Dominion

Ken B. wrote:

There used to be a Dominion Bank near our house. That's a weird name for a bank.




"WE HAVE ACQUIRED YOUR WEALTH AND MONEY. TRY AND TAKE IT, BITCHES."

You might actually say that's a really HONEST thing to name a bank!

Game X is named "Dominion"? Seems kinda meh.

BillN

I just played Dominion at Game Fest yesterday (a prototype version I think?). I really liked it and thought the deck building part of the game was really cool. Though your cards aren't on the table for more than a turn, it still feels much more CCG-like than Blue Moon and similar games (I don't care for Blue Moon). If the game ended up with a cool theme and nice artwork, it would be awesome. It looks like they're going with the medieval city-building theme, though.

The theme is very Euro-Rio Grande, but I liked the gameplay enough after a coupla demo plays that I pre-ordered the game.

daveroswell wrote:

The theme is very Euro-Rio Grande, but I liked the gameplay enough after a coupla demo plays that I pre-ordered the game.

Has anybody here bothered to read the rules since they've been posted over at RGG's site?

http://www.riograndegames.com/uploads/Game/Game_278_gameRules.pdf

I checked 'em out and think it sounds pretty cool. I know the game has been discussed a bit already, but I'd still like to hear the collective ATer opinion of the actual rules.

Is it me or does it look like a Rochester draft of Fluxx? I guess its not really a Rochester draft because there are not limiting amount of each card. This means there is no interaction in the action selection part of the game. Not low interaction like Agricola or Princes of Florence. No interaction.

There do seem to be cards called attack cards though so I assume they allow you to do something to an opponent. Although reading deeper it looks like attacks have global effects: everyone reveals the top card of their deck, takes curse cards, each opponent discards 3, each opponent reaveals and you steal treasure cards.

Looks like you will need 500 deck protectors too. Looks like you will be shuffling every two or three turns.

Seems like another multiplayer solitare Euro. Having said that it appeals to me purely for the novelty factor.

moofrank wrote:

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.

I always have time for short, stupid card games. 6 NIMMT!, for example, is a masterpiece, IMO; it has a lot more screwage than most people realize. If DOMINION is anything like that, then I'm interested.

I'm scared, though, by the mention of "engines" and "Victory Points." Too many of these victory point engine games consist solely in judging when to stop building the engine so that you can fire it up and start pulling in the VPs. Recent Euros like Saint Petersburg and Yspahan demand no skill at all apart from the ability to judge the timing of the midgame "start your engines" phase.

Do the cards allow players to discover novel card combinations, or does the game seek to suppress player creativity, like so many Euros nowadays?

Jun,

The novel card combinations come after the expansion cards are released...

There can be potential for some great combos - the trick of the game is that all the cards are available to everyone - so whoever looks at the chosen set of 10 card types and figures out the killer combos first and best will have the advantage.

All that said, I said when I first played it that this game will show people that called Race for the Galaxy "multiplayer solitaire" what that term REALLY means. And I stand by it.

-MMM