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[carbonduck]

I just discovered the elegance of Dominion this past weekend when my friend bought the game and we played the game with about 4-5 of us.

We are in love with this game.

(Un)Fortunately, none of us know how to play the game. We end up buying whatever we feel like buying when our turns come around. Some of us just hoard tons of +Action cards so we can chain on chains, while others just buy up all of the attack cards to troll the other players. When we can't do anything, we buy coppers and estates (which I hear is not what we should be doing).

None of us have really theorycrafted about the game, so we don't really have any insight on the game flow or opening strategies or anything of that sort.

What are the basics of Dominion? What are the fundamental mistakes that newbies like us are likely to make? I've been browsing DominionStrategy.com, but I haven't found anything for ultimate beginners there.

[Stoc]

One thing that was a huge eye opener for me was understanding "Big Money"/"Big Money Ultimate."

This strategy is very simple and breaks down into a few rules:
$8 or more, buy province
$5 or more and 5 or less provinces remaining, buy Duchy
$2 or more and 2 or less provinces remaining, buy Estate
$6 or more, buy gold
$3 or more, buy silver

(the Province cutoff for player 2 buying Duchies changes to 4 or less)
The 'Ultimate' variety adds in 1 Smithy, but never more than 1.

Here's the game changer for me. Big Money Ultimate gets 4 provinces in 16-17 turns on avg. That's fast! And that's buying almost nothing but money. At the start of the game, when you're considering what cards you'd like to buy, will they be able to beat someone going for BMu (either because they're faster in their own right, or they can slow BMu down with attacks)?

As far as general flow of the game, the best advice I can give you is to head over to dominion.isotropic.org and log 15-20 games to get a feel for how different boards will play out. You can use the options at the bottom of the page to limit the cards to just basic dominion at first. However, I really enjoy the expansions, so don't wait too long to try them out.

[Elyv]

1) Be disciplined about your terminal actions. Having a hand with two smithies and no villages is kind of like having a 4 card hand. In general, if there's no villages in the game, I try to have no more than 2 terminal actions in my deck.

2) On the other hand, make sure that when you buy a village you have a good reason to do so. One of the classic mistakes is buying a village in one of the first two turns, since it gives your deck absolutely no extra buying power before the next shuffle. A deck with 5 villages, 7 coppers, and 3 estates can buy exactly the same things as a deck with 7 coppers and 3 estates.

3)Dominion is largely a game about improving your deck. There's two ways of doing that: Taking out bad cards, and putting in good ones. In other words, not only should you not be buying coppers and estates(barring something like Gardens or the game being almost over), you should be looking for ways to remove them from your deck! For example, Chapel is an amazing card that should almost always be bought in one of the first two turns, since it can get rid of all those terrible coppers and estates! Just make sure you don't accidentally trash so many coppers that you can't buy a silver, though.

[krawhitham]

I was introduced to the game this year and have the following comments.

You are in a very good situation in that you are playing with friends and all learning together. There is nothing worse for a newbie than to be playing againt a dominion geek who will instantly recognise the best strategy to go for from any available set of cards. You will sit waiting for them to churn out their long chain and buy multiple provinces in one turn...

I'd say just keep enjoying playing with your friends - it is all about having fun after all!

I will make some comments about newbie strategy, but I must stress this is merely from my own observations of playing and learning in a short time of playing.

1) At the start of the game look for what cards are NOT there. By this I mean is there a shortage or absence of a certain bonus? For example if there are no cards that give you additional actions there is no point having many action cards in your deck; you may want to consider going for treasure and +cards/+$ action cards in this case.

2) In the buy phase, don't just buy the most expensive card you can, sometimes a lower value card can be one you need. Don't underestimate the value of a +buy, there are some amazing $2/3 cards in Dominion and you may wish to pick up 2 of them in one turn. Sometimes making no buys is your move.

