Nate Baker
United States
Coon Rapids
MN
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Initial Response – 8/10
After playing a game with the base set of Dominion with my brother-in-law and falling in love with it, I was really excited to find out I was getting it from Rio Grande as a house fire gift in the form of a review copy. I had just bought a ticket to ride on the Deck-Building train and it was full steam ahead. I was still a little on the ropes about it as it was a new genre being added to the collection, but since I had played before, I was ready for it.
Wifey’s Initial Response – 10/10
She is a deck-building fan, to say the least. She loves Dominion, and random variety you can get through playing the game. She enjoys the artwork and the idea of each card actually fulfilling the role of a kingdom…or dominion. She tells me time and time again that “the strategy involved makes me happy. I can’t stand all the randomness in games sometimes, and it’s awesome because so many people enjoy the game.” That basically means that it’s easier to find people to play it with us 
This means it can also be easier for you to find someone to play with. I can guarantee if you have a group of gaming buddies, you’ll easily be able to ease them into it. My wife isn’t even much of a gamer, but she loves this one. Just remember that.
Unboxing & Components – 9/10
For me, this included sleeving the cards as a few packs of Mayday Euro-sized card sleeves came with my copy. Sleeving takes forever, but the rewards are beyond awesome for spending the time and effort to do it. Like any Dominion game, the box insert comes with different slots for every set of 10 cards, as well as for the Victory Point cards, money cards, curse cards, and randomizers. With the cardboard slat that fits into the insert, these are easily labeled and distinguishable which makes for an organized feel and easy to grab set up.
The cards are of a nicer card stock, which if you don’t have card sleeves, can be a saving grace for the corners and sides of your cards. The rulebook is printed at the same length and width dimensions of the box, making it a good guard and cover for your cards while fitting just right into the box, leaving little room for movement. The rulebook also has a few set scenarios of cards to use for different games for beginners. Give them a try during the next phase…Setup.
Setup – 6/10
While I enjoy deck-building games, the setup makes me want to go postal. It takes longer than most straight up board games if you are going at it alone, and even with the Android/iOS Shuffle App that randomizes for you, it still takes forever. This may be because of my large hands and big fingers as well as slippery card sleeves, but in reality it only takes about 5 minutes. A long 5 minutes.
First you randomize 10 Kingdom cards by shuffling the 25 Randomizer Kingdom cards (the Dominion cards with the blue edges) and placing the 10 copies of the 10 Kingdom cards on the table. Preferably in two rows of 5 to save space. You then take out the money cards, which are separated between Copper, Silver, and Gold, and place them in 3 respective piles above the action cards. The Victory Point cards come in versions of Estate, Duchy, and Province. The money and VP cards are used every game. If the game calls for the Curse cards, I usually lay them to the right of the VP cards. Last but not least is the Trash Card, which you can lay to the right of the money cards.
After setup is complete, each player starts with 7 Coppers and 3 Estates in their deck; they then shuffle, draw 5 cards, and begin playing.
When setting up after your first game, it should be fine as you’ll more than likely keep a few stacks of the cards out, making replay value much more sought after.
Gameplay – 10/10
After drawing your hand, you’ll find you have either only Coppers or a mix of Coppers and Estates. The goal is to buy cards with your money, and in the end, have the most victory points in your deck. This means you’ll have to “build” your deck up with higher spending money like Gold and buying larger VP cards like Provinces. In every turn after you draw, you get 1 action and 1 buy.
Action cards give you several options depending on the card. They can give you additional actions, buys, money, and can even give your opponents curse cards. So as you can see, depending on the cards available in the game, the strategies are endless, making it more fun when different players compete with their different strategies on the fly.
After you are done with your hand, you discard and draw 5 more. If your deck is empty, or it becomes empty after drawing less than 5 cards, you simply shuffle, and draw the remaining cards. Some cards give you the ability to Trash a card. This tactic can be very important later in the game or if you have curse cards in your deck. These cards can easily populate and get in the way of large spending hands! Trashing simply involves getting rid of the card forever.
The game ends when all the Provinces are gone, or when 3 stacks of action cards are emptied.
Cleanup – 7/10
This is much faster and easier than setup, you simply place the cards back in their respective slots. No questions asked. When playing with more expansions, it can become tedious if you don’t remember the game it came from. However, in the bottom right of every card is a symbol representing the expansion it came from. For example, this base game has a picture of a Gated Tower in the bottom right.
Many people also have storage solutions that store all the games in one. To print off tabs for this type of storage solution, head to the game’s page on BGG, and consult the files section. A few different tabs are out there, so you’ll find just what you need.
