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[rrenaud]

I figure this is a lot better place to post this than BGG.  Presumably all the posters here love Dominion, and many have played thousands of games.

Are there any Dominion inspired games that are good enough to be worth playing 100 games?

I bought Thunderstone after reading some positive things on BGG, but that was a complete waste of time and money.

Puzzle strike seemed a bit better, but it just didn't really have the feel of "oh wow, my deck is coming together" compared to "this is completely random and now I lose."

[DG]

Ascension was ok. It seemed to deliver a fantasy deck building game with simple rules that you could play straight from opening the box. I'd worry about playing it 100 times though.

[Arya Stark]

ascension and thunderstone are a waste of money, I have darkfall too and thats suppose to be kinda like dominion and magic, its more like munchkins without the silly fun

[fp]

Probably not- and let me explain my reasoning why:

Dominion's focus is to build your deck. Almost every card in the game revolves around deck building in some way (it helps buy cards for your deck, it trashes cards from your deck, it adds/discards cards from the opponent's deck, and so on)- the only real exception are Victory cards- they do the opposite of deck building- they hurt your deck. But in any case, the victory condition is simple: you buy cards (just like any other card) that gives you points.

The issue with many of the forementioned Dominionesque games is that they attempt to combined the deck-building aspect of Dominion with something else. Hence, they lack focus. In Thunderstone, you buy cards one way, then have to totally change gears and earn points in a completely different way all the while worrying about "light" (and what have you). This lack of focus contributes to unnecessary complexity, a steeper learning curve, and no guarantee that a set-up is actually viable (e.g., play and feel like you are playing the game).
I actually, haven't played Puzzle Strike or Ascension, but I suspect the issues are similar.

It is blessing in disguise that Dominion came first. By being first, it could be simple while maintaining its elegance whereas subsequent games would have to add something else to the game in order to be viewed as elegant or worthwhile.

That being said, the next great deck-building game is not going to be great because it adds aspects that are lacking in Dominion. Rather, it will fundamentally change the underlying method by which decks are built.

[Auroch]

I've played about a dozen games of Ascension, all with people who had played Dominion extensively, and we all hated it. Talking to other people who enjoy the game, good strategy is apparently very different, and to a Dominion player counter-intuitive; it relies on staying far away from the equivalent of Big Money, buying the center-row cards you want that directly contribute to your strategy and a minimum of Mystics and Soldiers. I don't know whether this is accurate, as I haven't put their assertions to the test.

[lympi]

Has anyone here tried/seen Quarriors? It's the "dice-building" game.

I like dice, and I love Dominion, so I'm cautiously optimistic for this. From what I can glean from 'Geek, it seems more like "Ascension with dice" than "Dominion with dice" unfortunately… but maybe someone here can say otherwise?

[guided]

Has anyone played A Few Acres of Snow? http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/79828/a-few-acres-of-snow

I'm a big Martin Wallace fan and (obviously) a big Dominion fan, so I jumped at the chance to try a Wallace deck-building game inspired by Dominion. I ordered it recently, still waiting for it to arrive. I'm pretty excited.

[Captain_Frisk]

As someone who's played far too much Dominion and secretly craves some additional deck building variety. 

Ascension: There are some real problems here that you can find over @ BGG.  Basically, when you're adding cards to your deck, you're basically buying form a black market of size 6 - that only cycles when new cards are bought (with 1 of 2 different currencies).  If there's 1 trasher card, and you get it and the opponent doesn't... then the game is over.  Dominion is far better, but when someone comes over to play something physically with me, it hits the table more often than Dominion does because:
1 - setup is easier
2 - theory & rrenaud are the only person in real life that I know who it would be interesting to play dominion against.  If / when I see them, we don't play dominion because its so much better on isotropic.

Puzzle Strike:  This is the best game of the bunch.  It's clearly designed for serious gamers.  The problem I have with it is the way the game ends.  It ALWAYS ends with what feels like not good enough.  You start your turn over the threshold for elimination, and you have to see if you can crash enough gems at your opponent to get back under the limit.  There is at least "on the order of" as much skill as there is in Dominion (something that Ascension or Resident Evil can't claim), but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth at the end of each game.  Chips in a bag are fiddly.  Shuffling is indeed better, but drawing sucks.

Resident Evil: SUCKS HARD.  This is absolutely a cash in on the success of Dominion coupled with the large % of gamers who like Zombie stuff.  Don't believe anything positive that you read on the geek.... this game is trash.  It's just trash with a better theme than Dominion.

Thunderstone: I've heard mixed things of this.  I own it (due to a good deal from deniath) but have as of yet been unable to play.  The consensus seems to be: Not as good as Dominion, but more fun.  I'm told that the later expansions did alot of things right, and that the base game standalone should probably be skipped.

Nightfall: Haven't tried it yet, would like to. 

