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Amazon.com Search | |  | Dominion Card Game by Rio Grande Games Rio Grande | Home » » » Dominion | | | | | | | Description: | | Play Dominion from Rio Grande Games for a fun card came of strategy, luck and deck-building! You are a monarch, like your parents before you- a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion! In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds and fifedums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner! But wait! Several other monarchs have exactly the same idea. Race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury! Dominion finds each player trying to build a more profitable deck. Play cards from your hands to take action or purchase new cards and money! Wildly entertaining, Dominion is ideal for a friend or family game night! | | | Features: | |
• For 2-4 players
• Tactical card game
• Takes about 30 minutes to play
• Lots of expansions available to add depth and complexity
• Quick to learn, many ways to win
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 11.8 inches | | Product Width:
| 11.8 inches | | Product Height:
| 2.9 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.0 pounds | | Package Length:
| 11.7 inches | | Package Width:
| 11.7 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 2.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 483 reviews |
| | Charis Games Review: Dominion Card Game by Rio Grande Games
Awards
- Mensa Select 2009
- Spiel des Jahres 2009
- Meeples Choice 2008
Dominion is an exciting, addicting, fast-action, deck-building game that plays well with two or three players. I predict that it will be one of our top selling designer card games in 2009. What makes Dominion such a great card game? For starters, Dominion is easy to learn. The rules are simple, the game can be explained in just a few minutes, and newcomers can be up and playing in less than 5 minutes. Dominion includes 500 cards, but you do not use all of them in the game. Each game uses 100 of 250 possible kingdom cards. Through this variety, Dominion allows each game to have a unique flavor and challenge. Dominion plays fast. Although Dominion has a solitaire-type feel to it, you are playing against opponents. After your first couple games, you will find yourself racing through your deck of cards, shuffling and reshuffling. This is not mandatory, it not a rule, you will simply be drawn into the game. Dominion will continue to grow. In fact, the first expansion set (Dominion: Intrigue) is already available.
So how do you play Dominion?
Dominion uses an A-B-C turn-based system. During a turn a player completes the following steps:
Action: At the beginning of the game the only cards you have in your hand are copper (worth 1 coin) and estate cards (worth one victory point). Very soon you will need to begin buying actions cards which will allow you to take various actions such as gaining additional cards or money, attack your opponents, and receive extra actions or bonuses. A clever player will learn to string a series of action cards together for maximum benefit.
Buy: During this phase, you will purchase new cards. At the beginning of the game, you can only make one purchase per turn. However, as you build your deck, you will be able to buy multiple cards per round. Sample cards that you can purchase include treasure cards (which give you money), victory cards (which give victory points), and kingdom cards (which provide all sorts of bonuses and actions).
Clean up: During this phase, you discard all of the cards from your hand and take five new cards. This is one of the best aspects of Dominion. You will start every round with a fresh set of cards.
The game ends when players deplete a stack of Province cards (the highest victory point cards), or deplete any 3 stacks of kingdom cards. At this point, all the players count their victory points. The player with the most victory points wins.
In a nutshell--Dominion is a deck-building game. You race to build the most efficient cash-building machine so that you can quickly purchase victory points before the game ends.
Click here to dowload the game rules for Dominion.
| | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 483 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
493 of 496 found the following review helpful:
Best uncollectible collectable card game I've ever playedJan 07, 2009
By M. Nixon
Dominion is a deceptively simple game which encompasses endless variation. The basic game contains the following major components:
1. 25 groups of action cards, victory cards, and money cards, in total over 250 cards.
2. Card storage and organizer box designed specifically for organizing the game components.
3. The Rules.
Game Play:
A game starts with each player holding an identical 10 card deck. As the game begins a group of 10 special action cards are selected from the 25 categories in the box. The rules outline specific selections for scenario play or you can design your own lay out. There is no banker or moderator; all players start entirely equal with access to the exact same cards.
