Dominion

[Badwe]

What are some clever combos and counters anyone has discovered? Obviously most two card combos rely on you playing a village or some other action enhancer unless the first combo card replaces itself, but still.

for example: Council room + militia. so much for an advantage for your opponents!

counter witch with remodel
counter bureaucrat with thief
counter militia with library

some are a little more obvious. most people automatically assume chapel to counteract the witch.

 

[Cadfan]

counter chapel with thief

Honestly, I don't do a ton of countering and such. I concentrate on efficiency and speed. There are a TON of strategies that could be written out, but a lot of the fun for me was discovering them myself, so I don't know if writing them down is a good idea.

Play the game with some experienced players, and you'll probably find that there are a lot of strategies you never even thought up.

 

[Asmor]

BoardGameGeek is now offering preorders on a 2-card mini-expansion for Dominion. $5 shipped, anywhere in the world (though bizarrely it sounds like they're having trouble with Singaporean customers being told they need more expensive shipping. Someone's looking into that)

The cards are supposed to be available 2nd week of March, though it's not clear if that's when the manufacturer is supposed to send them to BGG, or if that's when BGG is supposed to start sending them out.

The two cards are:

Envoy: Costs 4. Reveal top 5 cards of your deck; opponent to your left picks one which you discard, and you draw the rest.

Black Market: At the beginning of the game, create a black market stack consisting of one copy of every kingdom card not in play. The Black Market itself costs 3, gives you +2 coins, and when you play it you reveal the top 3 cards of the black market stack and may immediately buy one of them.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Envoy: Costs 4. Reveal top 5 cards of your deck; opponent to your left picks one which you discard, and you draw the rest.

The Envoy has been available here for some time. It works well with action-heavy combos; the classical setup being 1st Village, 2nd Envoy. At first we thought it a very strong card, but this has changed in the meantime.

Black Market: At the beginning of the game, create a black market stack consisting of one copy of every kingdom card not in play. The Black Market itself costs 3, gives you +2 coins, and when you play it you reveal the top 3 cards of the black market stack and may immediately buy one of them.

Now this one sounds interesting. On the other hand I prefer decks with only a few different cards. A single card doesn't make much sense.

Well, I'm really looking forward to the expansion set!

 

[Torillan]

I recently picked up this game, and it is worth every penny. My 11 year old son and I (still trying to get the missus to play!) play a game a day after school, and we are running evenly in number of wins! It took him all of 5 minutes to get the gist of how a turn works, then his devious little mind kicked in with some strategy. He took to Battlelore the same way (little nit.........).

We've played a few games using a "random draw" to select the 10 Action cards to use. It's worked out pretty nicely, and it doesn't get dull!!

 

[Wycen]

As you can see from that picture, there is some interaction in the game.

The witch, bureaucrat and spy all effect the other players. Certainly not as much interaction as other games though.

About playing the game, I have come to like it. I played 2 games Tuesday as a break from my paper writing for school. Won the second by being able to buy 2 of the 6 point cards in one turn. Lost the first game only because I didn't have 1 extra card (to give me 50 cards for the Gardens) or because I didn't have 2 more victory points from else where.

I like the game because the first time I played a few weeks ago it was very easy to pick up the rules. Keeping the decks straight, what's in your hand, what's discarded and what's in the to be drawn deck is the only think a newbie has to worry about.

Our game group Tuesday night would definitely benefit from a 5-6 player expansion.

 

[Wycen]

We played a hand tonight before Stone Age and again, those darn Gardens cost me victory. I needed 1 more victory point or 1 more Garden card, (or my nemesis should have had 1 less).

The owner mentioned he had something on order, so I guess he's getting the promo or expansion if it has been announced.

 

[Asmor]

We played a hand tonight before Stone Age and again, those darn Gardens cost me victory. I needed 1 more victory point or 1 more Garden card, (or my nemesis should have had 1 less).

The owner mentioned he had something on order, so I guess he's getting the promo or expansion if it has been announced.

That would be the promo. I don't think the expansion is out even in Europe yet, never mind here.

 

[DonTadow]

That would be the promo. I don't think the expansion is out even in Europe yet, never mind here.

The expansion comes out in May. Its actually its own game, so it can be played with the original or alone. Also the promos are shipping now (from bgg).

This and God Dice have become our pre d&d games. Its quick, fun and very flavorful. Its a good starter board game if you play with people who like fantasy.

 

[Wycen]

Something I've come to notice, when we play games without the owner playing, we tend to learn interesting things.

Tonight in our Dominion game we discovered that the Thief card doesn't simply force you to discard treasure, you TRASH it. That is a much nastier card now than it used to be.