Quarriors: Die-ing (hahhahaha) to try this one.

What I'm also really interested in is the new Deck Building game from Martin Wallace.  I can't remember the name offhand (something like "through the snow and woods?").

Oh... and Blood Bowl Team Manager can't come out soon enough.  Will pre-order this without even reading reviews.

[MasterAir]

I quite enoy Nightfall. It has a good pacing and feels very tense throughout. Everyone builds a house of cards until one is overwhelmed and falls down.  I think that it suffers a little from kingmaking/get Fred he's winning. It isn't as pure as dominion, but is very good so long as you don't take it too seriously. The action chains are very satisfying. Also, it has Vulko, who is all kinds of awesome.

It won't likely generate this sort of online community, it is quite hard to play to win, but with the right group of mates it's really good fun.

Thunderstone is disappointing. I haven't played any others.

[Razzishi]

I played Ascension first, and thought it was pretty interesting if not a bit luck based.  I generally did pretty mediocre, and felt that the decisions that one made were completely irrelevant to how well you did as long as you didn't actively sabotage yourself.  Indeed there is very little reason to buy Mystics and Heavy Infantry if there are better cards available to buy, as quite a lot of them (with the expansion especially) are strictly better.  I've heard of variants that decrease on the luck factor and make planning much more important, but with official rules there's little seriousness possible.

I've played Resident Evil and thought it had potential, and while I wouldn't say it's complete trash it's rather lacking in components.  The basic concept is pretty decent, but the execution just seems absolutely terrible.  Adding another layer of victory conditions on to purely buying green cards could have made for an interesting game, but for story mode at least the outcome is pretty random.  The amount of each card you get is about half that of Dominion, making "Silver" and "Gold" quite likely to run out.  Popular actions you need to snatch up right away, especially in a 4 player game; there's not even enough for each player to get 2.  It seems to me like there's very little variety, although I don't know how it compares to Dominion with only the base set.

I'm not all that surprised that a completely new yet quite intuitive system of playing card games spawned imitators, and I'm not surprised that the inspired games are on the whole of poor quality, but I definitely was surprised just how much better the original was.  The quality of Dominion absolutely blew me away after having played those two games first; it really fits in a sweet spot where there's enough luck to "let" somewhat weaker players win occasionally but thoughtful play is still highly rewarded. 

[drg]

I wasn't a fan of puzzle strike, the bag instead of cards was awkward and silly.  Describing Ascension as always having a black market turn is a good analogy for it.  It can be fun, but it's very random. 

Nightfall gets too personal with 100% of the game being about targeted attacking, everyone can gang up on one person very easily or fail to attack one person just as easily.  There are certain groups it can work for, but many I would not recommend it with.  Targeted attacks were left out of dominion for a reason.  I've played with Vulko, what I see happen is everyone says 'He has Vulko! Everyone gang up on him for the whole game!'

Thunderstone I like except for the 'dungeon features' (traps/trophies) which are far too random, but it is a very heavy game.  You also need to be careful with the setup with the expansions, as the monsters can get incredibly powerful and the village can be such that it cannot deal with them.

[DG]

I had a play of the Martin Wallace game "A few acres of snow" tonight and that's a solid 2 player game portraying a colonial struggle between  Britain and France in north-east America. If that description hasn't put you off already, it is an economic wargame centred on a deck of locations and empire assets. You need to manage to this deck and your hand of cards to get effective trading, expansion, military, and so on. This isn't the game to take to your Dominion loving friend however as the next step up. This is for two players who like empire expansion games, or perhaps need a break from Twilight Struggle.

While I remember it, another Martin Wallace game that might be liked by Dominion fans is "London", which represents the rebuilding of London after the great fire. It hasn't any Dominion mechanics and may be overcomplicated for casual Dominion players, but it's still a decent 2-4 player game based on card drafting.

[rod-]

Puzzle strike has a lot of other issues, a a game, that are much more important than using a "bag of chips".  It seems to me that 80% of the "chips" in the game are almost unbuyable, and with only two (one curse-giving, one money-trashing) cards that give more than +1 action, and very few that draw more than 1-2 cards, there is no real action chaining.  Most of the games feel like a competition to see who can use their starting 3 actions most effectively and purchase some good purples to make sure they survive for more than 10 turns.

Personally, i love the bag and the chips, even though the felt covering of the bag gives me the creeps.  Shuffling dominion cards is my least favorite thing (part of why i love isotropic) but i have no problem giving a little shake to a bag before i pull out a random chip. I also really enjoy the flavor of the game and the way that it has very quick elimination.  Despite the fact that a player can be eliminated from the game entirely, it's usually only a matter of 3-5 minutes before the game ends due to spillover.

