his 2000 stats, even though hes the same theoretical guy in the same theoretical park. Right?
I know the guys who figure these stats out are a lot smarter than me, so I doubt I’m exposing some undiscovered flaw. So, what am I missing?
I need to play Puerto Rico again, but I haven’t been blown away so far. I’d recommend Stone Age, since it’s similar in theme and complexity. I haven’t played Agricola, which is extremely highly rated right now (I believe it’s #1 on boardgamegeek). I do like Power Grid and need to write up a review of it after we get a 3-player game in.
A friend of ours just picked up Dominion this weekend and brought it over. We played a four player game. We loved it, but it definitely didn’t live up to the 40 – minute game billing. It was our first time playing, so we give it a little leeway for that, but it took us over two hours to complete a game. Has this been others’ experience when playing with more than two people?
Unfortunately, because our first game took so long we didn’t get to try any of the other pre-set Kingdom card games. I think our only complaint with the beginner pre-set game is that there wasn’t much player interaction. The Militia was the only action card that affected anybody else. I saw that there was an “Interaction” pre-set, so we might try that one next. I also read that the “Intrigue” expansion has a lot of new action cards that involve other players. It makes the game longer, but gets people involved when it’s not their turn.
Overall, a very fun game. And that article about the “Settlers” designer was great. Thanks Keith!
Just out of curiosity, is it just me or is the “Market” action card easily the best in the beginner pre-set? Me and my friend bought all ten of them between the two of us (he had six and I had four), and we were well ahead of the other two players at game end. I’m wondering if anyone else noticed the same thing.
I agree that the Market card is by far the best, and Village is, if not the worst, the most overrated. We often add something like Mine to the mix just to provide some viable alternative to Market among 5-coin cards.
I thought the Remodel card was pretty awful, although in retrospect, it wouldn’t have been bad for converting Victory cards into a higher point value.
The Village card I thought was useful during the last half of the game, especially in concert with cards like the Moat and the Smithy. Before I got myself a Village, I would play one of those, grab two or three new cards and have to discard any useful action cards I picked up. But using the Village+Moat/Smithy, you can still use any new action cards you draw.
Remodel is actually quite useful. In the early game it can get rid of estates from your deck. In the late game rush, you can use it to turn gold directly into provinces.
I’m interested that people don’t find village useful. We often find the person who gets the most villages wins, especially if a multi-draw card like councilroom or smithy is available.
I agree with your negative, except that strategy can occasionally still be derailed if your opponents are able to play attack cards against you. For example, I was going for the silver/gold strategy and got derailed by one opponent playing a Thief and the other playing a Throne Room with Witch. It kept my deck from dominating as well as the silver/gold strategy normally does. Plus, I’ve heard that Prosperity may also help with the “Just buy Gold” strategy.