Dominion

Customer Reviews

HIghly addictive and ever changing! Review by Anna

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It has been years since a game has captured my attention fully! Dominion has done what most were not able to achieve... Once the initial learning curve has been overcome the game is fast paced, demands strategic planning and often throws in unexpected surprises! Great for all ages! Well done! (Posted on 2/10/11)

Best Deck-Building Game Review by Fong Chun

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Dominion can be a bit overwhelming at first glance since it is a deck-building game without any game board. But after the initial learning curve, it can be best game you've ever played in your life.

The beauty of Dominion is that games are quite fast typically taking between 15-30 minutes and each game can be very different depending on what cards are in play. This basic set alone provides enough variation for numerous hours and when you combine it with the expansions you will never get bored of Dominion.

The game requires a great deal of strategy in what cards to purchase and how to combo your cards. As in any game, luck plays a role but to a lower extent as great players can consistently win regardless of how much luck other players get.

This game isn't for everyone though. Because of the fact that there is no game board, it is not as "visual" to players as to what is going on in the game. Thus it can be a turn off to the more causal gamer. But for those avid strategist, Dominion is a must buy! (Posted on 12/16/10)

A fun game with as little as 2 players or as many as 4!!! Review by Matt

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I bought Dominion without really knowing what the frag a "deck building" game was about, but in as little as 2O minutes into playing my first game it was easy to understand what the point was and how to win.
I unfortunately bought the game elsewhere and ended up paying way to much for the game then the prices on this website, but to get 500 cards for any game is going to cost a little bit of money.
Visually the game's artwork is hit and miss at times, but for the most part it is aesthetically pleasing.

Overall the depth of the game is deep enough for people wanting strategy, but shallow enough for those who just want to play some cards for some fun. The relative quickness of the game allows you to play multiple games in sometimes under 40 mins (I like to play a best of 3 with friends), thus being a nice break from some other long winded games, and in the end it leaves you wanting to play more. (Posted on 9/15/10)

Fantastic game, highly addictive Review by Jason

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This is a fabulous game, by far one of my favourites. The replayability is extensive, with only 10 of the 26 action cards available in any game, and the strategies are endless. Everyone that I have introduced this game to so far has ended up buying their own copy :) (Posted on 6/16/10)

A Different Strategy Every Time Review by Curtis

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Dominion is a turn based card game that has multiple strategies you can employ to win. You create a deck of cards from a small deck of 10 original cards, and gain cards by buying them as you go from the money card piles, victory point piles, and the Kingdom/Action cards. Each players turn consists of three phases. First phase is your action, where you can play one action card. Second phase is the Buy phase, where you can buy cards. Third phase is the Clean-up phase, where you must discard both your played and unplayed cards and draw 5 new cards. The game ends when one of two things happens. 1.) All of the Province cards are purchased. 2.) When 3 of the 10 kingdom/action card piles have been bought. After this has happened all players count up there victory points and whom ever has the most wins.

The game can change every time as you can change the Kingdom/Action card piles. You can choose from 25 different types of cards. The strategies will change as you change these cards.

All in all I find this game very enjoyable to play. It is one of my favorite games. (Posted on 6/15/10)

-Quick & Painless- Review by Maxime Yazz

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Dominion and it's nice card drafting mechanic is a very quick, simple and actually addictive. It take only one game to fully understand how to play, and then you are set for a large amount of FUN. Game are quick and the numerous decks of card available with the base set is enought for many hours of play. This game is a good gateway game, also fan of Magik the gathering will easily pick this game up. (Posted on 3/16/10)

Fast and furious Review by Jasmine

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Dominion is a great game, but it comes with one very important caveat: If you introduce this to your gaming group, you may never play anything else again.

This may sound wonderful, but trust me it is not. Even though Dominion does continue to be fun and can be replayed over and over, there will be many times when you may wish for a change or to try out something new but cannot because 3-5 Dominion games in a row eventually eats up all the time you have.

This game is good, but it's so good that it may be cancerous to your gaming collection. Before acquiring the game, I found it strange that the inability to get anything else on the table and people getting sick of the game were the chief complaints, but now I can see it. Though I am still far from being sick of the game, I do often like to get a bit of variety in my gaming diet but have found it increasingly hard to do so since getting Dominion.

What makes Dominion so addicting? It is fast, simple, and comes with a lot of variety in the Kingdom card combinations. It is very interesting to throw these Kingdom cards into your deck and very exciting to see a draw system that works out well to earn you Provinces every round. The game has a lot of rewarding moments and almost always ends just as things are getting good for you, similar to Agricola, which leads to enthusiasm for another round.

You will be surprised by how much fun you can get out of a box of cards, but then again you can be surprised by how much fun your kids may get out of the packaging box itself.

Though Dominion is worthy of praise and comes with neglible flaws, there is the chief complaint of its detrimental effect on the rest of your collection and the quality/variety of your gaming sessions. Keep this in mind when introducing the game to people and don't say I didn't warn you! (Posted on 12/9/09)

A Great Game for CCG fans Review by Murray

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If you have ever played Pokemon TCG, Magic, Yugioh or anything else similar, then Dominion will definitely appeal to you. Although it is a bit expensive for what is essentially a bunch of cards, the game justifies its cost after a few playthroughs.

At the start of the game, everyone starts with a 10 card deck consisting of 7 copper (1 coin) cards and 3 estates (1 VP) cards. The other coin/treasure cards and VP cards are placed in the middle of the table, along with 10 other stacks of cards that have been randomly selected. These cards in the middle of the table form the supply.

On each turn, you may play one action card from your hand, then buy one card from the supply using whatever treasure cards you have in your hand, then the remaining unused cards in your hand is discarded to your discard pile and you draw 5 new cards from your deck, shuffling your discards into a new deck when needed.