[guided]

I had a play of the Martin Wallace game "A few acres of snow" tonight and that's a solid 2 player game portraying a colonial struggle between  Britain and France in north-east America. If that description hasn't put you off already, it is an economic wargame centred on a deck of locations and empire assets. You need to manage to this deck and your hand of cards to get effective trading, expansion, military, and so on. This isn't the game to take to your Dominion loving friend however as the next step up. This is for two players who like empire expansion games, or perhaps need a break from Twilight Struggle.

While I remember it, another Martin Wallace game that might be liked by Dominion fans is "London", which represents the rebuilding of London after the great fire. It hasn't any Dominion mechanics and may be overcomplicated for casual Dominion players, but it's still a decent 2-4 player game based on card drafting.

Thanks. You're underscoring what I've heard about A Few Acres of Snow not really being all that similar to Dominion. I'm still really looking forward to it.

London has some similarities with Race for the Galaxy -- it's basically an iterated tableau-building game. I like it because it's just simple enough to teach to smart non-gamers, without being super light either.

[Auroch]

Has anyone here tried/seen Quarriors? It's the "dice-building" game.

I like dice, and I love Dominion, so I'm cautiously optimistic for this. From what I can glean from 'Geek, it seems more like "Ascension with dice" than "Dominion with dice" unfortunately… but maybe someone here can say otherwise?

From their preview video i saw a while back (can't find it now), it seemed much more like Dominion than Ascension. Given the comments I've seen here about Nightfall, it seemed most like that (you get points if your dudes survive a full turn, and other players' attacks are what causes your dudes not to survive, so there is probably a kingmaker/reverse kingmaker effect) but I haven't played either it or Nightfall.

I'm very much looking forward to it in any case; it seems somewhere between SmallWorld and Dominion, both of which are big favorites in my group.

[Agrisios]

Another boardgame with dominion mechanics is Friedemann Friese's "Furstenfeld". It has some negative reviews because many people take the beginner's scenario for the "base game" (and this one is quite luck dependend). The advanced version is the real game.
It has its flaws feels a bit solitairish - despite the (somewhat artificial) market and other mechanics.
I nevertheless like the game.

[Staples]

Although I have never played it, I recently stumbled upon Arctic Scavengers which looks kinda interesting and Dominionesque (cards, draw 5, deck building, etc.). It seems to force player interaction with little battles at the end of every round. Anyone else played this?

[play2draw]

A friend of mine just picked up Rune Age and we played it today... it's very different from Dominion,. The cards you select from to build your army (aside from a very small pool of cards) are based on which one of the four races you choose. The variety comes from four different scenarios you choose from, whereupon the goal changes (buying some really expensive thing or defeating a dragon), and there are event cards that affect each turn (usually bad things). The rules weren't very well-written, so going through the first game was a struggle; we all managed to lose because we beat each other up too much rather than going for the actual objective.

Ultimately I felt that there's potential in the game, but I think it's already in need of an expansion.

[guided]

Quarriors is a lot of fun, but it's a silly game where you buy some dice that look neat and hope for the best. If you like Dominion and a version of it with 10x more variance sounds like an interesting diversion to you, Quarriors is probably worth your time. I had enough fun playing 4 or 5 games of it this weekend that I'll probably buy it.

To expand a bit: The deck-building and "card-play" mechanic of Quarriors is almost identical to Dominion.

-You buy dice (cards) that go in your used pile (discard pile) until you need to draw a die from your bag (draw pile) but it's empty, and then you throw your used pile in the bag (shuffle your discard to form a new draw pile).
-Each turn, you draw a hand of 6 dice, then roll them. The face shown determines the play effect of the die. Then you play your dice.
-At the end of your turn (after you finish playing your dice) you can buy a new die with whatever money you have left over from dice rolls.
-You start the game with a really crappy set of dice that you'll want to start getting rid of if you can. In the meantime they can bootstrap up to buying the good dice.

The big gameplay difference is that you have "creatures" (faces that can show on many of the purchased dice) that you "summon" by paying out of your stock of rolled money in the middle of your turn. Then the summoned creatures try to kill other people's summoned creatures. The main way you score VPs is if you have surviving creatures left at the beginning of your turn (and then you discard them, score your points, and often get some additional benefit).

The major source of variance is that you need to actually roll the creatures on your creature dice. If you roll your creatures reliably you'll do well, and if you don't you won't. Basically, imagine if you were playing Dominion and trying to build a draw engine where your Villages and Smithies only worked half the time, and the other half of the time they randomly gave you $1 instead. The game is only a few shuffles long, too. In our 4p games we were shuffling maybe 5 times on average.

[Wingnut]

If you can handle a theme based around anime maids, Tanto Cuore is an interesting take on this genre.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65282/tanto-cuore

The game plays quite similarly to Dominion, but with the added mechanic of being able to put your Maids (also the victory points) in chambers to get them out of your deck. I haven't played the expansions, but my group tends to play a game or two of this when we want a change up from Dominion. The strategy is just different enough to be interesting and because the Maids are also the points it doesn't run into some of the other problems games like Thunderstone do.