3) Attack cards can be fun, but always think "what is the benefit for me?". Slowing down your opponents can be the benefit you are seeking, but don't simply attack them because they attacked you. Revenge is a dish best served with cold Victory Points.

4) You are correct that buying coppers and estates is generally not the way to go, but then sometimes it is... Confusing isn't it?    For now all I will say is that don't buy them unless you know why you are buying them. If you feel that the end of the game is approaching buy any Victory Points that you can.

5) There is no such thing as a good card and a bad card. Some cards do have limited uses, but they are all useful given the right circumstances. An early mistake I made was seeing a card I did well with in a previous game and rushing to buy it again because "it was good for me last time!".

That's all I can think of for now. As I said in the beginning you are in a good place, don't rush to read every strategy guide. Play and learn with your newbie friends. Discuss strategy between yourselves after games.

[carbonduck]

Wow! Only 3 replies and already so much information. I think I'm going to explode. 

Thanks a lot for the friendly and helpful input. It's going to take me some time to digest all of that, but this is so fun that I'm willing to put in the effort!

[theory]

For me, the single biggest early improvement in my game came when I realized two things:

1) Treasure is important, very important, and you should default to buying Silver: i.e. you need a good reason to deviate from Silver, not the other way around.
2) Cursing attacks are ridiculously strong.  Witch is an unbelievably important card, and you need to get it ASAP.  There is no way to counter it without getting one of your own.

Of course, both of these principles change later on, but they're very good early leapfrog tactics.

[Teproc]

Also, trashing is good.

Very good. As said before, Chapel is one of the better cards in the game. Do not hesitate to trash Estates or Coppers whenever you can (although that can also change, it is a good general principle).

And don't read too much of theory's article since they tend to be adressed to experienced players (Beyond Silver is the example of an article that is exceptionnally valuable for a semi-experienced player, but probably doesn't help a newbie ^^).

[papaHav]

#1. "you should default to buying Silver: i.e. you need a good reason to deviate from Silver, not the other way around." - This is golden advice.

#2. Moneylenders instructions: "Trash a copper, +3 coin" is a double positive, not a cost/benefit!

it is very easy to get 3silvers in your deck... now if you remove all the copper, thats a sweet deck!

#3. Don't fall in love with your engine. Remodel gold into province is usually a deadly move in 1v1. Only green counts.

#4. Enjoy learning and experiment! I lost all my first games opening workshop/village but wasn't long until my mates were crying gardens broken =]

[RichyRich]

As Stoc said, the best way to learn strategies and ideas is simply to play the game with other people that have done it before. I had a somewhat better understanding of Dominion than you when I started isotropic, but since then I have learned a LOT, and it is because I have played a lot and saw a lot.

And something that more people are beginning to do (at least that I have noticed) is talk during the game and after the game. Asking your opponent what they're thinking during a game or after a game helps you get a better understanding of something they tried. Honestly, communication will help you learn a ton.

Hopefully this helps out. And remember, have fun first

[rogerclee]

An exercise I find useful is thinking about what a card is "like". Here is an example for Mine, one of the beginning player's most beloved cards.

Beginner: Wow, what a great way to churn out golds. Gold is so hard to buy, but now I am just popping them out every turn with my silvers, and I even get to use them immediately.

Actually, in terms of buying power, your mine is worth a copper to you every time you draw it (barring platinums), since Silver + Mine = Gold = Silver + Copper. Near the end of the game it's like a $5 terminal copper, so if you think of it this way, you will see how bad it is. If you are playing a "money" type deck, the game is probably over in 16-17 turns anyway, so if you buy your mine relatively late (turn 8+) you almost surely would have done better to just buy a silver.

Here is a look at another card, Ambassador, a card often ignored by beginners.

How much money would you pay for a card that said this: Trash up to 2 cards, your opponents each gain a curse. Probably a lot! It's way better than witch until the midgame, which is already an obvious must-buy in almost all games.