Thoughts and Criticisms
What is it about this game that makes people tick? For me it involves the variety of each game and the constant shift of strategies as you start paying attention to your opponent’s strategies and trying to beat them to the punch.
It does have its downsides, however. No matter which cards are involved in the game you are playing, there will always be a few no one buys or will ever buy no matter which game it is. I’ll leave those up to you to find, as your style may be different from my own. I would also recommend playing with more than 2 players, as a 2 player game can actually end rather fast, and in my opinion, doesn’t involve as much strategy and thought as having more opponents.
Storage only becomes a problem when you have every expansion. Then you’ll find yourself carrying up to 7 boxes that are about the same medium size as most Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight games (Small World, Ticket to Ride, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc.), and that can be a pain. For ideas on those, once again consult the files section of dominion, or search the BGG forums on other gamers’ storage solutions.
The Final Countdown – 8/10 (from the point of view of both sides on the coin...or Copper)
Dominion is a solid game. Even if someone isn’t a fan, they cannot deny that fact. However, as mentioned before, it has its flaws. Even with them, it still scores high in the minds of the masses. Dominion has brought the gaming community to a threshold of new ideas regarding deck-builders and has fathered many a game after it. It has won quite a few awards and has won its place in my family’s hearts and gaming collections. Another reason I enjoy it is the fact that it is so expandable!
As a huge fan of the art style and the quality of the game components and boxing, many will find it to be stupendous for their gaming needs. For its full price, I’d say it’s just right, and for the prices you can find it online, especially here on BGG, you will not be disappointed. I don’t just look at the game play; I look at the whole package. This game is the whole package. I would recommend this game for younger teens and up. I know people of all ages who play it, so I can guarantee you’ll like it if you give it a try!
Happy Playing!
Nate 
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Alessandro Maggi
Italy
Rome
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Congrats on the nicely written review: easy to read and to navigate.
I'm still not sure about what to think about this game. Here I've found few people really interested in it, while most of the others (and unfortunately people whom I play with most of the times) are not that much fond of it. Luckily there's no shortage of online players, but then again in most of my games "substantial" interaction was quite low.
Yes, with certain kingdom setups you will likely try to acquire certain cards to counter opponent's strategies, but most of the times this resolves in people buying action-attacks and other people buying action-reaction cards (or actions that make you trash curses, draw up to X cards, etc...). Also, when this happens, people trying to counter attacks aren't always successful and sometimes by trying to setup countermeasures they basically lose opportunities giving aggressive players the lead (whether this is going to eventually pay back in the long run depends on the overall flow of the game).
You have to keep track of what people buy, especially VPs, as buying the last province/colony in your round could mean an instant win or loss. But as more VP cards are added to the equation, it gets really hard to keep the count (especially with 4 players or more), so if you're not really into the game and you have good memory, you'll end up just not caring (and that's what most of my friends do, they strategize up to a certain point where they stop thinking and basically buy the most expensive thing they can afford).
knatebaker wrote: Setup – 6/10
[...] This may be because of my large hands and big fingers as well as slippery card sleeves, but in reality it only takes about 5 minutes. A long 5 minutes.
[...]
Cleanup – 7/10
This is much faster and easier than setup, you simply place the cards back in their respective slots.
I've never considered setup to be a problem. Is it possible that you perceive a disparity between setup and cleanup because you're doing the former alone and the latter cooperatively? I bet that doing the cleanup of 4 decks of cards on your own is a much more tedious job! 
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James Newton
United Kingdom
Wiltshire
In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, my avatar is a scan of a hand-drawn caricature by cartoonist Jim Naylor which was done at my company's 20th anniversary dinner.
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knatebaker wrote: The game ends when all the Provinces are gone, or when 3 stacks of action cards are emptied.
Just a small correction - the games ends when all the Provinces are gone or when any 3 Supply piles are emptied (not just Action cards). So emptying all the Curses, Estates and Silvers (for example) would end the game.
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churchmouse wrote: knatebaker wrote: The game ends when all the Provinces are gone, or when 3 stacks of action cards are emptied. Just a small correction - the games ends when all the Provinces are gone or when any 3 Supply piles are emptied (not just Action cards). So emptying all the Curses, Estates and Silvers (for example) would end the game.
I was under the impression that money isn't counted as a supply pile. Whenever we have to trash copper, silver, gold, etc. we just put it back into the supply pile (other cards do go on the trash pile, though).
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Collis68 wrote: I was under the impression that money isn't counted as a supply pile. Whenever we have to trash copper, silver, gold, etc. we just put it back into the supply pile (other cards do go on the trash pile, though).
