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Author Topic: Why do you enjoy Dominion?  (Read 15752 times)

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theory

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Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« on: April 30, 2012, 01:05:22 pm »
0

Why do you play Dominion?  What keeps you coming back? 

I ask because I am writing a "review" of Dominion, and would like to hear from all of you why this game holds the appeal that it does.  What sets it apart from other games?
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Morgrim7

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2012, 01:11:14 pm »
0

Because it is FUN!!!!!!!! :)
But seriously, because it is a strategy game, and I like a game where there is many different strategies. Also, because there is always room for improvement in the way you play. You can never play 100% perfectly.What sets it apart from other games (and I'm no expert on this; I don't play very many other games besides Chess and Dominion, because I'm too hooked on Dominion :)) is the fact that you can never get bored of it; there is always some different combination out there that you haven't tried yet.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2012, 01:16:31 pm by Morgrim7 »
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2012, 01:14:06 pm »
0

Because it is FUN!!!!!!!! :)
But seriously, because it is a strategy game, and I like a game where there is many different strategies. Also, because there is always room for improvement in the way you play. You can never play 100% perfectly. But mostly because it never gets boring; there is always some different combination out there that you haven't tried yet.
I'm pretty sure I've played 100% perfectly a couple dozen times out of my 10,000 games. Not impossible, just really hard, and really rare.

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2012, 01:14:30 pm »
0

I love how every board holds new possibilities, often ones you'll never see coming and your opponent will.  I love how seemingly wacky combos can be serious threats given the right combination of Kingdom cards.  Another thing I really like is that the game can be taken seriously/competitively but it doesn't feel as hardcore or inaccessible as other tabletop games. 
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Robz888

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2012, 01:30:16 pm »
+12

Simply, because it's more than other games. Compare it to Settlers of Catan. You can't. Settlers of Catan isn't comparable to Dominion, it's comparable to Envoy Big Money. We know how to play it, it's more or less the same each time with small differences and some luck thrown in. Envoy Big Money is just one tiny, tiny piece of Dominion. In another tiny piece, you are wearyingly reaching for Duchies in the middle of a Sea Hag fight. In another game, you are cashing in a Bank for Double Colonies at the end of a Laboratory chain. In another game, you are using your opponent's Governor to remodel your Silvers into Silk Roads. In another game, you play 8 Highways and gain all the Provinces at once with Villages and Ironworks.

Saying Dominion is complex doesn't really capture it. Dominion is more.
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paddyodoors

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2012, 01:32:56 pm »
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Simple rules and quick playing time make for wide accessibility (I can play with just about anybody).

Deep strategy makes for strong replayability (the people that play want to play more).

Combine these three (usually they don't go together), and the game is very fun for me.  It is very different from all of the other games that are fun for me, which is kinda neat.
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Morgrim7

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2012, 01:37:19 pm »
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Simple rules and quick playing time make for wide accessibility (I can play with just about anybody).
Quick playing time? It takes a little while to set up, and then even longer to sort out and tear down. Especially when the trash pile is taller than every other pile put together.
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RisingJaguar

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2012, 01:38:16 pm »
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Possibilities.  Every kingdom is different.  Kingdoms often have divergent strategies.  There is a lot to explore in this game.  And we (or most of us) have barely scratched that surface. 

With that said, Isotropic makes everything so easy to the point I take it for granted.  Always readily players, having every expansion available, 'automatic' shufflers/tracking of actions, etc.  That helps a lot with playing a lot of games similar to what online poker has done.  Not sure if I would have been able for this much exposure without Isotropic. 
« Last Edit: April 30, 2012, 01:41:19 pm by RisingJaguar »
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ecq

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #8 on: April 30, 2012, 01:44:53 pm »
+1

Isotropic.

It takes practically no time to find a game, and just a few minutes to play a game.  So I actually get to explore all the possibilities everyone else is talking about, and I don't have to commit myself for more than 10 minutes at a time.  I own a couple of sets of the physical cards, but there's no way I'd have played 3000 games in 6 months without Isotropic.  I'd have been lucky to play 100, which wouldn't even scratch the surface in terms of strategy.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2012, 01:47:32 pm by ecq »
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paddyodoors

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2012, 01:45:21 pm »
0

Simple rules and quick playing time make for wide accessibility (I can play with just about anybody).
Quick playing time? It takes a little while to set up, and then even longer to sort out and tear down. Especially when the trash pile is taller than every other pile put together.

Once you get a system, it's all cruise control.

