Did ya' like Dominion? Try Thunderstone.

[John Crichton]

Picked up Thunderstone this week after reading a quickie review on boardgamegeek.com. It was described as Dominion with better art and a D&D-type theme. I'd say that's pretty spot on.

Seonaid and I are huge Dominion fans with many games under our belt so the 'build your deck' mechanic was easy to pick up. In some ways Thunderstone has more strategic choices over the course of the game and in other it's somewhat limited.

Bottom line is that the game is tons of fun. You take turns either:

1) Visiting the village to level up your heroes and/or buy stuff.
2) Exploring the dungeon to kill monsters for XP & victory points.
3) Chumping your hand for a new one and skipping your turn.

We like the D&D aspect of the game right now and it's still really fresh so Dominion and it's two expansions likely won't be played for a while. I'd really like to try out Thunderstone with more than 2 players. I'm sure the experience will be different enough to feel fresh.

Also, it would be criminal for AEG to not already have a few expansions in the pipeline for TS. I can already see many different things they can add to the game in the way of monsters (bosses!), items, spells and heroes.

 

[Crothian]

Does this mean Dominion is good? I haven't played it.

 

[John Crichton]

Dominion is excellent! And it can be played in about an hour.

 

[RangerWickett]

Dominion, Intrigue, and . . . what's the other one? Seaside? Great games, though I really dislike the cards that grant curses. I'll have to recommend Thunderstone to our resident board game guru.

 

[weem]

Does this mean Dominion is good? I haven't played it.

It is indeed, very good

Gonna have to check this Thunderstone out now - thanks for the share!

 

[John Crichton]

It is indeed, very good

Gonna have to check this Thunderstone out now - thanks for the share!

No problem. It's right on theme for a D&D website.

 

[Wycen]

Having read this thread, when one of our game group mentioned he was bringing a copy of Thunderstone to the gang tonight, I took 3 hours off from homework and went and played a game. Took longer than an hour, but it was our first time. I only played once, but the rest stayed for at least another game.

I did like it, but in the beginning there are a lot of symbols and numbers to keep track of. The funny thing is that your first and second hands are almost gauranteed to be very much like Domininion, you know what you have and can only buy a limited amount of stuff.

Going thru the dungeon seemed somehow not exciting. Maybe just the lack of interaction or limited number of monsters that keep popping up.

Oh, yeah, the interaction between players is even less than the original Dominion (yes the Intrigue and Seaside expansions increase it). Only the cleric, to my knowledge affects the other players.

I'll certainly play it again, but right now my impression is the replayability is not as much as Dominion. That might change because I know we used a basic setup and some of the monsters weren't in the dungeon.

 

[John Crichton]

Going thru the dungeon seemed somehow not exciting. Maybe just the lack of interaction or limited number of monsters that keep popping up.

Interesting. I thought the basic setup had a good amount of variation with the critters.

Oh, yeah, the interaction between players is even less than the original Dominion (yes the Intrigue and Seaside expansions increase it). Only the cleric, to my knowledge affects the other players.

The rogue (2nd LV thief) forces a discard. I don't have a huge problem with non-direct interaction with the other player(s). The limited resource pool is enough for me. I found the amount similar to many setups in Dominion. But I can totally see if one is looking for more direct conflict how it may be less appealing.

I'll certainly play it again, but right now my impression is the replayability is not as much as Dominion. That might change because I know we used a basic setup and some of the monsters weren't in the dungeon.

Try playing with the non-basic set-up. Just like Dominion, the combination of certain monsters, village items and heroes can make for a very different experience. I was surprised at how different our second game was from the first.

 

[Wycen]

It dawns on me that because I saw this thread and what my friend said it may have triggered comparison to Dominion, but it is a different game despite similarities. Both are fun.

A difference from Dominion which I'm now perceiving, which others might say isn't a difference is deck building. You are building your deck to win, yes, but more immediately you are building to kill the monsters in the dungeon. If you go to town, you aren't killing monsters, but you can't kill monsters without better equipment. I think there were about 3 turns in a row I went without being able to kill a monster because my hand didn't allow it. This felt like my choice was restricted. I still had the choice of whatever gear I could buy, but couldn't go romping around the dungeon. Being a player of Dungeons and Dragon, the RPG, not being able to do that probably irked me more than it would have otherwise.

Again, it has too many symbols on the cards. I think they could have gotten rid of the strength/weight numbers and it would be fine.

However, I will play it again.

 

[arscott]

Bought it on wednesday, and played three games (2 starting setup, 1 random).

I enjoy it (though, to be fair, I've won every game I played). Despite what was said above about player interaction, I feel like there's generally more than most games of dominion: The fact that you can battle a monster, denying other players the chance to do the same, is pretty profound.

I picked up on the symbols pretty quickly, and I think everyone else did too. I still wish they'd used tokens instead of cards for xp, though--and I wish they'd gone with a box design more like dominion's.