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[xinkaisen]

Some time ago, my family and I all enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan.  After a while, we decided to get the Seafarers expansion, and that just made things funner.  The Cities and Knights expansion, however, radically overcomplicated the game, and in a way, ruined it for us.

I'm a little worried about this happening for Dominion as well.  At the moment, I've got the base game, Intrigue, and Cornucopia.  Before buying Intrigue and Cornucopia, I looked over the card lists to make sure that nothing too game-warping was included.  Cornucopia and Intrigue seemed to be the most "harmless."

I've caught "the bug", so to speak, and it seems that I may be buying another expansion soon.  However, I'd like some input from the more experienced community.  In particular,

Seaside: The duration cards seem like they might be interesting, but putting cards aside with cards like Island, Native Village, and other things that have to be kept track of like Pirate Ship or Embargo seem like a lot of extra rules.

Prosperity: I guess the real big change here is Platinum and Colony.  I don't know about the victory point tokens either.  It seems that one of the nice things about the game as I have it right now is that in order to get victory points you have to slow your deck down.

Alchemy: No.  Just, no.

Hinterlands: Seems like it might be the most harmless of the four that I don't have, but maybe there's something I'm not seeing.

Maybe some of these concerns are overblown, but I don't know.  The other thing that concerns me is that if I'm going to be purchasing a set with 25 cards in it, I want to be able to play and enjoy all of them, instead of setting certain ones aside (or at the very least, set aside as few as possible).

Thanks

[Voltgloss]

I'd actually say Seaside is the least warping of those four.  Island, NV, Pirate Ship, and Embargo are all pretty self-explanatory in execution, even if they come with mats/tokens.  The biggest change is going to be players remembering not to automatically sweep orange (duration) cards into the discard.  But again, that's not a huge adjustment.

[jonts26]

I don't think any of the expansions really warp the game to the extent that cities and knights does with settlers. Alchemy, probably the most so, but even then it's not really much. Each set does add just a little flair to the game which I really enjoy. Honestly, after having base, intrigue and cornucopia and like them all immensely, I can't really see you picking up any of the other expansions and thinking, well this is just too much. That said, prosperity might be the most tame. A lot of the cards are just like the base set ones but cranked up a bit. There really isn't much new in terms of mechanics.

[blueblimp]

If you have Cornucopia and Tournament hasn't bothered you, I doubt there's anything about the other expansions that will, except maybe Colonies if you don't want the games to become a bit longer. So maybe get an expansion other than Prosperity.

[Toskk]

I don't know.. if you really don't like what Cities and Knights did for Settler's of Catan, I'm not sure if moving beyond the base Dominion set is what you're going to want. Settlers of Catan on its own is a pretty simple game, as is the Dominion base set. As many guides on the Dominion base set can attest to, base Dominion has very few unique game 'types'.. with 17/25 cards in the set being terminal actions, a heck of a lot of those games come down to Big Money + X terminal. There are very few engine games, and those are pretty predictable (e.g. Council Room + Village).. and then there is the Gardens strategy.. and heavy trashing strategies with Chapel.. that's about it. All subsequent expansions increased the possibility of complicated engines, unique 2-3 card combos, attack pins, etc.

In my opinion, Cities and Knights was a great improvement to Settlers.. vastly better than Seafarers, which really only served to instantly bottleneck (by splitting the full board up into islands) the game into an unenjoyable (and poorly balanced) slog. Cities and Knights, by comparison, greatly improved the 'deck' of optional cards and added numerous possible avenues for development and progression. The expansions to Dominion have a similar effect (although probably not as pronounced in the majority of games).

[eHalcyon]

I don't know.. if you really don't like what Cities and Knights did for Settler's of Catan, I'm not sure if moving beyond the base Dominion set is what you're going to want. Settlers of Catan on its own is a pretty simple game, as is the Dominion base set. As many guides on the Dominion base set can attest to, base Dominion has very few unique game 'types'.. with 17/25 cards in the set being terminal actions, a heck of a lot of those games come down to Big Money + X terminal. There are very few engine games, and those are pretty predictable (e.g. Council Room + Village).. and then there is the Gardens strategy.. and heavy trashing strategies with Chapel.. that's about it. All subsequent expansions increased the possibility of complicated engines, unique 2-3 card combos, attack pins, etc.

