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Author Topic: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people  (Read 17123 times)

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Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« on: December 13, 2012, 10:01:22 am »
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Who here has experience playing with 5 or 6 players? A lot of people always quip, well just play two games, but personally I think that's actually worse (they're likely to not end at the same time, you split the group up etc.)

I only have base (basic cards wise), but I've found that 5-6 player both work well as long as you don't put cursing cards out (and I usually avoid attacks that stack in some way, e.g. Ghost Ship because it's horrid getting hit turn after turn, or Ambassador because nobody likes everyone's deck rapidly filling with junk). I usually play with a house rule that there are 12 supply piles, which generally helps reduce the dependencies on one pile.

The main thing I feel about this though, which is actually why I started the topic, is that in my experience, 6 player is more similar to 4 player (and also to 5 player) than 4 player is to 3 player, or 3 player is to 2 player. With 3 players, a lot of the strategy you'd use with 2 changes (e.g. PPR, key piles are more likely to run out, 3 piling is more common). With 4, things change drastically again (now the key piles are even smaller, and there are only 3 Provinces per player, making BM much stronger). But with 5-6, not an awful lot else changes (piles are even smaller again, and there's less Duchies to grab). It really makes me wonder, why are people so happy (or at least neutral) about 4 player, but despise 5+ so much? I think Dominion's sweet spot is 2-3, both of which are great, and with 4+, well I'm happy to play but usually I have a better alternative. And yes I do prefer 4 to 5 to 6, but it's only a small preference.
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Davio

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2012, 10:10:27 am »
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The thing is, a lot of the time Dominion is just multiplayer solitaire.

So if you have setups with crazy engines and long turns, it's annoying having to wait so long for your turn to come around. I already experience this during 4 player games, but can deal well enough. With 5 or 6 players the waiting time versus actual playing time has tipped the scale in the wrong direction.

There's also not much to do when it's not your turn in those kinds of games. Yeah, sometimes you have to take a Curse or discard, but that's about it. Since with 5 or 6 players it's next to impossible to control the game state, you could just as well play it as a free-for-all VP grabfest. No point observing the PPR if the other guys don't know the score and snag the PP to let another guy win. And maybe they're happy because they can secure 2nd place.

It's not that I absolutely despise 5+ player, it's just over the egde for me. 4p is doable, 5 is too much, that's just how I feel about it.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2012, 10:14:08 am »
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I have played 5p a few times, and I will never do it again (especially in person).  I was introducing 3 people to Dominion once and we played a 5p game with Witch where my wife and I basically ended up having to rush piles to end the game at a reasonable time.  It left the impression in the new players that Dominion takes forever to set up and play and they never tried it again.  There is just too much downtime, even with four I find, though I'll settle on four if that's how it is.  I cannot fathom how some people enjoy 5 and 6 player games.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2012, 12:01:47 pm »
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I cannot fathom how some people enjoy 5 and 6 player games.

I have to say, and I'm not trying to be funny, but it depends on the kingdom.  Kingdoms that are engine-friendly are brutally painful to play in a large group for two reasons.  One, those cards can be hard to get enough of, and two, the game drags.  A nice selection of terminals works just fine, and attack cards are awesome.  Yes, you get quite a few BM+X decks, but those play fast.  The point is less about winning, and more about having fun with your friends.

EDIT: I refer to face-to-face games, not online games.  I can't fathom playing 5 or 6 online.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2012, 12:03:02 pm by TWoos »
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dondon151

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2012, 12:09:16 pm »
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Sometimes when I'm even playing a 2 player game face to face, I get the impression that I'm making my opponent impatient. I played a 4 player game once where I went for a double Tactician engine supplemented by an Outpost (or I guess some like to call it triple Tactician? I dunno) and I think I may have convinced 2 of my friends to never play Dominion with me again. One because my turns took forever, whereas their money-centric strategies required only 5-second turns, and two because I absolutely crushed them.
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Davio

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2012, 01:43:39 pm »
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The reason I like 3 best is not only because of the interaction, but because you can shuffle while the player to your right is still taking his turn.

