Dominion is a card game created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games. Originally published in 2008, it was the first deck-building game, and inspired a genre of games building on its central mechanic. , sixteen expansions to the game have been released.
In Dominion, each player takes turns drawing from their own personal deck of cards. Each player's deck starts identical, but players can purchase new cards from a common supply to upgrade their deck; these new cards can then be drawn and used on future turns. Players seek to build the strongest deck with the most victory points needed to win the game.
The game has a medieval theme with card names referencing pre-industrial, monarchical, and feudal social structures. It is possible to compare the game with collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering.
When Dominion was released at the Spiel game fair in 2008, it was voted "best game of the fair" by the Fairplay polls. The next year it won the Spiel des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Preis awards. It was one of five winning games in American Mensa's 2009 MindGame competition. By 2017, more than 2.5 million copies of Dominion and its expansions had been sold worldwide.
Gameplay Cards and setup Two to four players compete to gather the most victory points by strategically building a deck of cards. Each player starts with a deck containing a few weak cards, using which they acquire more cards with different and more powerful abilities. Some cards provide in-game currency; others let the player perform more actions or buy more cards per turn; others let them draw more cards, attack the other players, or remove unwanted cards from their decks, among other functionality. As players improve their decks, they also think about how to improve their scores by scoring victory points.
Dominion has been compared to the "draft" gameplay style of collectible card games where players vie for the best deck from a common pool of cards.
Cards are classified into types, listed at the bottom of each card. The six types in the base set are: Victory cards have a victory point value at the end of the game but usually have no use while the game is in progress. Curse cards are like Victory cards but have a negative victory point value. Treasure cards generate coins which can be used to buy other cards during the Buy phase. Action cards have many kinds of effects, but by default only one may be played per turn. Attack cards hurt other players, such as by forcing them to discard cards from their hand or gain Curse cards. Reaction cards can be triggered out of turn in response to certain events, such as other players' Attacks.
Cards may have more than one typ. For instance, an Action might also be an Attack. Certain cards are affected by other cards' types; for instance, some Reactions are triggered when another player uses an Attack card.
Cards are divided into two groups: base cards, which are present in every game, and kingdom cards, of which each game has a different assortment. The base cards consist of Curse cards, three kinds of Treasure, and three kinds of Victory cards. Kingdom cards are mostly actions, but some have other types, including Treasure and Victory. There is one pile of each card in the game; once the pile is empty, players can no longer buy that card. Together, these cards form the supply. A few cards from expansions change the rules in fundamental ways.
To begin a game, players decide on the kingdom cards to be used, by either selecting them or choosing randomly. Cards from different sets of Dominion can be mixed freely. Each player gets a starting deck of seven Copper cards, low-valued treasure, and three Estate cards, low-value victory points. Each player shuffles their deck and draws the top five cards to form their hand.
During play
Each turn, the player gains one action and one buy. The player performs the following phases in order (abbreviated as "ABC" as a mnemonic): Action phase: The player can play one Action card from their hand, following the card's printed instructions. By default only one Action card may be played, but some cards have instructions that give the player permission to play additional Action cards that same turn. Buy phase: The player can play any Treasure cards they want from their hand, generating coins. Then they may use the coins they have generated in their Action and Buy phases to purchase a card from the supply; if the player has no coins, they may still buy a card with a zero coin cost. By default only one card may be bought, but if a player has generated additional buys earlier in the turn, they may divide their coins among multiple purchases. Bought cards are added to the player's discard pile (and will later be shuffled into their deck). Clean-up phase: The player collects their hand and all played cards and places those into their discard pile. They then draw five new cards from their deck. Unused actions, buys, and coins do not carry over to future turns.
If the player must draw a card from an empty deck, they shuffle their discard pile to create a new deck. Some Action cards can trash cards, removing them from players' decks and into the Trash pile, where they are out of the game (though a few actions from expansions can recover them).
The game ends under one of two conditions: when the stack of Province cards (the highest-value Victory card) has been exhausted, or when any three stacks in the supply have been emptied. Players count the number of victory points in their decks, and the player with the highest score wins.
Since possessing Victory cards is often necessary to win the game, but they typically have no value during gameplay, players must balance the acquisition of Victory cards with Action and Treasure cards that maintain the player's ability to play effective turns. Usually, the game's main strategy is to build a deck that maximizes the player's ability to draw hands that can buy Provinces.