Page 4 of the rulebook has a giant picture of those seven basic piles labeled "The Supply", and the text to the left describing those basic piles explicitly states that they are all part of the Supply. This is consistent throughout the rulebook. In fact, the Game End rule on page 8 itself even refers to "the Supply pile of Province cards".
And since no mention of returning cards to the Supply is ever made anywhere in the rulebook, I can't imagine where you got the idea that trashed Treasures return to the Supply (except perhaps by mistakenly assuming Dominion has to work exactly like the Star Trek TNG Deckbuilding Game).
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Jim Andrew
Indonesia
Bandung
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Collis68 wrote: churchmouse wrote: knatebaker wrote: The game ends when all the Provinces are gone, or when 3 stacks of action cards are emptied. Just a small correction - the games ends when all the Provinces are gone or when any 3 Supply piles are emptied (not just Action cards). So emptying all the Curses, Estates and Silvers (for example) would end the game. I was under the impression that money isn't counted as a supply pile. Whenever we have to trash copper, silver, gold, etc. we just put it back into the supply pile (other cards do go on the trash pile, though).
cmiiw, but i've read somewhere (maybe in the rulebook) that treasure is counted as supply pile.. i've never played a game where any treasure pile get emptied though
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Jeff Wolfe
United States
Columbus
Ohio
Zendo fan, Columbus Blue Jackets fan, Dominion Fan. These are 'permanent microbadges' to free up space on my microbadge row
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veenickz wrote: Collis68 wrote: churchmouse wrote: knatebaker wrote: The game ends when all the Provinces are gone, or when 3 stacks of action cards are emptied. Just a small correction - the games ends when all the Provinces are gone or when any 3 Supply piles are emptied (not just Action cards). So emptying all the Curses, Estates and Silvers (for example) would end the game. I was under the impression that money isn't counted as a supply pile. Whenever we have to trash copper, silver, gold, etc. we just put it back into the supply pile (other cards do go on the trash pile, though). cmiiw, but i've read somewhere (maybe in the rulebook) that treasure is counted as supply pile.. i've never played a game where any treasure pile get emptied though
At one time or another, I've seen all seven of the original base piles emptied, as well as Colony, Platinum, and Potion. They all count for determining the end of the game.
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jeffwolfe wrote: At one time or another, I've seen all seven of the original base piles emptied, as well as Colony, Platinum, and Potion. They all count for determining the end of the game.
Potion is the one basic Supply pile I've never seen emptied (though I hadn't seen Silver emptied before Hinterlands gave us Trader). If I may ask, how did it happen? The only possibility that springs to mind as likely is a Swindler war.
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Jeff Wolfe
United States
Columbus
Ohio
Zendo fan, Columbus Blue Jackets fan, Dominion Fan. These are 'permanent microbadges' to free up space on my microbadge row
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salty53 wrote: jeffwolfe wrote: At one time or another, I've seen all seven of the original base piles emptied, as well as Colony, Platinum, and Potion. They all count for determining the end of the game. Potion is the one basic Supply pile I've never seen emptied (though I hadn't seen Silver emptied before Hinterlands gave us Trader). If I may ask, how did it happen? The only possibility that springs to mind as likely is a Swindler war.
I almost didn't include Potion in my list because my memory of that game is vague. Now that you mention it, I think Swindler did feature prominently in that game.
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veenickz wrote: Collis68 wrote: churchmouse wrote: knatebaker wrote: The game ends when all the Provinces are gone, or when 3 stacks of action cards are emptied. Just a small correction - the games ends when all the Provinces are gone or when any 3 Supply piles are emptied (not just Action cards). So emptying all the Curses, Estates and Silvers (for example) would end the game. I was under the impression that money isn't counted as a supply pile. Whenever we have to trash copper, silver, gold, etc. we just put it back into the supply pile (other cards do go on the trash pile, though). cmiiw, but i've read somewhere (maybe in the rulebook) that treasure is counted as supply pile.. i've never played a game where any treasure pile get emptied though
The reasoning behind not trashing treasures was when you add Intrigues money to the base game. Intrigue rules, "The Treasure cards from Dominion and Dominion: Intrigue can be combined, since these cards are intended to be in abundant enough supply to not run out. (If a type of Treasure card does run out, that becomes and empty pile in the Supply, which can be important for game ending conditions.)"
I read in another thread that the basic Treasure cards were going to be considered infinite supply but due to keeping the rules simpler by not making an exception for basic Treasures or printing even more money (if they included money in each expansion it wouldn't be a problem), they ruled that Treasure is part of supply. I did like my house rule where only basic Treasures went back into the pile instead of being trashed, but will play the game with them as supply.