[HLennartz]

If you can handle a theme based around anime maids, Tanto Cuore is an interesting take on this genre.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65282/tanto-cuore

The game plays quite similarly to Dominion, but with the added mechanic of being able to put your Maids (also the victory points) in chambers to get them out of your deck. I haven't played the expansions, but my group tends to play a game or two of this when we want a change up from Dominion. The strategy is just different enough to be interesting and because the Maids are also the points it doesn't run into some of the other problems games like Thunderstone do.

I tried playing some solo games with the 1st expansion, and the addition of Victory cards you can buy that aren't put into your deck (not clogging it up) gave the game a vastly different feel than Dominion. In the base game, the ability to simply buy Sickness (Curse, basically) cards and give them to your opponent seemed broken somehow.

The cards look like Dominion, but it the way it plays out feels very different. I think I'd have to play a lot more games against well-thinking players to really grasp how the game works, though.

Also, I absolutely love the theme. Barbarossa even more, though I haven't even read the rules for that one yet.

[guided]

Only one play so far, but I think A Few Acres of Snow has the potential to be phenomenal. It's actually more like Dominion than I expected, with the one huge difference being that you don't get to discard your hand at the end of each turn.

[Kuildeous]

Quarriors is a lot of fun, but it's a silly game where you buy some dice that look neat and hope for the best. If you like Dominion and a version of it with 10x more variance sounds like an interesting diversion to you, Quarriors is probably worth your time. I had enough fun playing 4 or 5 games of it this weekend that I'll probably buy it.

I think I can agree with this. I only played it once, so I was suffering from learning the rules. I had that initial look of WTF that I had when I learned Dominion. Fortunately, I recognize when I have that look, and I persevered.

It relies a lot more on luck. In some regards, that could be a positive, because I know some people who don't like playing certain games because they just aren't as good with the strategy as someone else. With this game, I bet that a person could win just by buying random dice. I'm also willing to bet that the biggest part of this game is to manage your resources so that you make your own luck, so that inexperienced player could win, but it wouldn't be that often.

I'm still looking into Quarriors, but I'll probably end up buying it.

[guided]

5 or 6 plays into A Few Acres of Snow, it's solidly my 2nd-favorite Wallace game now among the many I've played and loved (behind an overall top-3 game in Brass) and easily the next best deckbuilding game after Dominion. I would highly recommend it to lovers of Dominion, who will find a fair amount of their strategy savvy carries over, even if there are major un-Dominion-y elements going on too.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Somone at my local gaming club had brought in a copy of A Few Acres of Snow when I went on Saturday. I wanted to try it out but I was too busy at the time teaching people how to play my copy of Quarriors that I had taken in to show people. Hopefully some time in the not too distant future I'll be able to get a game of AFAoS in.

[rod-]

It relies a lot more on luck. In some regards, that could be a positive, because I know some people who don't like playing certain games because they just aren't as good with the strategy as someone else. With this game, I bet that a person could win just by buying random dice. I'm also willing to bet that the biggest part of this game is to manage your resources so that you make your own luck, so that inexperienced player could win, but it wouldn't be that often.
I'm still looking into Quarriors, but I'll probably end up buying it.

Managing your resources and making your own luck is not a huge part of quarriors, unfortunately - the creature options are all very very similar, the "variation" between the various creatures of the same type range from "unplayable" to "must-buy" with very little in-between.  Rolling money when you need money and creatures when you need creatures (and knowing which board is which) is the biggest factor.  I've played games where i've lost 15-2 and won 15-0 on the same board vs the same opponent (although more often than not games score 15-7)
My friend who refuses to play dominion against me loves it though, presumably for that same reason.

[Amaranth]

A friend of mine just picked up Rune Age and we played it today... it's very different from Dominion,. The cards you select from to build your army (aside from a very small pool of cards) are based on which one of the four races you choose. The variety comes from four different scenarios you choose from, whereupon the goal changes (buying some really expensive thing or defeating a dragon), and there are event cards that affect each turn (usually bad things).

Rune Age is pretty tough all right. It wasn't until my fourth solo game that I managed to beat the intro scenario with Elves, which are, along with Uthuk, one of the two straightforwardly efficient factions. (Undead and Humans suck you into more of a Counting House/Venture* strategy - they should get a faster start, but I think are prone to stallage.) I played Cataclysm (the cooperative scenario) once, and it was murderously difficult. I think in a future game, I'd like to help the Elves build a three demon deck, but it might be tough to get other players on board for that.

* Except that the Human version of Venture can only play other Ventures, which is a massive difference.

