4 ms·
Tell HN: A Great New Card Game
I wanted to tell everyone about a great, relatively new card game I discovered, called Dominion. Some of you have probably played it, but for those of you who have not, you're missing out. I highly recommend spending the 30 bucks or whatever it costs on Amazon and purchasing it.
Everyone seems to be talking about Settlers of Catan these days on HN, but if you want a real strategy game, that doesn't have the huge amount of luck Settlers has, try Dominion. I used to play a lot of Magic: The Gathering - I played in all the big national tournaments for years, so I have a special place in my heart for card games.
If I were to summarize why Dominion is good, I would say:
1) Though it is a card game, there is less luck than most card games because of how many times you draw each card.
2) It takes the best part of Magic (the deck-building) and turns it into the entire game.
3) It can be learned quickly, but it is difficult to master. My eight-year-old nephew picked it up in one game and loved it, and his mother (my sister) liked it too.
4) It's fun for 2-4 players.
5) The constant shifting of the cards means the game does not get old fast.
Anyways, if you have some holiday loot, get Dominion. Take it from a hardcore gamer, who has no affiliation with the publisher, Rio Grande. I'm just writing this because the game is great.
- IChrisI 17y agoDominion is quite fun, with or without the expansions. It's best 3-4 players; with just 2, one player tends to draw ahead and stay ahead. If you've got the original and the first expansion, there are rules for 5-6 players, but it's best with 3-4.
- vyrotek 17y agoI keep hearing good things about Dominion. I'll have to pick it up sometime. My friends and family really like Citadels and Bang!
- makecheck 17y agoI love this game too. There are 3 expansions, the 2nd is a self-contained game, but the 3rd requires one of the first two. The 3rd is most interesting, however, because it expands card effects across turns.
- gjm11 17y agoI've played several other games from Rio Grande (though not Dominion) and their standard is generally very high.
- spicyj 17y agoRicochet Robots is a great game that requires lots of thinking but is not too hard on time pressure.
- dave_au 17y agoAnd if you like it check out boardgamegeek.com for more ideas :) Dominion isn't really my thing, but there's masses of really good games around these days.
- chaostheory 17y agoyeah if you don't like the luck factor as much - Puerto Rico is the best board game IMO Power Grid and Caylus are also pretty close
- bumbledraven 17y agoDominion is one of the only games I know that's as fun for two players as it is for 3 or more players. Everyone seems to love this game - it appeals to non-gamers even more than Settlers. It's been out only 2 years, and it's already won 7 awards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(game)#Awards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(game)#Awards) including Mensa Select and German Game of the Year. You can play online for free - just the basic set, with only a few cards from the expansions (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/348956/play-dominion-online- http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/348956/play-dominion-onl...) As an aside, I was shocked when I saw the name "Donald X. Vaccarino" listed on the cover of Dominion, because I remember that name. Back in 1998 or so, he maintained a page of original aphorisms. I can't find the page any more, but one of them realy stuck in my mind, to the point that I remember it word for word, along with his name, to this day. It was "any action you have to rationalize the morality of is evil".
- andrewljohnson 17y agoHere is my list of favorite games: Dominion Puerto Rico Settlers of Catan Carcasonne Ticket to Ride Agricola (can be slow and hard to grasp) Power Grid (just ok) Go (this is actually my favorite, though most don't care for it)
- jbm 17y agoDitto on Settlers, Ticket to Ride and Power Grid. Pandemic and Taluva are awesome as well (particularly Taluva)
- scottw 17y agoAnd fwiw, Ticket to Ride Europe is better designed than Ticket to Ride America, if you have a choice between the two.
- btilly 17y agoThe nicest thing about Go is the handicap system. You can play with a kid, give the kid an appropriate handicap, and then you're free to play as well as you possibly can. OK, it doesn't feel like the real game when I'm giving my barely 5 year old a 19 stone handicap on a 9x9 board. But some day... Another thing that I like about Go are the other games you can play. I bought a second set of stones, split that into 6 groups, then spray painted them different colors. That lets me play Pente with up to 8 people.
- roundsquare 17y agoThe main problem I had with M:TG is that I needed to keep buying new cards to keep up. I don't like games where the person who spends the most money is more likely to win since that reduces the strategy level of the game. Contrast that to settlers (or any other board game) where you just buy the game and everyone is on equal footing with respect to resources (give or take the random aspect). The expansion pack just makes the game bigger. Which kind is Dominion?
- andrewljohnson 17y agoDominion is more akin to Settlers... the whole game costs 30-50 dollars, depending on where you get it. And like Settlers, it has expansions.
- city41 17y agoThe Magic community solved the "he who spends more wins more" problem with limited play. I particularly like Magic Drafts, which are a very cheap and great way to play Magic. Wizards even formally recognizes limited play and design all their sets with constructed and limited play in mind. Limited play turns what used to be an obscenely expensive and obsessive game into a very cheap one that is over in one evening. I really like it.
- mechanical_fish 17y agoAgreed that Limited is better. But it still costs money, yes? A new deck every time? My problem with M:TG is that the knowledge keeps turning over. In 1996 I spent quite a lot of time playing, reading, tinkering with -- and buying -- Magic, and as a result I knew all about the best Magic strategies and could follow the top players with interest. Then I looked away for six months, and when I looked back I was a hopeless old man and had no idea what was going on. Yeah, I had some appreciation of the format and the principles, but all the standard tactics were different -- new cards meant new ascendant strategies. I eventually decided that, if I take up gaming again in such a serious manner, I'll play and study bridge or chess or Go or Scrabble or poker or something where, should I happen to acquire any skill, it will persist for more than a year or two. Heck, even Settlers would be a good choice; that game has legs.
- xiaoma 17y agoYes! It's just gotten popular here in Taiwan over the last month. I love it, and I've played it all through the night twice now. I was a magic play way back in the day, but eventually got irritated about having to either buy new cards each time an expansion came out, or fall behind players who had the newer, more powerful cards. Fortunately, Dominion has everyone drawing from the same cards, so this particular problem won't happen.
- wlievens 17y agoDominion, meh. Play Power Grid or Small World. If you want a quick economic game, try Chinatown. It's everything Monopoly should have been.