Dominion

It is going to be massively hyped in the next couple of months. This one is worth a look, however.

Dominion is pretty Euro, in spite of being from an American designer who played the game for 10 years in his game group.

You have a deck full of Gold. Gold buys you action cards and more gold. Eventually, you build up an engine and can start to buy Victory Points. Very typical Euro. Not an awful lot of interaction. (10 Action cards are chosen for each game. You can tailor the amount of interaction from none at all to pretty abusive.)

Except...it is oddly addictive. In a way I've not been sucked into a Euro in some time. The game does have a pretty high luck factor, moves very quickly, and ends in half an hour. The game seems to be mostly about building a deck and hoping that good things happen, so it is mostly strategic choices. So it doesn't feel that much like the current Euro model which involves scads of very transparent tactical choices that you can eventually pick through.

It is probably the best game I've played in the past year, and far and away the best thing from the Euro side of the house.

I'm already burned out on the hype for this. I refuse, REFUSE, to get excited or even interested in ANY game that comes highly praised from the Gathering of Friends at this point. This is just another attempt to find their elusive "perfect Euro" that has no real interaction, a waste of a theme, all the excitement of doing taxes, zero risk of downtime since all the decisions are obvious, and is done in five minutes so they can move on to the next thing.

I'll be playing RoboRally until this whole Game X thing blows over.

Hype is going to really hurt this game. It doesn't help that the tone of a lot of the online hype has been this kind of "na na, I've played this game and you haven't" thing or that most of it has come from the more (ahem) "elite" members of certain gaming cadres. All this "Game X" nonsense, glowing reviews from friends of the designer and people who've played it with him, Gathering of Friends Reports...all that means zero to me.

From what I've read, it sounds like another game that tries to capture elements of CCGs but in a way that makes them palatable to Eurogamers who apparently don't mind when the depth, complexity, and variability is stripped away from a game and all that's left is a mechanic and a bunch of numbered cards. So all this hype makes me wonder if, when it winds up in the hands of non-Euro inclined gamers, we're going to wind up with a game that's as reductive and streamlined-into-oblivion as BLUE MOON or FAIRY TALE.

I'm definitely interested regardless...not because of the hype, but because it sounds like an interesting piece of design and even a 30 minute efficiency Euro can be worthwhile. I fully expect the stripped-down deck building thing to be next year's worker placement.

The idea of making Magic: the Gathering combos on the fly sounds cool. But I've got to say the hype surrounding this game is making me feel nauceous. Especially since it, to my eyes, seems to be the same group of people who hyped Race for the Galaxy. The whole "full disclosure - I was part of the development team" but am rating this a 10 thing seems dodgy to me. Are people not usually whining about designers rating their own games on BGG? Now we see the trick is to have 50 people involved in the design process and then they will all rate it 9 or 10.

There are really only two people developing. Valerie and Dale. They've been obsessing on the game for about a year now, having logged games nearly into the thousands.

So the burst is mostly pent-up enthusiasm, and the 10 rating is kind of justified. For my take, it is a Euro that I really look forward to playing again (that doesn't happen anymore. Although FFG was supposed to be doing Garibaldi---well worth playing. It is a Fury of Dracula-lite), and wouldn't mind spending an entire afternoon just playing Dominion.


Also, Dominion isn't really like a CCG. While it has the deck building thing, the fact that you have to throw away your entire hand at the end of every turn kinda kills most of the detailed card combo strategies. It kind of has a fluffy "let's hope this is useful" kind of vibe.

Never played it, but from what I've read it's deck-building for the sake of deck-building. I don't get it. At least in Magic, it's a means to an end, you build a deck in order to do battle. In Dominion, you build a deck and then... you count the VPs in it. The Eurosnoots will all fawn over it, but look for the CCG dudes to ROTFL.

I think I'd rather play "There's an Axe in my Head"

Steve"just_axing_for_it"Avery

Nausea. Split heads. Doing taxes. Laughing at the snoots. Nice to see that racing to the head of the anti-hype class is as much of a sport as the hyping is!

FWIW the game DOESN'T have much interaction (it makes RftG look like Cosmic Encounter) and the theme is very much secondary. But Frank is spot on in describing it as addictive.

I don't see it ever being seen as a main course, but it's definitely a worthy gamenight appetizer. The speed of play is ideal for breaking it out while waiting for stragglers to arrive.

-MMM

Nausea. Split heads. Doing taxes. Laughing at the snoots. Nice to see that racing to the head of the anti-hype class is as much of a sport as the hyping is!

We're fighting the Man, man!

But hey, the Hype on this game has been on for a long time: "I can't tell you what Game X is but it will BLOW YOU AWAY!!!!". When I found out what it was, my first thought was "that's it ?!?". And the Big Secret farce is not over, since there's no picture available.

Octavian wrote:

Nausea. Split heads. Doing taxes. Laughing at the snoots. Nice to see that racing to the head of the anti-hype class is as much of a sport as the hyping is!

Dude, one thread with a few posters not interested in the game isn't anti-hype. Notice that Michael "I love Euros now" Barnes even said he wanted to play it. Please excuse the rest of us for having a fucking opinion or interests that doesn't match up with yours.

Octavian wrote:

FWIW the game DOESN'T have much interaction (it makes RftG look like Cosmic Encounter) and the theme is very much secondary.

JFC! I'm out then. To me RFtG is a textbook example of how to design a potentially brilliant game that fumbles on the 1 yard line.

-Will

I can just see it now, at BGG towers, the bigwigs have ordered a flunky to watch the internet for any potential negative commentary on the game that will keep the hordes piling into BGG after the Agricola hype has finally died off... when suddenly... what's this???

ALERT! ALERT! PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET ARE CRITICISING THE NEXT BIG THING! DESPATCH OPERATIVE TO F:AT IMMEDIATELY TO MAKE SNIFFY COMMENTS ABOUT PEOPLE EXPRESSING THEIR OPINIONS! THIS OUTBREAK OF FREE THOUGHT MUST BE STOPPED!

RFTG makes me wonder if its supporters consider masturbation a form of sexual interaction with another person.

Anyway, fuck DOMINION. GAME Z is where it's at. I have played it and you have not. Octavian hasn't played it, but if he does he will change his tune about DOMINION quickly.

moss_icon wrote:

I can just see it now, at BGG towers, the bigwigs have ordered a flunky to watch the internet for any potential negative commentary on the game that will keep the hordes piling into BGG after the Agricola hype has finally died off... when suddenly... what's this???

ALERT! ALERT! PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET ARE CRITICISING THE NEXT BIG THING! DESPATCH OPERATIVE TO F:AT IMMEDIATELY TO MAKE SNIFFY COMMENTS ABOUT PEOPLE EXPRESSING THEIR OPINIONS! THIS OUTBREAK OF FREE THOUGHT MUST BE STOPPED!

This would be funnier if I hadn't been on F:AT for longer than you.

No...I stand corrected. It's is funnier because of it.

-MMM

Michael Barnes wrote:

Anyway, fuck DOMINION. GAME Z is where it's at. I have played it and you have not. Octavian hasn't played it, but if he does he will change his tune about DOMINION quickly.

FUCK! I want Game Z!!! Where do I preorder!?!