Expansions
Several expansions to Dominion have been released. The basic set is simple, and each expansion adds more complexity, typically through the addition of new kingdom cards and additional rules, such as adding new card types or changing the composition of each players' starting deck.
Some expansions have added "landscapes" to the game setup. These are distinguished from cards by having landscape orientation rather than portrait, and do not enter the players' hand or deck, but are either resolved immediately or placed in the players' play areas. These have different effects on the game; for example, the Adventures expansion introduced the ability to buy Events, which provide immediate bonuses. Other expansions have introduced tokens for tracking game progression. The Prosperity expansion introduced victory point tokens, which can be earned by playing certain kingdom cards; these increase players' scores but do not dilute their decks with victory cards. If players use kingdom cards that require these non-supply card stacks or tokens, these are set up alongside the supply prior to play.
Many reviews recommend buying expansions to increase the variety of the game. Cards from different sets may be freely mixed with each other.
Intrigue introduced cards with multiple uses, which the player must choose between when they play the card, and Victory cards which have another type and provide an ability or bonus. Intrigue has been recommended as the first expansion to purchase after the base set for play. Seaside introduced Duration cards, which have effects that occur on the player's next turn. It also added tokens and mats which track their effects. Alchemy was the first set to introduce a new base card: Potion, a Treasure card which is needed to buy the expansion's kingdom cards. Prosperitys theme is wealth. It introduced two new base cards: a Victory card, Colony, that gives 10 victory points, and a Treasure card, Platinum, which gives 5 coins. It also introduced new Treasures and victory point tokens, which increase the players' score but are not part of their deck. Cornucopia has a theme of variety. Some of its cards reward players for having different cards in their deck. It includes a card which causes an extra kingdom pile to be added to the game. It also introduced cards from outside the supply that cannot be bought or gained normally, but have special methods which can be used to gain them. Hinterlands introduced cards which have special effects when gained or bought. It includes several cards which benefit other players when gained or used. Its second edition added a reaction sub-theme. Dark Ages has two themes: trashing cards, and upgrading them to better ones. It adds shelter cards that begin in each player's starting deck. Many features of the set's cards increase a player's deck size with cards that are not very useful. It introduced new ways to gain non-supply cards, ways to play cards from the supply without needing to buy them, cards which can replace players' starting Victory cards, and cards which have effects when they are trashed. Two piles contain copies of several differently-named cards. Guilds is themed around complex uses of money. It introduced coffers, which are tokens that save money for later. It introduced cards which players may 'overpay' for; the extra money spent provides immediate bonuses. Adventures introduced Travelers, and Reserve cards, a variant of Duration cards. Travelers are normal kingdom cards that are exchanged for a more powerful card until you reach the last upgrade. Like Durations, Reserve cards stay on the board when you play them; unlike Durations, they do not automatically return on the next turn. It also introduced Events, the first landscapes. It introduces new durations that have effects beyond your next turn, Hireling and Champion. It also adds bonus tokens that help or hurt a player later on. Empires introduced cards with a debt cost. When buying these cards, the player receives debt tokens, which they must later pay off. There are also split piles, in which a cheaper card sits on top, and once all copies of that have been purchased, a second card is available; most pairs have a synergistic relationship. Like Adventures, it includes Event cards. It also introduces Landmarks, landscapes which add more ways to gain or lose victory pointsm and gathering cards, which gather victory point tokens to be gained after some special effect. Nocturne introduced a new phase of the turn, Night. During the Night phase, which occurs after the Buy phase, players may play Night cards. The expansion also introduced Fate and Doom cards, which provide random bonuses and penalties from the Hex and Boon decks. There are also cards which play cards in the Trash pile; States, which have lingering effects on a player; and cards which replace players' starting Coppers with new Treasures called Heirlooms. Renaissance introduced Projects, Artifacts, and villager tokens, and features a trashing theme. Projects are landscapes which provide a permanent bonus if bought. Artifacts are persistent effects which are won by one player at a time, and are associated with a particular kingdom card. Villagers act as saved actions, spent on any later turn to allow them to play an additional action; they are similar to coffers, recurring in this set from Guilds. Menagerie introduced exile mats, Ways, additional Event cards, and cards which make use of the special Horse card. The exile mat temporarily removes cards from the player's deck or lets them acquire cards indirectly. Ways are landscapes; if a Way is in the game, a player playing an Action card may follow the Way's text rather than the printed text of the Action. Horse cards are in a special pile, cannot be purchased directly, and are returned to that pile when played.