[DG]

Ah, just remembered that I've played Rune Age too. It seemed alright and I'd play it again but it didn't excite me. Perhaps it will improve with better competition as our play improves.

[Davio]

Quarriors has been mentioned a few times, here's my input: Don't buy it.

Okay, you may not yet be convinced, so I will elaborate.

You see Quarriors and, coming from Dominion, you think 'Hey! It's Dominion! With dice! I love Dominion and I love dice! This will be great!'
Unfortunately, it's more dice than Dominion and if there's some strategy involved it's certainly not more than in Risk for which good dice throwing is critical.

I played a game at a convention with pretty seasoned gamers and expected too much. I had read about the game on BGG as you might well have and though it would be great, so I had to see it for myself. It was a complete letdown. Basically we each just bought the most expensive monsters and summoned them everytime we could. We didn't have the same feeling as in Dominion in which you can build your deck and profit from it. Yes, there's luck in Dominion and your Sea Hag can be discarded by your opponent's every single time, but it's nothing compared to throwing dice. When you buy a card in Dominion, you can be pretty sure you get to play it a few times. With Quarriors, you just have to deal with what you get and what your opponents get. The scoring too is pretty awkward and very much luckbased. If you throw some good monsters, you win. Throw bad or have bad timing, you lose.

The game is also too short for the luck to even out and for you to have a sense of accomplishment for outwitting your opponents.

It's my biggest letdown of 2011.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Who'd have though a dice game would be so luck based? It's a fun game if you don't expect it to be what it clearly isn't going to be.

[Kuildeous]

If I do purchase Quarriors, it'll be with the understanding that the game is pretty light. Factory Manager it is not.

It does look like a decent intermediate game so that my nonstrategizing friends can actually win some games (unlike others, such as Power Grid or Dungeon Keeper).

I'd probably liken this to Galaxy Trucker, except even more swingy.

[guided]

Who'd have though a dice game would be so luck based?

I mean, there's something to be said for the idea that you could implement the Quarriors ruleset with a whole different set of cards that would make it a more skill-based game, and if somebody expected it to be more skill-based I don't blame them. Because given even the most rudimentary competence in play (spend most of your available money most of the time, summon your good creatures when you roll them), Quarriors isn't much more skill-based than LCR.

[Taco Lobster]

I had a friend suggest Fortunes of War for Android, but I have an iPhone and haven't been able to check it out.

[Kuildeous]

I had a friend suggest Fortunes of War for Android, but I have an iPhone and haven't been able to check it out.

I haven't played FoW yet. I did download the free version to my phone. Based on the tutorial and the small bit I read on the web, I would argue against this being inspired by Dominion. It looks more like this is a reimagining of Dominion. The rules appear to be exactly the same as Dominion.

The interface looks pretty nice. It's way nicer than Androminion. Though, the latter had focus on usability. I'm not sure that FoW has that. I saw a few of the cards. One is an Orc. When it's played, your opponent gains a Wound card, which sounds like a Dominion Curse card to me. Okay, fine, -1 VP in a different package. The Elf card lets you destroy (trash) all Wound cards from your hand. So, it's like a Chapel, but it only removes the negative cards—not the Coppers and what passes for Estates.

Now, if Wounds were part of the game where there's always a chance you take Wounds, then I could see the benefit of the Elf. If not, then Elf is a poorly designed card since it does no good without the –VP cards (unlike Chapel, Steward, or any other trashing cards).

Edit: Okay, Elf has you drawing cards for each Wound you destroy. So, regarding –VP cards, it's more powerful than Dominion's Chapel. Elf at least has +1 Card/+1 Action, so it's not a dead card. Still, in Dominion, no card is completely dependent on having a specific card in play (except Potion, of course). I think that balance is important. Even the least useful cards aren't completely useless.

I'll check it out when I get home tonight. I have to go to the bank, and sometimes those lines can get long, so maybe I'll see if FoW can scratch an itch. I have fun with Androminion, but I do get bummed at playing a game with no chance of Prosperity, Cornucopia, and even Alchemy. And those AIs are dumb as bricks (seriously, you bought 9 Saboteurs?).

[DsnowMan]

This Fortunes of War game is an amusing twist on Dominion. You get Wounds (curses) in every game, but they can easily be healed by lots of cards. When you head a wound, you always get +1 card. They kept copper, silver and gold, estate, duchy, province (which costs 9 now) and created a bunch of new cards. Some are good, some are dumb. Much more conflict. Good diversion.

Example of good card:
Stallion $6
+2 Cards
+1 Action
+1 $

ooo.... Lab +coin. Spammable fun

Example of weird card:
Ghost $6
3VP
+5 Cards
Each of your opponents gains a Ghost.

If your opponents never use it, the card basically reads: +5 Cards. Your opponents gain a Duchy.

Example of scary card:
Dragon $7
Your opponents gain 3 Wounds.
Trash a Treasure Card from your hand.