Also, "quick playing time" is a relative term, my friend.  My regular gaming partners are all wargamers where 3 hours is a short game.  True story.
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Morgrim7

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2012, 01:47:20 pm »
0

Simple rules and quick playing time make for wide accessibility (I can play with just about anybody).
Quick playing time? It takes a little while to set up, and then even longer to sort out and tear down. Especially when the trash pile is taller than every other pile put together.

Once you get a system, it's all cruise control.

Also, "quick playing time" is a relative term, my friend.  My regular gaming partners are all wargamers where 3 hours is a short game.  True story.
3 Hours? Wow. To me, a game must be really good if it is going to waste three hours of my time. Anything beyond that is crazy.
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"Oh sweet merciful heavens.

I sit here, lost amongst the cloud, that which is the brain of the Morgrim Mod. Perhaps I will learn the inner workings of that storied mind. Perhaps I will simply go mad.

Mad, I tell you.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaad." -Voltgloss
Dominion Notation: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7265.msg206246#msg206246

paddyodoors

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2012, 01:51:00 pm »
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Simple rules and quick playing time make for wide accessibility (I can play with just about anybody).
Quick playing time? It takes a little while to set up, and then even longer to sort out and tear down. Especially when the trash pile is taller than every other pile put together.

Once you get a system, it's all cruise control.

Also, "quick playing time" is a relative term, my friend.  My regular gaming partners are all wargamers where 3 hours is a short game.  True story.
3 Hours? Wow. To me, a game must be really good if it is going to waste three hours of my time. Anything beyond that is crazy.

Clarification: Are you implying that games are a waste of time?  If so, our disagreement begins there and not at any arbitrary time limit...

(also nested quotes FTW  ;D)
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Morgrim7

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2012, 01:57:14 pm »
0

Simple rules and quick playing time make for wide accessibility (I can play with just about anybody).
Quick playing time? It takes a little while to set up, and then even longer to sort out and tear down. Especially when the trash pile is taller than every other pile put together.

Once you get a system, it's all cruise control.

Also, "quick playing time" is a relative term, my friend.  My regular gaming partners are all wargamers where 3 hours is a short game.  True story.
3 Hours? Wow. To me, a game must be really good if it is going to waste three hours of my time. Anything beyond that is crazy.

Are you implying that games are a waste of time?  If so, our disagreement begins there and not at any arbitrary time limit...

(also nested quotes FTW  ;D)
No, but if a game is going to waste three hours of my time, it will have to be INSANELY good. the only time I have had a game last more than three hours is... I've never played one. I resign too early. Just too tiresome and dull just having to do the same thing. Again. Again. Again.
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"Oh sweet merciful heavens.

I sit here, lost amongst the cloud, that which is the brain of the Morgrim Mod. Perhaps I will learn the inner workings of that storied mind. Perhaps I will simply go mad.

Mad, I tell you.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaad." -Voltgloss
Dominion Notation: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7265.msg206246#msg206246

Captain_Frisk

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #13 on: April 30, 2012, 02:26:04 pm »
+6

No, but if a game is going to waste three hours of my time, it will have to be INSANELY good. the only time I have had a game last more than three hours is... I've never played one. I resign too early. Just too tiresome and dull just having to do the same thing. Again. Again. Again.
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time!
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Insomniac

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2012, 03:03:23 pm »
+1

Gamers look at your board game collection now back to dominion, now back at your board game collection now back to dominion. Sadly your other games are not dominion. Ascension might seem like me but its too luck based. Look down back up where are you? Your playing a game of dominion with 1-5 of your friends scheming of defeating them with some combination of cards you havent seen before. Whats that in your hand, I have it its 2 expansions to the dominion that you love. Look again the expansions are now Kings Courtx2 Bridgex3.  Anything is possible when your game has over a million possibilities for a game. I'm on your iphone.

(Well ok its not on my iphone OFFICIALLY yet, but I heard its a few weeks out SOURCE: Jay BGG Late JANUARY)
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blueblimp

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #15 on: April 30, 2012, 03:04:53 pm »
+1

  • Short games. From what I remember from the last time I played IRL (which wasn't too recently, granted), games will nearly always take less than an hour. On isotropic, they usually take around 15 minutes. This is great because I find long games really tedious.
  • It's accessible. When you play with simple cards, you don't need a perfect understanding of the rules to have fun. Also, playing combos is just plain fun even if you have no idea of strategy at that point.
  • And yet deep. With all cards available, it's possible to play hundreds of games, yet still play most boards poorly (and have that moment during the game where you realize "obviously my opening buy was a mistake").
  • Variety. With many strategy games, once you learn the basics, most games start to look pretty similar, and the strategy comes down to trying to do the same thing as last time, except better. I find this really boring. In Dominion, on the other hand, the random selection of kingdom cards makes nearly every match different. Eventually you do start to see too-common patterns (HP+X, IGG), but these are exceptions.
  • Mostly not too much luck. Sure, luck decides some matches, but you can do a lot to influence it, and in most matches the luck evens out. Compare to a game like Settlers, where nearly every 4-player game has somebody get rolls so bad that they don't have a hope.
  • Almost no politics. This only applies to 3/4-player games, which I don't play as much now, but it was a big reason that I liked the game when first trying it.