Bought cards are placed immediately into your discard pile unless otherwise stated on a card, so you won't be able to use them until you run out of cards in your current deck, shuffle the discards into a new deck, and then draw it at some point. There are cards that grant you extra actions, extra buys, the ability to draw more cards, gain cards from the supply, or attack other players. Attack cards can force players to discard cards, or gain a curse card that will hinder their deck.

The game ends when all of the 6 VP cards have been bought or when 3 stacks of any other cards have run out. At this point, players count all the VP they have in their entire deck, including those in the discard pile, and the player with the most VPs win.

Since there are many different card combinations available for the supply, every game that you play is different. There will be times when there are no attack cards or no curses, making other cards like the Moat, which defends you from attacks, useless.

However, Dominion does suffer a bit from low interaction and a strong, but repetitive base strategy. It is possible in this game to win by simply buying only treasure cards and gaining the 6 VP cards as fast as possible using your extra cash. If you are interested in this game, it has been recommended several times that people purchase Dominion Intrigue instead, as the "expansion" fixes a lot of balance and interaction issues that people complain about. (Posted on 10/19/09)

Amazing, Fast-Paced Game. Review by KJ

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Ever felt like remodelling your home? How about remodeling a kingdom?

How about Remodeling a piece of land into a person, which later becomes a gold piece, and then becomes a piece of land again?

That's just one of the more wacky things that can happen during a game of Dominion.

The game has a unique premise, building a dominion, which is represented by a deck of cards you play through. There are 3 types of card catagories, Actions, Victory points, and Treasure. You use treasure to buy things, actions to do things, and victory points to win at the end of the game.

IT sounds easy, but it isnt as you dont want TOO many victory points, otherwise your deck gets clogged and you lose momentum. You dont want too much money, otherwise you lose out on valuable powers and, ofcourse, victory points, nor do you want too many actions, as you can only take so many a turn. (1 action) So the construction of a deck is a large balancing act, requiring you to be attentive and think ahead.

All in all, dominion is a great game for parties, and still fun for the occasional small 2 player game to get the mind roaring into action. (Posted on 9/16/09)

Dominion is the award-winning deck building game that has received a ton of rave reviews all over the world. While perhaps not as good as the hype, it‘s certainly a lot of fun with good strategic depth, chained actions and quick, quick gameplay. Domini Review by TR

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Dominion is the award-winning deck building game that has received a ton of rave reviews all over the world. While perhaps not as good as the hype, it‘s certainly a lot of fun with good strategic depth, chained actions and quick, quick gameplay. Dominion comes with 500 cards in the base game and another 500 cards in its expansion, making sure that this is a game that has immense replay value.

Appearance: Dominion’s appearance is mediocre - it’s functional, the artwork is good but not exceptional and the information and the way it is presented is clear and concise. Perhaps the biggest plus for Dominion in its appearance is the well thought out and useful box insert, where each set of cards has a specific slot. This makes keeping and setting up the game very fast, whether you store the game vertically or horizontally.

Rules / Ease of Play: Dominion is a deck-building game where all the players receive a similar starting hand. They must then use the starting hand on their turn to purchase additional cards for their deck, shuffling the used and newly bought cards when they are out-of-cards.

The cards in Dominion can be split into three type of cards - Estate cards (victory points); Gold cards (used to pay for the purchase of other cards) and Kingdom cards (which allow you to do everything else in the game including drawing more cards, buying cards, discarding cards and affecting other players). These Kingdom cards are where the main gameplay occurs, with cards providing additional draw, buy and discard actions each time they are used.

It should be noted that only 10 sets of the over 20 ‘Kingdom’ cards are in play in any one game. This provides Dominion it’s vaunted replay value, as players can switch out one or two sets each game to keep the game ‘fresh’. And as any player can tell you, even switching out a couple of cards from the base game will alter the game flow completely.

A game ends in Dominion when all the ‘5’ point Estate cards are purchased.

Gameplay: Dominion fits its billing in many ways - the speed of each turn and each game is quite high, the rules are simple enough to teach most gamers in 10 minutes at most and each game has a tendency to leave players wanting more. There is also a lot of strategic depth and replay value, as players get a better understanding of the most appropriate cards to purchase each game and which actions to take each turn, along with how the combination of cards will affect their deck.

The challenge in Dominion is the card purchase decisions, with the necessity to ‘optimise’ your deck on the fly from the cards available. Deciding whether to ’junk’ cards, which card to purchase and when to switch over to purchasing ‘Estate’ cards (which are, in the end, the victory points after all) is the most difficult and thrilling aspect of the game.

Luck from shuffling and the draw is actually less of an issue than you would expect as it is possible to chain actions together to draw even more cards and your ability to optimise your entire deck to allow for bad draws. As such, while luck could decide a fight between two highly competitive players, over the course of the game, the overall effects are generally quite low.

What are the negatives of the game? Depending on the cards that are put into play, interaction between players can be quite low. When there is interaction, many of the cards in the base game make it almost a secondary affect on other players. This can frustrate certain players since an experienced player could get his ‘deck‘ really going without a problem. In addition, as always, the theme is rather low. It’s just not that engrossing and the cards, while okay, aren‘t written in that ‘tight‘.

Lastly, because of the way Dominion works, there is a decided advantage that more experienced players have. This translates into experienced players burning through their turns at an amazing pace generally, putting undue pressure on new players as well as allowing them to truly ‘chain’ their actions and rounds to purchase a large number of cards.

Conclusion: Overall Dominion is a great card game that combines some of the deck building elements of a CCG but makes it unique in its own right. With the ability to create your deck on the fly and adjust it to your opponents actions, the amount of reply value available in Dominion is very high. Dominion is certainly worth the game price and the awards it has been winning. (Posted on 7/29/09)