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Nate Baker
United States
Coon Rapids
MN
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This is all really good to know! Thank you all for posting and I hope you enjoyed it at the least
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Good review.
What really annoys me about Dominion is that the copper, sliver and gold coins are all the same image and the same colour! Really brings down the quality of the production for me. 
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Nate Baker
United States
Coon Rapids
MN
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monkeyhandz wrote: Good review. What really annoys me about Dominion is that the copper, sliver and gold coins are all the same image and the same colour! Really brings down the quality of the production for me.
My brother-in-law presented the same issue to me. While I've personally never noticed it til he mentioned it, it now bothers me everytime we play...
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... ok so to be honest, it was my lover that pointed it out. Why can't these people just keep their valid criticisms to themselves...
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Strange that you think setup takes long.. I only know of very few games that are set up quicker than dominion...
If you only use the base set, it takes me about 2minutes to set it up. 5 minutes if you use veto mode.
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Holger Hannemann
United Kingdom
Severn Beach
South Gloucestershire
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Quote: ZephonSoul wrote:
Cleanup – 7/10
This is much faster and easier than setup, you simply place the cards back in their respective slots.
I've never considered setup to be a problem. Is it possible that you perceive a disparity between setup and cleanup because you're doing the former alone and the latter cooperatively? I bet that doing the cleanup of 4 decks of cards on your own is a much more tedious job!
Alessandro, I think the OP has a point. I'd play Dominion more often but most of the time my wife and I are limited to 30-40 minutes. Setting up Dominion is long and a pain in the arse, that's why games like R-Eco, Traders of Carthage or Armorica get many more plays around our house than Dominion. Which is a shame because Dominion is actually the better game
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'The Completist'
United States
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I love Dominion but setting it up, playing, and putting it away is a tough get in 30-40 minutes.
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Alessandro Maggi
Italy
Rome
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The MatrixCube wrote: Quote: ZephonSoul wrote:
Cleanup – 7/10
This is much faster and easier than setup, you simply place the cards back in their respective slots.
I've never considered setup to be a problem. Is it possible that you perceive a disparity between setup and cleanup because you're doing the former alone and the latter cooperatively? I bet that doing the cleanup of 4 decks of cards on your own is a much more tedious job! Alessandro, I think the OP has a point. I'd play Dominion more often but most of the time my wife and I are limited to 30-40 minutes. Setting up Dominion is long and a pain in the arse, that's why games like R-Eco, Traders of Carthage or Armorica get many more plays around our house than Dominion. Which is a shame because Dominion is actually the better game
I too think that he has a point when he says that setup can drag a little (not to the point it could be a problem for me, anyway), I should have pointed this out in my previous post.
The thing is that he said he felt the cleanup was much faster/painless, and I was just wondering if that is a perception due to the fact that cleanup is usually cooperative and more "interactive" if you will.
I didn't quite test it myself, but I suspect that by a pure matter of analytical time, cleanup could be an equally long process at best, being sometimes even longer (depending also on the number of players and deck sizes): may it be that feels just less painful?
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Nate Baker
United States
Coon Rapids
MN
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ZephonSoul wrote: The MatrixCube wrote: Quote: ZephonSoul wrote:
Cleanup – 7/10
This is much faster and easier than setup, you simply place the cards back in their respective slots.
I've never considered setup to be a problem. Is it possible that you perceive a disparity between setup and cleanup because you're doing the former alone and the latter cooperatively? I bet that doing the cleanup of 4 decks of cards on your own is a much more tedious job! Alessandro, I think the OP has a point. I'd play Dominion more often but most of the time my wife and I are limited to 30-40 minutes. Setting up Dominion is long and a pain in the arse, that's why games like R-Eco, Traders of Carthage or Armorica get many more plays around our house than Dominion. Which is a shame because Dominion is actually the better game I too think that he has a point when he says that setup can drag a little (not to the point it could be a problem for me, anyway), I should have pointed this out in my previous post. The thing is that he said he felt the cleanup was much faster/painless, and I was just wondering if that is a perception due to the fact that cleanup is usually cooperative and more "interactive" if you will. I didn't quite test it myself, but I suspect that by a pure matter of analytical time, cleanup could be an equally long process at best, being sometimes even longer (depending also on the number of players and deck sizes): may it be that feels just less painful?
Makes sense too me
From a neutral review stand point, I should've met it in the middle. I posted my personal experience of being alone in setup, yet some people setup with a helper. It all depends on what you guys do.
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