[ChaosRed]

It's not "Dominion inspired", but a very fun, quick but clever card game I can recommend is GOSU.

It's a game where you are starving for cards...and can often reward patience (it has a built-in comeback mechanic when you are behind). It has random draws though, so you have to play with what you got...and sometimes a tactic developed early in the game will fail and you have to readjust. The artwork is excellent and its one of those games that seems simple, but you soon learn takes a while to really master...

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/66587/gosu

[rrenaud]

I like gosu as well.

I think it was some annoying mechanical problems with seemingly unbounded turn lengths for players after one has passed, but I recommend people give it a try.

[ChaosRed]

It's true, once you pass, your opponent can keep playing until they pass. But actually, passing early and letting your opponent take a "mega turn" can sometimes be a path to victory. Often you'll have card advantage and the comeback mechanic on your side. But yes, if standing there watching your opponent rack up points for 10 minutes sounds like it will annoy you, avoid the game. In a tournament variation, I believe you are limited to six turns post-pass...but I actually think that rule hurts the game.

Once you decide to "go for it" and burn cards to establish a big lead, you really do need to make sure you get as far ahead as you can.

So yeah, its a game of wild swings at times...and as such it produces very distorted rounds where one player makes 15 plays, while you maybe make just one (which could be as simple as drawing three cards and then passing). I agree that really puts some people off the game.

[Kuildeous]

This Fortunes of War game is an amusing twist on Dominion. You get Wounds (curses) in every game, but they can easily be healed by lots of cards. When you head a wound, you always get +1 card. They kept copper, silver and gold, estate, duchy, province (which costs 9 now) and created a bunch of new cards. Some are good, some are dumb. Much more conflict. Good diversion.

Curse you! I was working on a write-up, and you beat me to the punch.

Well, I was going to post it in its own topic, so I'll go do that.

But, I pretty much agree with what you've said.

[rrenaud]

The recent 200 post thread about the possibility of a severe imbalance in A Few Acres of Snow makes me much more hesistant to buy it.

Choice quote

Damn it I thought the Dominion "Matrix" dorks who mathematically figured out the best opening move forumlas that 100% guarantee a victory 34.3% of the time wouldn't bother with this game. I guess I was wrong.

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/703495/can-france-beat-britains-settle-halifax-besiege-lo/page/4

I wonder if that qualifies me (us?) as an Uncivilized Dominion "Matrix" Barbarian of Statistics

[Donald X.]

I wonder if that qualifies me (us?) as an Uncivilized Dominion "Matrix" Barbarian of Statistics

Or a "dominatrix," for short.

[guided]

The recent 200 post thread about the possibility of a severe imbalance in A Few Acres of Snow makes me much more hesistant to buy it.

Bah, I kind of wish I hadn't just been linked to this.

Still, I suspect they will find a satisfying house-rule fix in short order, like by the time your copy arrives! One broken scripted strategy aside, I promise it's a great game.

[fencingmonkey]

To bump this thread:

I played Rune Age at GenCon, enjoyed it, but wouldn't say it's very Dominion-like. It's just a card version of RuneWars, which I also enjoy, but it plays faster. It's got the same advantage as that game in that each of the 4 factions plays differently while still being well-balanced, so if you try it and hate your guys you might like a different group.

I also played Blood Bowl Team Manager. Also awesome. Also not Dominion-like. Actually not Dominion-like at all; you have a "deck" and you "build" it by winning games but you don't see the cards before you gain them. As I understand this was initially a much closer DomClone but they playtested that out of it and now we have a fun game that plays much cleaner than the tabletop and will never make you think of Smithies.

[ChaosRed]

Who'd have though a dice game would be so luck based? It's a fun game if you don't expect it to be what it clearly isn't going to be.

I love luck games. There's something very democratic and friendly about them. As someone who has been a gamer now for over 30 years, I find games are often like a lot of things, like wine, or film, or books, certain ones fit a certain situation, others fit a certain group of friends or time of day.

One of the great things about luck games, is they let you focus your brain on other things, like the meta-game. A good luck game, mixed with friends who can talk smack, or meta-game with humor, is an awesome time. You add a little beer to the mix and some friendly banter about sports, movies and other bullshit and you have one helluva Thursday night.

Reading the "Acres of Snow" posts, reminds me of the nerdery surrounding Axis and Allies, and the numerous, endless derivatives, variants and house rules that game generates.

[guided]

Having actually playtested that strategy in AFAoS now... man, no lie, the game is thoroughly broken once you learn it Desperately hoping for some kind of fix. Martin Wallace has at least acknowledged the issue at this point, so the designer is on the case I guess.

[DG]

That's a shame, I'll have to behave myself and not read that thread.