With 2 it's often like: It's your turn again, but you've just started shuffling.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2012, 01:48:09 pm »
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Sadly, most of my irl games are 6 people. There are that many people and everyone wants to play and no one wants to break up into two smaller groups. So, there you go.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2012, 02:59:32 pm »
+1

I have played a number of 5 and 6 player games. The mechanics and strategies do shift pretty strongly, as people have alluded. The "strong" cards are not always the same, either. Pirate Ship is not ignorable, generally, if 4 other people have it. Grand Market is almost always a trap - you will only get 1 or 2, usually. You can extrapolate from there. Also, with 4, 5, and 6 player games, I would say that we end on 3 piles (Duchy, X, and Y where X=Estates >>50% of the time) 80+% of the time. When we do end on Provinces, it was usually the third pile anyway. And this is despite the 4-pile rule for 5 and 6 players.
In large games like that, rushes and BM decks are much more dominant because the game ends quickly (turn-wise though not time-wise) and unpredictably, and you cannot be confident of getting enough of your popular engine components for your engine to work.
So, for me, given this and what everyone else has said, 5 and 6 player Dominion is something to do with your hands while you chat with your friends. I wouldn't reduce it to the level of Bunko or anything, but it is definitely something that will be frustrating if you want to win consistently or if you want to play several games in a row.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2012, 03:05:11 pm »
+1

One of my first games, back when I only had the base set, was with 5/6 people (can't remember which it was).  Kingdom cards vanish very quickly.  I remember how impressed we all were when one player played like seven Villages in a row and bought another Village.  We also played a Bureaucrat game where we were all also buying Silver and we emptied the Silver pile.  It was kind of epic.

I also played a Jester game with 5 people.  That got really, really, really ridiculous.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2012, 04:22:21 pm »
+1

I hate 5-6 player games. Sorry but that's just awful. The game is too fast, you can't really develop a strategy. With cursers, the 5th/6th can rarely reach $5 easily. Hate hate hate.

I think even 4 player is too much. But 3 works very well.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2012, 05:21:53 pm »
+1

I played a 6 player game with Sea Hag once. The curses vanished by the 2nd reshuffle.
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2012, 06:46:00 pm »
+1

I used to play 5 players Dominion with my gaming group, but it came out less and less, 5 is just less fun and more downtime than a game like Dominion deserves

It still pretty much comes out with 4, and definately with 3, but months since 5 and I shudder at 6. (I would play 2x3p as you said you wanted to avoid above. however, what would happen is that one team would finish first and start setting up the next non-Dominion game for everybody)

But then many games are tricky with 6
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2012, 06:58:16 pm »
+1

One of my first games, back when I only had the base set, was with 5/6 people (can't remember which it was).  Kingdom cards vanish very quickly.  I remember how impressed we all were when one player played like seven Villages in a row and bought another Village.  We also played a Bureaucrat game where we were all also buying Silver and we emptied the Silver pile.  It was kind of epic.

I also played a Jester game with 5 people.  That got really, really, really ridiculous.

I also played Jester in 5 or 6P Dominion. One player got the living daylights cursed out of them while everyone else made out with cards. lol It was hilarious except for that one player who swore to never play Dominion again after that game.
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Polk5440

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2012, 10:11:35 am »
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I have played a number of 5 and 6 player games. The mechanics and strategies do shift pretty strongly, as people have alluded. The "strong" cards are not always the same, either. Pirate Ship is not ignorable, generally, if 4 other people have it. Grand Market is almost always a trap - you will only get 1 or 2, usually. You can extrapolate from there. Also, with 4, 5, and 6 player games, I would say that we end on 3 piles (Duchy, X, and Y where X=Estates >>50% of the time) 80+% of the time. When we do end on Provinces, it was usually the third pile anyway. And this is despite the 4-pile rule for 5 and 6 players.
In large games like that, rushes and BM decks are much more dominant because the game ends quickly (turn-wise though not time-wise) and unpredictably, and you cannot be confident of getting enough of your popular engine components for your engine to work.
So, for me, given this and what everyone else has said, 5 and 6 player Dominion is something to do with your hands while you chat with your friends. I wouldn't reduce it to the level of Bunko or anything, but it is definitely something that will be frustrating if you want to win consistently or if you want to play several games in a row.