During each player's turn they may take actions and purchase new cards from the communal decks. Each player has to balance the need to buy new cards and money with the purchase of victory points (which remain in the player's deck but don't help them until points are totaled.) The decision of when to stop building one's deck and start buying victory points is one of the most critical choices the player will make. Too early, and you'll find yourself bogged down with a deck full of moderate victory cards while other players' resources have increased to the point where they blow by you. If you wait too long, all of the good cards will have been bought out and you won't have anything to spend your resources on.
I have to be honest, when I first heard about Dominion I didn't understand why my wife and several of our friends were so worked up over the thing. It sounded terribly dry, particularly to a person like myself who has played collectable card games like magic the gathering for many years. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
Dominion has something for everyone, from the collectable card game nut, to the poker player, to the family looking for an alternative to trivial pursuit. Since everyone starts out with access to the same selection of cards and the same resources for advancement, everyone has an equal chance of victory. Because there are 10 different categories of action cards with each category having at least 10 cards in its pile, there is plenty of room for strategy as the game progresses and certain resources are bought up to the point of extinction.
The game is set up in such a way so that you can play cut throat games with lots of player-vs.-player actions or less interactive games where the victory is determined by who fields the most effective resource acquisition strategy. Those familiar with CCG drafting will feel right at home in this environment, while those with no card based gaming experience won't be at a disadvantage.
My only criticism of dominion (as has been said on several other forums) is that while the game is entirely self contained, I can easily see the cards (which are essential in exactly the numbers provided) wearing out or being lost. Because there are so many of them I recommend using card sleeves (available at most hobby stores from companies like rook and ultra pro.)
I started out one night thoroughly expecting to dislike this game and found myself 3 hours later wondering where the evening had gone. Dominion is completely addictive and doesn't loose its fun factor after the player has played multiple scenarios in one sitting.
Simply put, this is the best interactive casual game I've played in 32 years.
Note:
It's four years later and I still endorse this game without reservation. The basic set is still just as fun as when I played for the first time, while the addition of other optional sets have magnified the enjoyment.
124 of 127 found the following review helpful:
Unbelieveably Addicting GameMar 03, 2009
By T. Gilbert
Ok, I have to start this review off by saying I had my reservations about this game. I absolutely love Euro strategy games like Puerto Rico, Agricola, Power Grid, Caylus, etc, but I'm not into card games. In fact, I pretty much hate card games.
This game was getting a lot of publicity on BoardGameGeek and everyone was raving about it so I decided that I should buy it to give it a shot. I'm glad I did.
The whole point of the game is to build your deck of cards and build up a collection of victory points. The reason this game shines is because it is a quick game that only takes about 30-40 minutes to play. It is also very fun because as you are building your deck of cards you aren't usually getting rid of the cards. If you spend some gold to buy a card that gold goes back into your discard pile and will eventually be shuffled for you to use again in another turn.
There are over 500 cards in this game with around 25 different action cards available so you can vary the game a lot depending on what cards are currently on the table. The only downside is that someone that has played the game a lot and knows a base strategy can usually beat a new player easily.
Overall this game is very addicting and short, which is a good thing. You can play multiple rounds of this game in an evening as opposed to one game of another typical Euro.
136 of 141 found the following review helpful:
Renewed family connectionJun 01, 2009
By Scott Federer
In the days of technology and scheduled events we struggle to find times to connect with our children. Dominion has helped us renew that connection. My wife and I plus both our sons (age 17 & 11) LOVE playing this game together. Whether you go in with a fine tuned strategy or just "make it up as you go along" the opportunity to enjoy the game and win is presented. We love that the entire game play lasts about 30-40 minutes, we don't always have an entire day to devote to a game, but we have a half hour after dinner to enjoy the company of our kids. they will be moving out soon enough and beginning their own families. Dominion is a game that everyone wants to set aside what they are doing and play together. When was the last time your kids begged to play a game with Mom and Dad?
138 of 147 found the following review helpful:
 Starts out with a bang, but fadesAug 09, 2010
By Brendan Flood
"bcflood"
I picked up a copy of Dominion hot off the presses after I played it a few times at GenCon 2008 after it was introduced. I was amazed by the uniqueness of drafting cards into your hand by the way of getting money cards and increasing the size of your deck. The fact there were so many combos available to make the 10 types of cards to buy in the box seemed to offer limitless play. But I quickly began to see the cracks in the game.