[cdnza]

We got AFAOS fairly recently and have found it to be excellent, admittedly after only <10 plays. I actually enjoy it more than Twilight Struggle (which we got at about the same time), though I think that might be because my concentration starts to fail me after three hours of TS!

[Davio]

Can anyone comment about Thunderstone's evolution?

I believe it was just a general Dominion clone at first with some twists. From what I read on the internet it has developed into a good game of its own with the later expansions.

Haven't had the chance to play this myself however.

[Kuildeous]

Can anyone comment about Thunderstone's evolution?

I believe it was just a general Dominion clone at first with some twists. From what I read on the internet it has developed into a good game of its own with the later expansions.

Haven't had the chance to play this myself however.

I have the first two expansions for Thunderstone. I haven't really followed up with the others. Honestly, I haven't played Thunderstone in a while. Mostly, that's because TS games run longer, and it is more daunting for new players.

From what I've seen, they're introducing more player-damaging effects. I've seen more of the characters who damage others when played. There seems to be more multi-purpose cards. As you might know, in TS, you choose to go to the village or to the dungeon. Problem being, of course, that if you have village cards, then going to the dungeon sucks and vice-versa. So, having more flexibility is good too.

One thing about TS is that you can have some boring sets. In Dominion, if you have a poor kingdom, you still have Big Money to fall back on. There are threads about making the most useless Dominion kingdom. But, even the most useless of cards can still be used. Sure, they may not be optimal, but you can always make use of a Pearl Diver, Explorer, or Stash.

In TS, it's conceivable that you could draw cards that won't work. For example, some creatures require magic to defeat them. It's possible to lay out a village with no magic available. With each expansion, there are more options for this to happen. I haven't tried it, but I'm sure it's possible to have all three monsters require magic, which means that no one can defeat one of them. This can be fixed by sending one to the bottom of the deck, but that requires someone to essentially give up his turn. And that's boring anyway. TS players need to be experienced enough to realize when this happens (or just focus entirely on published lists).

I like the game. It has multiple resources to juggle (coins, attack strength, light, experience, strength). It's a Dominion clone only in the regard that it has the deck-building engine. Everything else is done differently, though. 

[Thisisnotasmile]

Not at all related to the current discussion, but the guy who runs my boardgame club picked up a copy of Ascension for cheap at Essen this year. He knew I was a fan of Dominion so he gave it to me to bring home for a couple of weeks and learn the rules and have a few test-plays so that I could teach it to people at club meets. Now, I know that some people here say that it is "everything I hate about Dominion made into a game" and stuff like that, but I actually had a great time with it. At home, the only person I have to play games with is my girlfriend. We've played Dominion in the past (we still do but rarely) and she likes the mechanics of the game, she just doesn't like playing that much because she can't win. That's not her fault, it's just that I have over a year's worth of Dominion strategy studying under my belt and she doesn't. I bought Quarriors when it came out because "it's like Dominion but it relies a bit more on luck", and that went down pretty well but for some reason we don't pull it out that much, probably because it takes so long to sort out the dice and some of the creatures' effects are pretty confusing. When we had 2 weeks of Ascencion she loved it. She kept asking for another game and in the end we must have played at least 10 games over the two weeks (and at one point we played until midnight because we lost track of time), compared to our usual 1 game of something per fortnight if I'm lucky.

Now, I can understand why some people don't like it. You can be screwed out of a win because the right cards don't turn up. There are only a limited number of strategies and after a few games you've learned everything there is to it (although I don't think Emily has memorised all of the cards yet like I have, but she still knows "Mechana Construct: that's a card that is worth a lot of points but doesn't let me do much else other than getting more Mechana Constructs"). But I'm glad the game is like that. If I want to play a deck building game where the game is actually over before the first purchase is made because the game is actually coming up with the best strategy before the game starts, I'll play Dominion. And hey, I still do play Dominion very often. I play pretty much every day apart from when I'm away from home for christmas and don't have internet access. But if I wan't to play a deck building game where my girlfriend wants to play with me and we can both have fun and the winner isn't already determined before we open the game box, Ascension turns out to be a great choice.

Now I just need to get a copy for myself since we don't have the club copy anymore...

[guided]

A Few Acres of Snow still ain't been fixed

Eminent Domain is really good though. I played a lot of it at BGG.Con and a bunch since then too. For how brazenly it copies mechanics from Race for the Galaxy + Glory to Rome + Dominion it ended up being a surprisingly excellent game.