I second this. We play with either 3 or 5 players usually and split the 5 into 2/3 only when playtesting cards or kingdoms (btw, I think I've entered some good kingdoms to the kingdom building contest!). You do save time on set up with 2/3 because for the second game you just rotate seats; however, ending at different times can be as much of a downer as just having down time in a 5 player game.

From playing in person cards like Thief, Pirate Ship, and Saboteur were perceived to be the strongest and most game changing cards because, well, they seem to get more devastating the more players you add to the game. And there is the added time element: because the games are shorter, an engine strategy might not be fast enough. I like this because it seems like there aren't as many "must buy" cards or go-to strategies in 5 player games because of the quicker endings and higher variance strategies seem to matter more.

Because of the pile out possibilities with multiple players, there is an additional benefit from taking an alternate strategy from the other players -- less competition for cards, possibly benefit from their externalities (they go Ambassador, you go Silk Road!) -- that you just don't have in 2 player, and I like that a lot. Recently, we realized with 5 players we should be ending on 4 piles, not 3 (oops!), and that solved some problems with particularly speedy/engine-based kingdoms.

When playing with 5, chatting with friends (and having snack food on hand) is important, otherwise the down time is sometimes too long.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2012, 12:19:20 pm »
+1

You do save time on set up with 2/3 because for the second game you just rotate seats; however, ending at different times can be as much of a downer as just having down time in a 5 player game.

What if the group makes a little game out of kingdom-building?

Whichever group finishes first gets to modify and fine-tune the kingdom for the second group. Then they swap places. It's not much of a time-waster, but it could help a little.

Just hope that you don't get players who always say, "This group needs Saboteur!"
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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #15 on: December 14, 2012, 01:02:02 pm »
+1

What if the group makes a little game out of kingdom-building?

That would be great! You could call that game "Kingdom Builder"!
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theory

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #16 on: December 14, 2012, 01:29:22 pm »
+3

What if the group makes a little game out of kingdom-building?

That would be great! You could call that game "Kingdom Builder"!

What an unimaginative name.  What would you come up with next?  "Castle Builder"?
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Polk5440

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #17 on: December 14, 2012, 02:04:34 pm »
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You do save time on set up with 2/3 because for the second game you just rotate seats; however, ending at different times can be as much of a downer as just having down time in a 5 player game.

What if the group makes a little game out of kingdom-building?

Whichever group finishes first gets to modify and fine-tune the kingdom for the second group. Then they swap places. It's not much of a time-waster, but it could help a little.

Just hope that you don't get players who always say, "This group needs Saboteur!"

That is a good idea.
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Octo

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Re: Playing Dominion with 5 or 6 people
« Reply #18 on: December 14, 2012, 08:21:38 pm »
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5 players or more is problem with many games to be honest, not just dominion. The games have to be really careful to either enforce really quick turns, have simultaneous turns, have some kind of player interaction not on your turn or have not individual turns at all (there's other solutions too but you get the idea). Games that aren't specifically designed for larger groups and simply have mechanics that don't prohibit it usually suck in my experience, something I've found the hard way as my group expanded. Even some games specifically designed for many are still better with fewer though in my opinion eg Citadels - great game that's really solid with 2 or 3 where you have 2 roles each, but 5,6 and 7 can often veer into boredom if people aren't really really on the ball. So it's a common problem.

The particular problem with dominion is not so much the wait between, but that your own turn is so quick. Games where you have a longer turn with a lot more phases and stuff, sure you have to wait longer because everyone else's turn is longer too, but the wait feels a bit more worth it because you have a big chunk of doing stuff in one go, you make progress. Dominion on the other hand, you wait for 2 guys to churn out their engine and then 2 more to um and ah over what to buy, and then you throw down $6 and buy a gold in 1 second, something you've known you were going to do since the instant you picked up your cards. Worth the wait? Not really. As mentioned, 4 is passable but not ideal, particularly with new cards and inexperienced players, 5 just crosses that line into tedium.

Strategically - yeah I would agree with the OP: 4 upwards it's much the same, just take a punt on a strategy and see how it goes, almost always incorporating an attack as far more attacks are not ignorable or counterable. You have to chat with other off players in between turns to keep the game lively, so hard strategy just isn't sensible really. Just play for fun.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2012, 08:34:17 pm by Octo »
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