It's a card game! It's a board game! It's...Dominion!

This was originally a forum post I made on Nintendorks, which I've tried to flesh out and turn into a full article/review type thingy. While I've abandoned my initial "Everyday Better Guy" project a long time ago (though not in spirit, really), going forward I'll be updating this blog more frequently. Expect musings about gaming, improv, and anything else that comes to mind that I end up wanting to write passionately about.

Dominion, created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games, is a medieval-themed board game released in 2008 and ranked as overall #8 on BoardGameGeek.com. While I've enjoyed playing with friends in the past, I recently got hooked on playing online opponents at http://dominion.isotropic.org. This website houses an unofficial version of the game played by over 3000 registered users. The built-in leaderboard tells me I've played at least 250 registered games (and who knows how many unregistered ones) since starting two months ago - a remarkable and saddening feat considering I'm 'slaving away' on my MBA studies at the moment.

Not many card games become as popular or successful as Dominion, especially without some kind of special hook. No zombies, intergalactic bounty hunters, or monsters lure players into giving this game a chance. It's the gameplay that shines, and has players spreading word of mouth about its greatness.

One of the special things about Dominion's gameplay is that it's a card game about building a deck of cards - so meta! Each player starts off with the same 10 basic cards in their deck, and the winner is the person who builds the best deck by the end. The road to victory requires that players amass the largest kingdom by buying the most Victory cards. However, Victory cards are useless in the deck aside from at the end of the game (when points are totaled), so players must build an efficient deck that also incorporates the right balance of Action and Treasure Cards (which in turn, are useful during the game but not counted towards points at the end). The game pulls off a generic medieval theme in an oddly elegant way, cards being named after elements of medieval europe, such as Villages, Militia, and Chapels.

In trying to outline why the gameplay is so good, I decided on four elements of game design that I think Dominion pulls off exceptionally well:

• SIMPLICITY: The basic mechanics are deceptively simple and fast-paced. Only three main types of cards (Actions, Treasures, and Victory Points) and three simple phases during your turn (Action, Buy, Clean-Up). This leads to a (usually) very fast-paced game: online games are usually done within 15 minutes, in-person games rarely take more than 45.
• VARIETY: Each game can be different, as the available-to-buy Action cards are (often randomly) picked from a pool of 25 or so different ones (and many more become available with the expansions). As a result, card interactions and combos vary every game. 
• STRATEGY: Many decision are dependent on opponents' actions and often require some foresight, for good players at least. There can be a lot of interaction, and cards that seem useless in one game can be the key to victory in other card sets, so one must always consider the mechanics of the game to find new combos. There are multiple paths to victory: you can play offensively, defensively, try to rush for a quick win, or just mind your own business.
• FAIRNESS: This game has just the right balance of luck vs. skill. Since there is no rolling of dice, one has a great deal of control over their destiny. And even though one can fall at the mercy of the 'luck of the draw', each turn brings about a completely new hand of 5 cards, so only the unluckiest of players (or worst deckbuilders) can get stuck in a rut of terrible draws.

This wouldn't be a proper review without some criticism, but I'm hard-pressed to find any serious flaws with the game. If I were to nitpick, it would be that random setups of the Action cards can sometimes result in boring matchups with no significant card interactions. However, these instances are exceptions rather than the rule, and players can always choose to customize their card sets to eliminate the chance of a boring setup.

In conclusion, Dominion is an excellent game with fantastic mechanics and a generic, but well-executed theme which doesn't at all detract from the gameplay. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a deep strategic game that is easy to learn but can take time to master.

And lastly, I'd like to recommend the Dominion Strategy Blog, which contains a plethora of interesting and educational articles on advanced strategies for the game.