In my opinion, Cities and Knights was a great improvement to Settlers.. vastly better than Seafarers, which really only served to instantly bottleneck (by splitting the full board up into islands) the game into an unenjoyable (and poorly balanced) slog. Cities and Knights, by comparison, greatly improved the 'deck' of optional cards and added numerous possible avenues for development and progression. The expansions to Dominion have a similar effect (although probably not as pronounced in the majority of games).

+1

I love Cities and Knights for all that it adds.  I haven't bothered to pick up Seafarers because it adds so little that it just doesn't feel like it's worth the cost.  To each his own though, I suppose.

I don't feel like ANY of the Dominion expansions change as much as Cities and Knights did with Settlers.  Having to account for commodities and barbarians really changes the feel of the game.  Dominion, on the other hand, can have a different flavour every game even within a single set, so adding expansions doesn't change much in that regard.

Perhaps the best thing you could do is to play on isotropic to see which expansions you and your family prefer.  If you have an Android phone, you could also download Androminion to get a taste of each expansion.

[Davio]

The plus side of the Dominion expansions is that you can freely mix them in with expansions you already have. This way, you can ease into them, one card at a time. With Settlers, you either play with the expansion or you don't, there's no middle ground.

You could set up a kingdom with 7 cards from the base game, 2 cards from Intrigue and 1 card from Seaside (my favorite expansion). Just add in a single harmless Fishing Village, Caravan or Merchant Ship and look at how this changes the game. You can choose to never play with nasty cards like Pirate Ship, Ghost Ship or Ambassador, that's all up to you.

That's what I've always liked about Dominion. You can handpick the cards yourself (as long as your opponents agree of course) and in no way are you forced to randomly pick from every expansion or just the latest expansion.

So if you just pick 1 or 2 new cards every time, you can get comfortable with the new mechanics without it overwhelming you. You'll find that most of the cards aren't that hard to play and after playing even one Island, everyone will understand how it works.

[ftl]

I'd say the most game-warping is Prosperity. It introduces entirely new game types that I'd never ended up playing in person until I got Prosperity:

1) A VP chips type board with Goons or Bishop, where nobody wants to  buy any green cards at all, except maybe to immediately trash them to Bishop.
2) Colony games, where even terrible engines become viable and better than BM, and all your intuition about whether an engine is worthwhile get thrown off.
3) Mega-turn games, where somebody buys up everything on the last turn. These happen with other expansions too, like NV/Bridge, but stuff like King's Court, Grand Market, City, Quarry, etc. can really make that happen, more so than most other cards.

I vote Seaside.

Also, what Davio said.

The plus side of the Dominion expansions is that you can freely mix them in with expansions you already have. This way, you can ease into them, one card at a time. With Settlers, you either play with the expansion or you don't, there's no middle ground.

You could set up a kingdom with 7 cards from the base game, 2 cards from Intrigue and 1 card from Seaside (my favorite expansion). Just add in a single harmless Fishing Village, Caravan or Merchant Ship and look at how this changes the game. You can choose to never play with nasty cards like Pirate Ship, Ghost Ship or Ambassador, that's all up to you.

[Quadell]

The "Base Cards" expansion will probably be the least game-warping, once it's released. 

[philosophyguy]

Seaside is very tame from a mechanics standpoint/gameplay standpoint. The mats make intuitive sense with their cards ("of course a Pirate Ship gets more coin when it successfully attacks on the high seas!"), and the duration mechanic is straightforward and usually very fun.

Prosperity will be hit or miss. A lot of the actions are just bigger versions of the old cards, but the addition of VP chips really does change the game. Goons + Village + Trashing = a whole different kind of game. This is the one game-warping setup you should be worried about.

Hinterlands doesn't really warp the game, but it does make it substantially more complicated. There's a lot of nuance required to effectively play Hinterlands cards. However, the rules are straigthforward to apply—it's just that figuring out when to make use of those abilities is very tricky.

Finally, I have to admit that I've come around on Alchemy. My suggestion would be to not play with Possession if you're concerned about game warping, but otherwise I think the set is fine. My guess is that most people dislike Alchemy because it makes for longer turns with complicated action chains, but if that's something you want to learn to do, it's easy to do so. I think a lot of the Alchemy hate is because of a) Possession and b) people who aren't willing to try learning action chains.

[Tables]

Mechanics wise, the least warping is probably hinterlands. On-gain and On-buy effects can change things, especially in the early game, but most of those effects aren't too great too early, and later it's just another thing the cards do.