On the other hand, here are some weaknesses:
  • Irrelevant cards. There may be 10 kingdom cards available, but rarely are they all relevant. This means there isn't quite as much variety as you'd think. This is not necessarily a game flaw, but instead a flaw with choosing the kingdom cards uniformly at random.
  • 1-card and 2-card combos that are too good. While it's interesting to learn which 1-card and 2-card combos are strong, it's pretty boring to play them once you've already done it a bunch.
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Brando Commando

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #16 on: April 30, 2012, 03:14:08 pm »
+1

Blueblimp summarizes this quite nicely. Some extra comments:

  • Short games. From what I remember from the last time I played IRL (which wasn't too recently, granted), games will nearly always take less than an hour. On isotropic, they usually take around 15 minutes. This is great because I find long games really tedious.

As I noted in another post, short game times mean you're not punished so severely for trying something crazy, which is often the most fun part of a game.

  • It's accessible. When you play with simple cards, you don't need a perfect understanding of the rules to have fun. Also, playing combos is just plain fun even if you have no idea of strategy at that point.

I mean, it's only really a handful of cases where you actually need a ruling from Donald X. A good number of the posts on the rules boards are from people who basically didn't read the directions. It's sort of astounding Don X. could keep it so simple conceptually but keep it interesting through variation.

Also, Dominion scales so well by allowing you to gradually add cards to the ones you play with.

  • And yet deep. With all cards available, it's possible to play hundreds of games, yet still play most boards poorly (and have that moment during the game where you realize "obviously my opening buy was a mistake").

Specifically here, as everybody notes, is the way that there are very few good rules of thumb. You can't just say, buy KC, or even how many KCs to buy, or Goons, or whatever. Very few cards in the 150+ are next to useless, and for the few that are usually negligible, there are 130+ more that at least demand cursory consideration at the beginning of the game.

  • Variety. With many strategy games, once you learn the basics, most games start to look pretty similar, and the strategy comes down to trying to do the same thing as last time, except better. I find this really boring. In Dominion, on the other hand, the random selection of kingdom cards makes nearly every match different. Eventually you do start to see too-common patterns (HP+X, IGG), but these are exceptions.

This.[/list]
« Last Edit: April 30, 2012, 03:18:49 pm by Brando Commando »
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popsofctown

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #17 on: April 30, 2012, 05:04:19 pm »
+3

Don't compare Dominion to Settlers of Catan, that's apples and oranges.  Settlers is a diplomacy game, it can't even be played 1v1 because it depends on diplomacy.  I hate diplomacy, but I respect those that like it (like my little brother, who likes Monopoly too.)
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michaeljb

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #18 on: April 30, 2012, 05:18:01 pm »
+1

The thing I loved from my first game was the very fact that it is a deck-building game. I love that the ultimate goal is to acquire point cards that are otherwise useless, so first you need to acquire strong cards, and use them before you can get to the point cards.

(reminds me a bit of RPGs in general and one of my favorite video games when I was younger--Return of the King, which was basically a hack-n-slash game with some slight RPG elements--basically your character got XP for each kill, you spend the XP on bigger and better combos, use those combos to kill more so you have more XP and level up more)

I love the importance of both strategic and tactical thinking in the game. I evaluate the board at the beginning, I know I want to go for Silk Road, now on turn X do I have enough Silvers in my deck, or should I buy my first SR? I happened to draw colliding terminals, will my Ghost Ship hurt my opponents enough, or should I play my Moneylender for a guaranteed Gold buy? With complicated engines, buying the pieces in the correct order can make a huge difference.

I love the interactions between the cards, how many cool combos and interactions there. From combos that are obvious because they're in the same set (like Alchemist/Herbalist) to combos spanning three expansions (Treasury/Conspirator/Goons lets you have continually activated Conspirators, since you acquire points from Goons and can keep 2 Treasuries top-decked indefinitely), there are so many cool things to do. Some combos can drastically change a particular card's power--Workshop is a weak card, but Highway lets you pick up the game's strong 5-costers and it can turn into a great card.