Obviously ambassador is not nearly this good, but at a cost of $3, it's often doing something similar ("trashing" two cards from your hand, giving your opponent a useless (estate) or near-useless (copper) card). In these terms it's almost frightening that ambassador costs $3.

[Silverback]

I think the most important thing to learn is:
Coppers and Estates suck. Try your best to get rid of them. If you can't, find a way to filter through them.

Some Base game combos:
Chapel+3 Laboratories: Trash everything but 2 Golds and 1 Silver. Buy a Province each turn
Festivals+Library: Decrease your hand size with Festivals, then draw a lot of cards with Library. Add Cellar to find combopieces and filter through your non-combo-cards. Moneylender helps too.
3 Workshops+Gardens: Start with 2 Workshops, then add a third asap. Rush Gardens, then Estates, then Workshops.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

My best advise would be to take a moment before your first turn and look over the cards.  Make a plan and try to stay with it.  Don't just copy the other guys strategy.  It is very common that the players buy the same initial cards but after a shuffle or two mirror plays drop off.

Also, have a very good reason to not buy the harshest attacks as soon as you can.  An opponent who realizes you skipped a Sea Hag on turn one is in a great position.  It is like prisoner's dilemma sometimes, and I would rather neither of us buy that Montebanc but I know if I don't I will probably lose.  Being on the losing end of a torturer chain is no fun and practically insurmountable.

When in doubt open with Silver/.

Transmute is a horrible card.

Good luck.

[shark_bait]

My word of advice would be to just have fun with whatever the circumstances give.  I have a friend who absolutely LOATHES attack cards of any type.  So much to the point where he refuses to buy them in games because he sees it as lowering his dignity.  And then at the end of the game when he loses (because certain attack cards will make you lose if you don't buy them, any cursing attack will usually fall under that category) he says, "well, at least I didn't have to sink down to your level". 

So when you have games where both of you are up to your noses in curses and cut throat attacks are flying left and right, just have fun with it because that's part of the joy of playing dominion.

[Stoc]

Transmute is a horrible card.

I agree with everything you said, up to this point. Transmute has some easy pitfalls, but it can certainly be useful for some quick golds and a duchy or two in the end game.

[papaHav]

Transmute is perfect if your core strategy is to get 2 potions early and spend 100% of your buys on alchemists.

Your pouring in 100% of your buy engine into more +draw, 0% into improving treasure. Transmute that hits at twice by the end of alchemist race is awesome, plus a late-game duchy to boot

[Not a Cylon]

As far as general flow of the game, the best advice I can give you is to head over to dominion.isotropic.org and log 15-20 games to get a feel for how different boards will play out. You can use the options at the bottom of the page to limit the cards to just basic dominion at first. However, I really enjoy the expansions, so don't wait too long to try them out.

I think playing on Isotropic may not help that much if you're that new. For instance, my friends took a bit to catch on to how awesome Chapel is (we actually had arguments over whether Chapel or Cellar is better … yes yes, I know, different situations, but still). But after the first few times someone was ballsy enough to trash their entire hand on turn 3 (which seemed like a crazy gambit at the time), it dawned on me: They get their deck down to, like, five cards, and that's why they get to play three Markets and a Militia every freaking turn. If you're playing in person, and you actually see them draw their whole deck in a turn, the light bulb goes off. But online, it's just not in your face the same way: You have to know to click Info just to see how big their deck is, and it's easy at first to miss the all-important “(Joe the Dominion Player reshuffles.)” and “… drawing no cards” messages.

I've played a few games recently with low-level players who got very confused (and frustrated) at my ability to keep them pinned down. Once, I opened Ambassador/Ambassador and got an early Ghost Ship and Laboratory, and before long I was Ghost Shipping every turn (with only one Ghost Ship). My opponent said something like “How are you doing that every turn?!” In a physical game, he'd have seen how I was drawing every card I had every turn; it would've been much less mysterious.