While there are a lot of cards you can use to make up the ones you can buy to make your deck, they end up being pretty similar and there will be some you use all the time and some you'll never want to use for personal tastes. There will quickly emerge strategies that if you just work to build up your money cards and skip the majority of action cards you'll win >75% of the time. This cuts down on the fun since if everyone takes this route there isn't much to the game, and if you are the only one to do this, you'll find yourself bored as people try to chain actions after more actions to find they still don't have enough money in hand to buy the top victory point cards. This is the crux of why my love for the game has faded.
I time and again find myself bored as the other players take their turn. Since there only a handful of cards that cause you to interact with other players, you essentially all play 3 or 4 solitaire games at the same table. I don't find this interesting and would rather play strategy games, even light ones, that have some level of interaction, even if it just watching where the other player moves.
I have even tried to renew my interest by trying the expansions that have followed almost every 6 or so months after the release of Dominion in 2008. Some expansions offer more to the game (Seaside is probably one of the best, avoid Alchemy) it still comes down to being bored while everyone plays their own solitaire game until the end when you tally your points.
I rated this game a 3/5 and not lower because there will be some, even many, who will not hold the same boredom with this game and will love it. This game is a great light game that plays quickly, teaches quickly, and offers a lot to casual players. For people who play a lot of board games, particularly deeper strategy or Euro games, or even like the Axis & Allies or even Risk type of player interaction, this game may wear thin faster than for others.
Even though I rated it a 3, I would recommend this as a great game for families and casual gamers. I'd also recommend Ticket to Ride (any of them, but Marklin and Europe are probably the best, USA being the first and simplest), Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan. These games are quick to learn, easy to play, and offer a good casual experience. For people looking for a little more depth and replayability, I'd recommend Pandemic (terrific cooperative game), Stone Age, Ra, Small World (one of my favorites), and Dixit (one of the best party games out there, the artwork is hands down the best). The rabbit hole of complexity and length goes as far as you are willing, but it is up to you to determine your needs of a game. Dominion is a great start, but if you've been playing other games it may be too thin to offer something for you.
22 of 25 found the following review helpful:
A very good game - only played so far with 2Sep 26, 2009
By R. Hough
"game machine bob"
Just got this game based on reviews at amazon and elsewhere. My wife and I have trouble playing game together (we both can handle losing, but it is tough when that means the winner is always your spouse !!!), but this one seems to appeal to both of us. Excellent game design with lots of variations based on which kingdom cards are in play. The first game took us about 1 1/2 hours including reading the rules and doing all the setup. Subsequent games take only about 1/2 hour, turns move quickly. The storage box is wonderfully designed making setup between games a cinch.
I disagree with one reviewer that says you should have a "house rule" to always have moat cards in play if you have attack cards in play; without moat cards the attack cards become more valuable, but can skew your strategy, you may focus too much on attack and forget to make progress toward your own win.
I am going to purchase the card protector sleeves, I can see this being a family favorite and I want to keep the cards in good shape.
Our other favorite games are:
** Acquire (a classic, still probably my favorite game of all time),
** Settlers of Catan (we have the extension to allow 6 to play)
** Ticket to Ride (get the 1910 expansion set, much more fun)
** Monopoly (still fun if played EXACTLY by the rules and is played quickly at the beginning to get the properties sold),
** Card games: Hand and Foot, Hearts, Oh Hell and Texas Holdem poker
** The Empire Builder series of "crayon" rail games (time consuming but fun - my extended family owns 7 different maps for this game. Hint: make a game board out of light plywood or foam board with rasied edges, get a piece of plexiglass cut to fit inside the edges, then put the map board under the plexiglass and use dry erase markers to play - makes a big difference - we also use this board for Catan so we don't accidentally move the numbers discs during play. When we have a "game weekend" we like to start one of these rail games each evening then play it on and off during the following day.
** Puerto Rico - we are still trying to get a handle on this game, lots of possible strategies and "resources", but very well designed turn play.
See all 483 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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