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Amazon.com Search | |  | Dominion Card Game by Rio Grande Games Rio Grande | Home » » » Dominion | | | | | | | Description: | | In Dominion, each player starts with an identical, very small deck of cards. In the center of the table is a selection of other cards the players can "buy" as they can afford them. Through their selection of cards to buy, and how they play their hands as they draw them, the players construct their deck on the fly, striving for the most efficient path to the precious victory points by game end. 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 feodums. 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! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must 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. Your parents wouldn | | | Features: | |
• 2-4 player game
• 30 minutes to play
• Tactical Card game
• Massive replay value
• Quick to learn, many ways to win
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 11.75 inches | | Product Width:
| 2.88 inches | | Product Height:
| 11.75 inches | | Product Weight:
| 3.5 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 89 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:
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 Fun for the family tooAug 31, 2010
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R19HORGMNVZMDB After having read and heard about Dominion for such a long time, we were anxious to pick up a copy for ourselves. So with such high expectations riding on it, how does it stand up with our family? It's a big hit! (At least it is with the boys.)
Dominion provides such a unique game play experience. Until we played Dominion, we had never played any card game like it. Instead of having a hand of cards and trying to get rid of it, you're trying to build your pile/deck of cards into one full of victory points.
You draw from your deck a hand of cards then you play the actions on those cards and `buy' other cards on the table to add to your deck. So your deck gets bigger and bigger as you go. You have to choose wisely what cards you add to your deck each turn so that you'll be able to do more with your cards later and ultimately get the most victory point card in your deck by the end of the game.
So unique and tons or re-playability. The boys love it.
You can also read more about our impressions on our game review site TheBoardGameFamily.
Great Game That Works as Well with Two as it Does FourAug 31, 2010
I will not waste time echoing the praise in other reviews. Trust me, the praise is well deserved. This is a great game that is easy to learn, yet very deep and fun. Honestly, it is as good as the reviews say.
What I do want to add, is that someone told me that this is one of the rare games that work just a well as a two-player game as a four-player game. If you do any gaming you know that many games will say something like 2-5 players, but playing with two people is a crippled version of the bigger experience. While we often game with friends, there are times where my wife and I want to play by ourselves at home. Usually as I said,you need to find games specifically designed for two-players (which are hard to find) and then of course they can not be enjoyed by larger groups.
This game lives up to the claim, it works just about as well with 2 as it does with more people. So if you are looking for an excellent, yet flexible game, give this a try.
Dominion Rocks!Aug 24, 2010
WARNING! This game can become very addictive.
I bought this game as one of my son's 21st birthday presents. We ended up playing it with some of his friends for almost two days straight. After he traveled back home I had to run out and buy it for myself.
This game is so addictive I've even had World of Warcraft players stop their games in order to play Dominion. Even my brother, who is not much of a game playing fan, loves playing this game.
With all of the different kingdom card choices every game is different and you have to constantly shift your strategy. Then when you add the expansion sets, the game becomes even more interesting. We also found it to be a very flexible game. We can tweak the rules/gameplay to create different playing experiences. Want the gameplay to last a little longer? Just put a few more decks in play. Want a race for provinces (the highest point victory cards)? Gameplay isn't over until all the province cards are gone, no matter how many other card stacks have been depleted.
Overall, Dominion is one of the best game purchases I've made.
Great Deck Building GameAug 24, 2010
In the card game Dominion, players try to acquire wealth, land, influence, and power in order to turn their modest kingdom into a fabulous dominion. Interestingly, Dominion is one of only two games to win both the Mensa Select seal and the Spiel des Jahres (Germany's game of the year). Players spend the entire game building their own deck of action cards, treasure cards, and victory cards. Action cards provide a variety of bonuses such as extra actions, extra treasure, drawing more cards, and attacks against other players (although the interaction with other players is minimal). Treasure cards allow you to buy additional cards for your deck, and victory cards give you the points you need to win the game.
The rules are quite easy; each turn, you play a card, buy a card, and then draw a new hand. The strategy of the game is what you decide to add to your deck. You only have five cards in your hand each turn (usually), so you need to manage the balance between the three types of cards. Too many of any one kind can slow you down. Dominion contains 25 types of action cards, but you only use 10 of them each game. The varying combinations of action cards provide a slightly different playing experience each time.
With simple rules and mechanics, fast play, a variable supply of cards, and a reasonable balance of strategy and luck of the draw, it's easy to see why this game has been so popular. Dominion is designed for two to four players ages 8 and up. Several expansions are available to add more card variety, more choices, and more strategy. The Intrigue expansion also provides cards for more players to join in the fun.
Game reviewAug 23, 2010
a friend of mine have it, its quite an amazing game, quite backward of the classical cardgame were you already have the deck made and need to win before its finished, in Dominion all players began with the same cards and every turn its your decision which card "buy" and the best part is that the points to win you also need to buy them but they are worthless until the end of the game. so they are taking space but you need them to win.
quite an exceptional game, I highly recommend it.
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