Since someone mentioned Fortunes of War in another thread, I thought I'd give my assessment of the app (for Android, though I don't know if it's available elsewhere).
First off, this is not a game inspired by Dominion. It is Dominion. The rules haven't significantly changed. The differences I can spot are:
- Curses are now called Wounds (but still -1VP)
- There seems to an infinite number of Wounds
- Provinces (called Cities) cost 9 coins
- The "kingdom" card stacks are 7 high instead of 10
- There is a whole new batch of cards
- You start with 13 cards (more on that below)
If you want the thrill of having about a new expansion and a half, this could amuse you quite a bit.
Briefly.
The cards more resemble fan-created expansions that have not undergone the rigorous testing that Donald puts his cards through. They're amusing cards, but they can be very swingy.
For example, the Blacksmith is a 3-cost card that gives $4. That's right; for the cost of a Silver, you can get something that's better than a Gold. That's quite the deal. The Dragon is a 7-cost card that gives 3 Wounds to your opponents. The additional "cost" is that you have to destroy a coin card from your hand. Uber-cursing is awesome anyway, but I can also trim my Coppers? Sign me up!
It feels like the idea is that the only thing you want to destroy from your deck would be the Wounds. Trimming Coppers and Estates (or Outposts) is not really a viable tactic. There are quite a few cards that give Wounds and quite a few that destroys Wounds. That may be why the Wounds never really run out. This game is clearly meant to have a lot of interaction between players. If someone complains that Dominion is just solitaire, introduce him to this game.
There are a couple of really ridiculously swingy cards, but I haven't seen them come up in a quick match. I think they're only used in the "campaign." The Sun gives +10 Cards, +3 Actions, +3 Buys, and you must destroy the card. Furthermore, all opponents gain a copy of the Sun. I haven't seen it in use. By contrast, the Moon gives -5 VP. You can play it to give everyone else a copy of two Moons. I had this in the campaign. I won that game -140 to -253.
Most of the cards are variants of the +Copper/+Cards/+Buy/+Action. Some of them are reasonably priced, such as the card that costs 6 and gives you +2 Cards, +1 Action, +1 Coin; but some are outrageous, such as the aforementioned Blacksmith.
I'm so used to Provinces ending the game that this version throws me off. I have to wait until three stacks are gone. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Since the Province/City card costs 9, it's a bit harder to end the game on that stack, especially if I can't fine-tune my deck. It's not necessarily bad. It's just odd to me.
One thing Fortunes of War introduced is stacking your deck beforehand. You get your 7 Coppers and 3 Estates, as usual. You also get to pick a race (Human, Orc, Elf), an piece of equipment (Helmet, Sword, Ring), and a spell (Fire, Earth, Water). So, you get to customize your starting deck with something offensive or something defensive or something that generates money or whatever. It's actually quite neat, and I could see someone creating a variant of this for Dominion.
The cost of the full version is $3. One may choose to take a moral stand against giving money to a company that so blatantly rips off Donald and Rio Grande. I can appreciate that. The art, however, does look to be original. It's a little simplistic, but it actually captures the atmosphere (more so than Dominion, I may argue), and it won't slow down your phone by being too detailed. It's nothing to write home about, but it's decent enough.
In the end, is it worth $3? I'd say yes. It's true that Donald did all their hard work for them: He invented the rules that drive Fortunes of Wars. But, they did put together a fairly decent interface and original (I hope!) artwork. I'd be more inclined to praise the value of the game if the cards were actually balanced and tested. The fact that you can buy something for the price of a silver to get something that's better than a gold is proof enough that the cards needed a lot more thought put into them.
You can play for free. Paying the $3 gets you the campaign. I suspect that some cards might become available in the paid version. I haven't taken that plunge yet. Still, for $3, you could do far worse for entertainment.