Prosperity adds Colony and Platinum, and vp tokens, which can lead to totally different game feels

Seaside has durations, tokens and mats, which are pretty simple and don't really affect things THAT much, but they do add a few new things to keep note of during a game. I'd say Seaside is next best after Hinterlands

Alchemy adds potions and potion costs which are a whole new thing.

However, in terms of changing the gameplay the most, I'd actually say Cornucopia is the most warping expansion. It's large collection of power cards being added along with so few weak cards really shifts gameplay towards kingdom cards, and can often lead to games dominated by Cornucopia cards. Of the four you don't have though, Prosperity will change the gameplay most, and probably Seaside the least.

[yuma]

I own Intrigue, Cornucopia and Base. I recently bought Hinterlands and it fits in very nicely with the other sets. There isn't anything too crazy in the set once you understand the basic principle of getting something out of your buy phase. I would say Cornucopia was more game changing than anything in Hinterlands--especially Tournament and all of the cards that require a variety to be useful (Menagerie, HoP, Fairgrounds). Hinterlands is a great set to buy. It also has some of the best art in the game.

[rinkworks]

I'd like to echo the sentiment that none of the expansions are all THAT game-warping.

Alchemy might seem to warp the game the most, because the Potion thing looks so exotic.  But once you start playing it, you'll realize it's not as warping as it seems.  It might still be the most warping of the expansions, but only because the others don't really change the fundamental nature of the game either.  Even Prosperity, which does lengthen the game and shift the focus more on engine-building, still feels like the Dominion you know and love.

It's also worth noting that you don't have to play any one expansion to the exclusion of the others.  You can mix-and-match.  If you play a game with all base and Intrigue cards except for two Prosperity cards, it's not going to feel like a Prosperity game:  it's going to feel like a base/Intrigue game with a couple of fresh new cards thrown into the mix.  Only Alchemy cannot be diluted to taste.

My recommendation would be to purchase the remaining expansions in any order, saving Alchemy for last but definitely still buying Alchemy if you're still hungry for more at that point.

[xinkaisen]

Wow--thanks everybody for the feedback!

The plus side of the Dominion expansions is that you can freely mix them in with expansions you already have. This way, you can ease into them, one card at a time. With Settlers, you either play with the expansion or you don't, there's no middle ground.

Hadn't thought of that, and that's a very good point.

I am somewhat curious about the many comments that have been made about Cornucopia.  It seems to me that added more in strategy than it did mechanics (with the exception of Tournament and maybe Horn of Plenty), as bulking up on just one type of card may not be the best way to go anymore.  Maybe we're missing something... 

The "Base Cards" expansion will probably be the least game-warping, once it's released. 

Made me laugh.

[Kuildeous]

I am somewhat curious about the many comments that have been made about Cornucopia.  It seems to me that added more in strategy than it did mechanics (with the exception of Tournament and maybe Horn of Plenty), as bulking up on just one type of card may not be the best way to go anymore.  Maybe we're missing something... 

I think there's a difference between game-warping strategies and game-warping mechanics. Each expansion has changed the strategy. Durations added a new dimension. Prosperity gave us the longer game to plan. Cornucopia challenged us with diversity. Hinterlands added a whole new realm of thought with several on-buys.

But none of these really was an upheaval in the rules. As expansions, they didn't really add new mechanics, per se. The individual cards added new mechanics. Well, okay, I would say that duration cards are a new mechanic, but Tournament, Bishop, and Native Village add new elements as cards (yeah, Bishop, Goons, and Monument all have VP chips in common, but there are few enough that I consider the cards to introduce the new rules and not the expansion).

Alchemy is the one set I would argue actually introduces a new mechanic as a set. And even that's not a difficult mechanic to grasp. It's just different.

When we buy a new expansion, we don't dive right into it. We play with the other cards and have three or four kingdom cards be from the new expansion. After each game, we put those cards away and pull out three or four more cards from the new set and build a new kingdom with the older cards. That way, we see each card at least once. Someone made this suggestion earlier, and I support it. It's a nice way to learn the new cards without delving right into it. I played an all-Prosperity set at GenCon when it came out. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

[werothegreat]

When we buy a new expansion, we don't dive right into it. We play with the other cards and have three or four kingdom cards be from the new expansion. After each game, we put those cards away and pull out three or four more cards from the new set and build a new kingdom with the older cards. That way, we see each card at least once. Someone made this suggestion earlier, and I support it. It's a nice way to learn the new cards without delving right into it. I played an all-Prosperity set at GenCon when it came out. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

I'm exactly the opposite - whenever I picked up a new expansion, I would only play with cards from that expansion for the first few games with it, just to jump right in.

