EPTWHAT IS DOMINION?
Dominion is a deck-building card game. It can be played by 2 people or up to 6 though most games are 2-4 players. Players buy treasure cards($$), action cards(do things), and victory cards(score points!) from a communal supply to form a deck from which they draw and play. The goal of the game is to have the most victory points when the game ends. It is free to play online at http://dominion.isotropic.org/ and has a ladder system to boot! The average game only lasts 10-15 minutes!
While the game can be played with more than 2 people, I am going to focus on the 2 player game from here on out.
SET UP
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/fdZGf.jpg)
The game starts with 10 different Kingdom cards (10 copies each) available. These 10 cards can be different every game, and they give the game lots of variety. Think of this like the different starcraft matchups, but with a million different combinations. In addition to the kingdom cards, there are 3 different victory cards. They are called the estate, duchy and province, and there are 8 copies of each. In some games there is an additional victory card, the colony, but in most games it is not present. Next up are the treasure cards. There are again 3 types of these, copper, silver and gold. There are many many copies of these in each game. When that additional victory card the colony is in play, there is also an additional treasure card called platinum. The final card is the curse card. It is purple and the only way to lose victory points, there are 10 of them available.
All of these cards make up what is called the supply. The supply is the same for every game with the difference being the 10 kingdom cards that are available.
Each player starts with a deck of 10 cards consisting of 7 coppers and 3 estates.
WINNING
The game ends when (1) 3 piles from the supply are empty, or (2) when all of the provinces are bought. (If there are colonies, then if they are all gone, the game ends as well.) Neither player gets an extra turn, the game ends on the completion of the turn where either or these 2 conditions is met. Players add up all of the victory points they have accumulated and whoever has more wins. If they are at equal points, if one player has taken more turns, that that player loses, otherwise it is a tie.
CARDS
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/8Devg.jpg)
This is an action card
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/QsOKp.jpg)
This victory is worth 6 victory points at the end of the game
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/oMIjq.jpg)
Silver is a treasure card that adds 2$ to your total for the turn
RULES/PLAYING THE GAME
The rules become more complicated as you include different kingdom cards, so I’ll go over the basics to allow you to jump right in.
1. First you draw 5 cards from your draw pile, this is your hand.
Action Phase
2. You start each turn with 1 action available. By playing an action card you use this 1 action, and then follow the instructions on the card from top to bottom. If you receive additional actions in any way, you can continue to play action cards till they are used up.
3. When you no longer have any action cards to play, or have run out of actions, you move to the buy phase.
Buy Phase
4. At the start of the buy phase, you play all of your treasure cards which are worth $$.
5. You have 1 buy unless you have gained more in the action phase.
6. With this one buy you may purchase a card from the supply that has a cost that is equal to or less than the amount of $$ you have played this turn.
7. When you buy a card, it is put in your discard pile.
8. Once you have used all of your buy, all of your money, or are just done buying things, you move on the cleanup phase.
Cleanup Phase
9. All of the cards you still have in your hand, or have played get moved to the discard pile.
10. Draw 5 cards to form you next hand. If you do not have 5 cards left in your draw pile, draw till there are none, and then shuffle your discard pile to form your new draw pile.
Additional Rules
-If you trash a card, it is removed from the game completely.
-Some cards involve victory tokens, those are points that add to your victory total at the end of the game.
-Whenever you gain a card and it doesn’t say “into your hand” then the card goes to the discard pile.
HOW DO I PLAY MY FIRST GAME!?
1. Go to http://dominion.isotropic.org/ , you don’t have to log in if you don’t want to.
2. Put in and ID, and go into the great hall!
3. At the bottom where it asks for required cards, copy and past in:
Cellar, Smithy, Village, Market, Adventurer, Workshop, Moneylender, Remodel, Thief, Festival
4. Click next to an unsuspecting opponent and “propose game with”.
5. Have fun.
The 10 kingdom cards I have suggested are all from the base set of cards and a relatively easy to follow and remember!
WHY PLAY?
Tons of fun and strategy! The game is very simple in a way, but can become much more complex if you desire.
WHERE CAN I PLAY ONLINE FOR FREE?
Again, hop on http://dominion.isotropic.org/ I am “Trezeguet” but feel free to add TL to your tag and I’d be glad to play a game with you, and it will help you recognize others learning the game like you!
STRATEGY
There are 151 different kingdom cards and only 10 per game so each game has it's own feel and strategy. In general, there are basically 2 different ways to go about the game. The first is to buy up a bunch of action cards that will work together to make for 1 or 2 really big turns this is called a combo deck or engine. The second way to attack the game is to buy one or two action cards and then everything else is money, this commonly called Big Money.
Big Money
Buy one or two action cards that have an obvious helpful effect such as Smithy which gives +3 cards. Every other purchase could go like this <5 = silver, 6 or 7 = gold, 8 = province. And then start buying duchies when there are but 5 provinces left. The downside to big money (BM) plus a support card or two is that it is not always the best and easily gets bogged down once you start buying the green victory cards. Cards such as cellar which lets you discard cards from your hand then the draw to replace them really helps out a BM deck to avoid the pitfall of too many green cards.
Engine Deck
A common basic engine is +actions + cards. This means that you can keep getting a bigger hand, and then since you have +actions, you can play cards from that bigger hand. The most basic form of this is using Village (+2 actions, +1 card) and Smithy (+3 cards). The goal is to play a village which brings you up to 2 actions, and replaces itself in your hand to have 5 total cards. Then with these newly gained actions, you play smithy to increase the cards in your hand. This can be played over and over with enough villages and smithies to draw your whole deck. The goal is to get your hands really big, and then use lots of low value treasure cards i.e. coppers to buy the expensive victory cards. Engines, just like BM, get clogged up by the victory cards. The biggest downside to an engine deck is that it may take too long to set it up, while your opponent goes BM and buys up all of the provinces leaving you in the dust.
Trashing
Trashing cards from your deck is amazing. Copper is good to start the game, but it soon becomes a nuisance. If you are able to use a card such as Chapel (trash up to 4 cards from your hand) to get rid of your starting coppers and estates as you purchase silver, gold and other actions, then you have a lot fewer useless cards in every hand you draw. Trashing is especially effective when going for some sort of engine/combo deck since you are just left with the parts to your engine.
There is tons to be said here, and I’ll blog more if there is a demand. I’ll leave you with some knowledge though, while the action cards are alluring, there is often no replacement for silver and gold. Buying up all of the actions can be good, but buying money is often amazing.
PM me for games/help or whatever!
Didn't know if this should be in sports & games or blogs so move it if needed!