[Razzishi]

I played Nightfall recently, and couldn't finish the game because my brain hurt.  This is coming from someone who is very well versed in the intricacies of the Magic: the Gathering rules.  After it was mostly cleaned up I took all the different cards and found something resembling a pattern in how the various attributes of the cards were distributed so maybe I'll have a better chance if I play it again, but at first glance there are just so many relevant aspects of each card that it's hard to come to grips with exactly what you really want to do.  Basically, the problem comes down to the system of how you play cards from your hand: each card is a specific color that is only indicated in the top left corner, and has 2 different colors next to it that it indicates what color(s) of cards are allowed to be played next.  Each card also has a "kicker" color, wherein if you play it after a card of the given color, you get an extra (or at least usually slightly better) effect.  That's 4 colors on each card, and they're all different, and there's 6 colors in the game.  One player chains together as many cards as he wants, then each other player does in turn order, stopping when the last player passes.  Then the chain resolves Last-in-first-out, meaning that what you wanted to do with your cards when you played them initially might become totally irrelevant.

Now, it wouldn't be all that bad, except you have private supplies of cards that you picked, presumably because you want to base a strategy around them, but when you picked them you didn't know what was going to be publicly available that might allow you to chain into them.  So in considering what cards to buy, you have to figure out whether it has an effect you want, can be chained into or out of by other cards in your deck, and how your opponents are going to mess with your plans.  My suggestion if you end up playing the game is to not think very hard and just buy what you think is cool.  There's way too much thinking involved for very little reward otherwise.

It's also somewhat political in multi-player, as you choose which player(s) to attack with your minions.  In a 4-player game you probably can't win if the other 3 don't want you to, something I find a total turn-off in a game.

[theory]

Having actually playtested that strategy in AFAoS now... man, no lie, the game is thoroughly broken once you learn it Desperately hoping for some kind of fix. Martin Wallace has at least acknowledged the issue at this point, so the designer is on the case I guess.

I derive this inexplicable and perverse joy from reading the BGG AFAoS forum.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in online flame wars.

In other news, Martin Wallace and his playtesters must be really, really bad at Dominion.

[Glooble]

Anyone picked up the Star Trek Deck Building game yet? I don't have high hopes, but I'm such a Trekkie I might buy it anyway... unless you all tell me it really sucks.

I enjoy playing Ascension, btw. It's not as much fun as Dominion, but the luck doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

[guided]

Anyone picked up the Star Trek Deck Building game yet? I don't have high hopes, but I'm such a Trekkie I might buy it anyway... unless you all tell me it really sucks.

Some local folks played it and basically said it completely sucked. Like, not only did they think it was super capricious (hey, you drew the card that lets you establish a runaway lead through no merit of your own, good job!) but they complained that the thematic element was a mess. Like you might be a Federation captain but then enemy characters join your crew randomly, or another Federation ship blows you up for no reason, or whatever.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Having actually playtested that strategy in AFAoS now... man, no lie, the game is thoroughly broken once you learn it Desperately hoping for some kind of fix. Martin Wallace has at least acknowledged the issue at this point, so the designer is on the case I guess.

I derive this inexplicable and perverse joy from reading the BGG AFAoS forum.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in online flame wars.

In other news, Martin Wallace and his playtesters must be really, really bad at Dominion.

Slightly off-topic and irrelevant but Martin Wallace occasionally comes into my boardgame club with prototype games and we get the chance to playtest them. I haven't personally playtested any because at the end of last year it was Ankh-Morpork and I was completely put off because of the theme, however I have played it since the game was actually released and I found that ignoring the theme, it's still a pretty fun game. He was also in a month or so ago with a new game but I didn't check it out because of how it was described in the club e-mail. I'm not allowed to reveal what that description was or any other information though. Sorry

[popsofctown]

I actually started with Puzzle Strike.  I had heard some people in a mafiascum chatroom (another forum) say that they play four-for-all dominion online with eachother and it's barrels of fun, so it sounded like a party game to me and I thought Puzzle Strike was more promising.  I played it both physically and online.

I think the game, in concept, actually had the potential to be a higher barrier to entry yet higher fun/depth kind of game.  But the designer  found out he'd printed one of the standard (VP token producer, ish, present every game) chips at a cost at least a 1$ below what it's worth.  It broke several characters from the base set, made lots of strategies unplayable.  Imagine how hard it would be to continue making Dominion expansions if Gold costed 5$ ( a generous comparison ). 
Instead of fixing it he's just going to make expansion chips that punish the offending chip (Combine) by specifically indicating it by name.  Some of them are Thiefish effects, which makes things swingier.  Or better yet, none of the punisher chips are in the random bank and you select what Combine/X strategy you'd like to play.

The game is also more luck based than Dominion, in spite of being intended as a competitive alternative.  It's humorous.

So then later I play Dominion which was supposedly kiddy Puzzle Strike with no interaction.  And I find out, yeah, it's somewhat less interactive, but gee I can tell why I lost a game instead of wondering whether it's the bank's fault.  The banks are random, but you get different starting chips based on the character you chose.  So your character starts with a Throne Room (~Double Take) , mine starts with a Cutpurse (~Pilebunker).  We reveal the random bank and it has Bridge (Sale Price).  May the best man win.