As for game-warping, I think Donald X said somewhere that every individual card changes the game, coming with its own little rule change, or something like that.  I think that's the best way to think about it.  Given that most of these cards were initially designed all at once before Dominion: Vanilla even was released, it's less about tacking things on and more about getting to see the entire picture.

Also note that both Hinterlands and Cornucopia say "for 13 and up" unlike the rest of the boxes which say "for 8 and up," which is a testament to their greater complexity, since there're only so many ways you can make simple cards.  So Cornucopia might not have been the best choice for a first expansion.

[WanderingWinder]

When we buy a new expansion, we don't dive right into it. We play with the other cards and have three or four kingdom cards be from the new expansion. After each game, we put those cards away and pull out three or four more cards from the new set and build a new kingdom with the older cards. That way, we see each card at least once. Someone made this suggestion earlier, and I support it. It's a nice way to learn the new cards without delving right into it. I played an all-Prosperity set at GenCon when it came out. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

I'm exactly the opposite - whenever I picked up a new expansion, I would only play with cards from that expansion for the first few games with it, just to jump right in.

As for game-warping, I think Donald X said somewhere that every individual card changes the game, coming with its own little rule change, or something like that.  I think that's the best way to think about it.  Given that most of these cards were initially designed all at once before Dominion: Vanilla even was released, it's less about tacking things on and more about getting to see the entire picture.

Also note that both Hinterlands and Cornucopia say "for 13 and up" unlike the rest of the boxes which say "for 8 and up," which is a testament to their greater complexity, since there're only so many ways you can make simple cards.  So Cornucopia might not have been the best choice for a first expansion.

Eh, the age thing is probably not because they're more complex, but rather that they're newer. They probably re-evaluated and felt the game was better suited to the older age level.

[lycotic]

Eh, the age thing is probably not because they're more complex, but rather that they're newer. They probably re-evaluated and felt the game was better suited to the older age level.

My five-year-old can play BM just fine.  That means he does OK on the base set...

[Dsell]

When we buy a new expansion, we don't dive right into it. We play with the other cards and have three or four kingdom cards be from the new expansion. After each game, we put those cards away and pull out three or four more cards from the new set and build a new kingdom with the older cards. That way, we see each card at least once. Someone made this suggestion earlier, and I support it. It's a nice way to learn the new cards without delving right into it. I played an all-Prosperity set at GenCon when it came out. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

I'm exactly the opposite - whenever I picked up a new expansion, I would only play with cards from that expansion for the first few games with it, just to jump right in.

As for game-warping, I think Donald X said somewhere that every individual card changes the game, coming with its own little rule change, or something like that.  I think that's the best way to think about it.  Given that most of these cards were initially designed all at once before Dominion: Vanilla even was released, it's less about tacking things on and more about getting to see the entire picture.

Also note that both Hinterlands and Cornucopia say "for 13 and up" unlike the rest of the boxes which say "for 8 and up," which is a testament to their greater complexity, since there're only so many ways you can make simple cards.  So Cornucopia might not have been the best choice for a first expansion.

Eh, the age thing is probably not because they're more complex, but rather that they're newer. They probably re-evaluated and felt the game was better suited to the older age level.

The intrigue box says 13+ also. I always thought it was because of harem, though.
fwiw, my gaming group always jumps in to the expansions, playing many games with only new cards and slowly phasing the other cards back in. It takes some reading, definitely, but it hasn't been too much of a brain-buster so far.

[Miss Monster]

As a newcomer myself I would suggest Prosperity. To me it's like a "larger base set", the cards are easy to understand and the VP chips just make you happier when the game ends. Hinterlands changes the game quite a lot with the gaining effect. The duration cards in Seaside are fun, but sometimes they may cause confusion if you have multiple duration cards in play. And I wouldn't suggest Alchemy if you are not into the theme.

[dondon151]

The intrigue box says 13+ also. I always thought it was because of harem, though.

My version of Intrigue says 8+.