Dominion: Intrigue
You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion! You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner. Dominion: Intrigue adds rules for playing with up to 8 players at two tables or for playing a single game with up to 6 players. This game adds 25 new Kingdom cards and a complete set of Treasure and Victory cards. The game can be played alone by players experienced in Dominion or with the basic game of Dominion.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Same tune, new words
Before I get into reviewing this game - my personal experience says if you only have money for either Dominion or Dominion: Intrigue (either is playable on it’s own), you’re better off with the base Dominion game. The replay value is just as good and it has a lot of basic cards that the Intrigue expansion fails to make up for.
If you’ve played Dominion then you already know what to expect from this game. The biggest surprise here are the 3 sets of combo cards (2 victory/actions and 1 victory/treasure). Other notable features include cards with the ability to chose between several options and host of new cards designed to interfere with other players.
While it is important to note this box has all the cards necessary to play the game on it’s own and over 3 million possible unique game scenarios (with 25 ’special’ cards, choosing 10 cards at a time) this game is much improved when combined with the base Dominion game, resulting in well over 12 billion unique scenarios (that’s 51 special cards, still choosing 10 at a time). The replay value of Dominion and Dominion: Intrigue is truly unique.
5 Stars Love It
Awesome game. We love playing it and you never get bored because there are so many different combinations of kingdom cards that you can play with.
I gave it a low rating on durability because I can imagine that it would suck to lose a card or something.
5 Stars one of the most fun games that i evered played
these the second game to dominion is one game that we play all the
time. Every game is differnt.
5 Stars Dominion gets even better with Intrigue
I was very surprised to find that I liked playing Dominion as much as I do. I am not a big card game kind of person.
Dominion is probably the best card game (but it doesn’t SEEM like a card game when you play it) that I have ever played. It has the feel more of a board game, but you aren’t moving pieces around a board.
Dominion intrigue has actually improved on this by introducing new cards that have the ability to be useful not only in the current round, but in the next round as well.
I bought this game for my daughter’s boyfriend who fell in love with Dominion the fist time he played it. Now with him having this newer version he can borrow my copy of Dominion and have even more choices in setting up games.
If you don’t own Dominion yet you can choose between Dominion Intrigue or the original Dominion. I would say the more you play the game the more you would want Dominion Intrigue. If you only play every now and then Dominion (orignial) would probably be a better choice.
Either way you can’t go wrong.
One word of caution however…. There is a new expansion out called Dominion Seaside. It is a great EXPANSION.. but not a standalone game. You NEED either Dominion or Dominion Intrigue to play Dominion Seaside. I have played Dominion Seaside expansion once and loved it. But remember you need Dominion or Dominion Intrigue to play Dominion Seaside.
3 Stars Dominion Intrigue: a stand alone expansion
Dominion is a non-collectible card game published by the good people at Rio Grande Games. Players accumulate wealth, spend their wealth to make improvements to their town and then use those improvements to acquire more land. Land equals victory points for the most part. Whoever has the most victory points wins.
Dominion, like its evil cousins (collectible card games), is a game where players must manage their decks. If you can count cards, you will have a distinct advantage in Dominion. Counting cards is not necessary to be successful (or even to have fun with Dominion)–but serious, tournament gamers will be of the card counting variety. Because you must count your cards, you must manage which cards you put into your deck. You put cards into your deck through purchases.
Players start with 10 cards: 3 estates and 7 copper. Players draw an initial hand of 5 cards. At the end of your turn, you muck your hand (if you have a hand left) and then draw 5 more cards. Any cards you purchased go in your discard pile. Once your draw pile is empty, shuffle your discard pile and form a new draw pile.
You start the game with a complement of estates and copper. Estates score you 1 VP but otherwise clutter you hands. Copper is the least valuable coin. Using this starting complement you must purchase more valuable coins (silver and gold) and buildings.
Players will want more valuable coins because they only get 5 cards in their hands at one time. So if you happen to draw 5 copper coins, you only have $5 to spend. Each silver card is worth 2 copper and each gold is worth 3.
Players also will need to buy buildings. Buildings allow players to take extra actions (normally players only get 1). Some buildings allow players to make extra purchases (normally players only get 1). And some buildings give players special options like drawing extra cards, causing opponents to discard cards, etc. Deciding which buildings to buy is important. These buildings will be cluttering your hand. Will they give you the necessary economic engine to buy the more valuable land cards?
Acquiring land cards is a double edged sword. On the one hand, they are the primary way to get victory points. On the other hand, they clutter your hand without giving you an “in-game” bonus.
Dominion comes with a huge complement of cards. There are enough cards in the base game to satisfy all but the most diehard CCG fans. Since Dominion has two expansions, this should assuage Dominion’s detractors.
I have two main gripes about Dominion.
1. Tedious amounts of shuffling. Players are constantly shuffling their decks. This is both tedious and it causes wear and tear on your cards.
2. There is virtually no player interaction. Dominion is a 4 player solitaire game. There are a few “attack cards”. But there is no real interaction. Players can play “Militia” which forces their opponents to discard 2 cards. But that’s not player interaction. There is no auction system, no vying for control of the center of the board, no driving up the cost of resources…just 4 player solitaire.
Dominion is a good, quick game. Because of the amount of cards in the base game, there’s quite a bit of replayability. With the expansions, there should be replayability for years to come. If you don’t mind the lack of player interaction and the excessive shuffling, then Dominion will probably scratch your gaming itch
Filed under: Classic Board Game Reviews