But anyway. By the sheer number of games you can go through, it's certainly true that you get to see how different cards interact, and how to classify different kingdoms (all terminal actions, or +Buy heavy, etc.). But for the very basic mechanics, I'd say you can't beat face-to-face play.

[Blaeu]

So many people have good advice and they all touch on the fact that the power of a card is relative to what other cards are also on the table.  Due to this, it is hard to give universal advice that is more specific than that.  However, I will try. 

I was actually trying to improve the game of my wife tonight, and here is what I told her.  There are three types of action cards:

1. Terminal Actions.  These are actions that do not have at least a +1 Action on them.

2. Non-terminal Actions.  These are actions that have +1 Action on them.  For the sake of this post, they have exactly +1 Action on them.

3. Facilitator Actions.  These are actions that have +2 (or more) Actions on them.  These cards allow you to play multiple actions afterwords, which allows you to chain Terminal Actions.

Looking at the action cards like this, it is easy to divide your strategy into three different types.

1.  Pure Terminal Actions.  If you are buying just treasures and Terminal actions, you must limit the amount of action cards you buy.  Your goal is to never have more than one terminal action in your hand at once since any addition ones would be dead cards.

2.  Pure Non-terminal Actions.  You can have as many as you want and you will ALWAYS be able to play them.  ALWAYS.  That is important to note, because even if they don't do a lot for you, you will always be able to at least play them.  You should still be careful about getting too many non-terminal actions that do not have +1 Card as unless they also give +x coin (or some other good factor) your buying power will suffer.

3.  Combining Terminal Actions with "Facilitator" actions.  People see Smithy and Village and go "oh yeah!"  Then, by turn eight, they are wondering why they are not doing as well as they do when they go pure Smithy.  Combining these two types of action cards is much harder than most people think.  In this case, you MUST play your Village first, or it becomes a dead card.  Say you draw a Smithy and four coppers, you play your Smithy and draw another Smithy, a Village, and an Estate.  All three of those cards are dead.  Sure, your deck has the POTENTIAL to go Village -> Smithy + Smithy, but what are the odds of you actually getting your Village first and having at least one Smithy to play after that?  People see a combo that could work amazingly well IF they trust in the heart of the cards, problem is, this isn't Yo-gi-oh, and you're no Pharaoh.

I've have, and have seen some amazing combos being pulled off by combining terminal and non-terminal action cards, but I have also seen people (including myself) attempt to do so and fail miserably.  So, I end with a KISS.  In English class, Math class, and in life, keeping things simple is usually the best thing you can possibly do.  If you ever find yourself trying to decide what strategy to use, pick the one that requires the fewest action cards and you'll usually play a better game.

[Not a Cylon]

3.  Combining Terminal Actions with "Facilitator" actions.  People see Smithy and Village and go "oh yeah!"  Then, by turn eight, they are wondering why they are not doing as well as they do when they go pure Smithy.  Combining these two types of action cards is much harder than most people think.  In this case, you MUST play your Village first, or it becomes a dead card.  Say you draw a Smithy and four coppers, you play your Smithy and draw another Smithy, a Village, and an Estate.  All three of those cards are dead.  Sure, your deck has the POTENTIAL to go Village -> Smithy + Smithy, but what are the odds of you actually getting your Village first and having at least one Smithy to play after that?  People see a combo that could work amazingly well IF they trust in the heart of the cards, problem is, this isn't Yo-gi-oh, and you're no Pharaoh.

Of course, there's a certain risk/benefit analysis here, too … you may not draw King's Court + King's Court + Hunting Party every turn, but the turn you do is going to be crazy. (But then if there are cards like Laboratory or Hunting Party around, you're more likely to draw the cards you need together anyway.)

Also, the situation is different for different, even similar, combos: Festival/Library is fun partly because Festival has significant benefit without Library, and if Library draws a dead Festival, at least you can discard it for (hopefully) a Treasure instead.