People have complained about the lack of theme, and I've decided I really don't care. I would really still love this game if Smithy was "Card Draw-er A" and Witch was "Attack A". Having the (slight) theme as is makes the cards a lot easier to memorize, though. Even if a Moat does the same thing as a Laboratory, but without letting you do more. I can live with buying Peddlers for cheap then giving them to the Bishop for points, or Expanding them into freakin' Colonies. The mechanics of the game are just so damn good you don't need to think of everything you do in a thematic way--though I have seen some pretty good, creative explanations for some cards--like Donald X's history of the Hinterlands card names, and some threads I remember reading on BGG.

And I have to mention Isotropic. I have played a few hundred games IRL and loved them all, but thanks to Isotropic I've played thousands. Which is awesome.

So in summary, Dominion's variety, mechanics, and strategy are all just awesome. It's been worth every penny I've spent on buying the sets, sleeves, and card stock for the dividers and slipcases; and it's been worth every minute I've spent sleeving the cards, printing and cutting up the dividers and slipcases, and of course actually playing the game as well as reading and writing about it here and at BGG.
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PerdHapley

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #19 on: April 30, 2012, 06:23:50 pm »
+2

Up front, I'll say that I enjoy Dominion in both of its forms, but when I think about what makes me love it so much it's all connected to Isotropic. So, so many reasons, but here are my big three:

Community: As I'm sure is the case with most people, my interest in the game doubled (at least) when I found Dominion Strategy (which led directly to discovering Isotropic) and doubled again when this forum started. Signing in to Isotropic and playing strangers is already great fun, but having regular opponents who aren't total strangers, and having a place to come to discuss and analyze games (with detailed game logs!) adds a whole other level of investment, at least for me. The old adage about the best games being "easy to learn, but impossible to master" is especially apt with Dominion, and thanks to the main DS site and this forum I'm able to learn new things every day from people I respect, even after a year and a half of Dom-addiction and thousands of games.

Competition: Council Room and the leaderboard change everything. I love, love stats, rankings, records, achievements etc., and this network of sites is a dream world for people like me. Having a measurable way to judge your level of progress and skill - by record against an individual opponent, or by level/ranking, or within a day, month or year, or with a certain expansion or even with a single card - is absolutely wonderful. The Isodom tournaments (especially the current round robin style point-building one) are yet another way to indulge the competitive aspect, as well as build that sense of community.

Variety: Robz covers this very eloquently. The "different game every time" gimmick is the core of what makes Dominion so addictive and competitive. I can say with confidence that I'll still own and play Dominion and its expansions 150 years from now, long after Isotropic is gone and the rest of you are dead, because the excitement of this variety/randomness will just never stop being interesting to me. It boggles my mind that there are mechanics within this game that we don't even know about yet. And this variety even extends to approach: do you make decisions based on math or tempo? Do you rush towards Victory cards or attempt a big engine? Does experience with simulation inform your decisions, or do you rely more often on intuition? The options you have as a Dominion player are almost literally endless.

I just love it, so, so much, and not to get too sentimental, but I feel as if I owe a lot of that to you, theory. Can you say any more about what exactly this is for? Because if it isn't for the main site, I would strongly encourage you to bring up Dominionstrategy.com in your review, even if it may seem a little like self-promotion. I'm sure there are many others here who wouldn't have really gotten into the game past the Base set without that as a gateway.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2012, 06:27:37 pm by PerdHapley »
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Jorbles

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #20 on: April 30, 2012, 06:31:10 pm »
0

All of the above.
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yuma

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #21 on: April 30, 2012, 06:40:46 pm »
0

1. The (for the most part) card art attracted me from the beginning.

2. The variance in strategy. Your sample games on DominionStrategy are great examples of how strategies can start the same then diverge, start different and then become similar, or just stay different the whole time.

3. The process of becoming an ok, decent, good, great player.

4. The interaction between cards. In this game no card is an island--except Island which still interacts with a lot of cards.

5. The simplicity of basic functions, yet the complexity when combined. +Buy, +Actions, +Cards, Trash

6. The community and the collective thinking provided on this forum.

7. The biggest attraction was when I was introduced to other alternative victory cards/pts. Gardens was a start, but Silk Road, Bishop, Goons, Monument, Fairgrounds, Duke, etc made the game change from good to great great to amazing amazing to spectacular

8. Games without interaction with other players and games with interactions with other players (curses, masquerade) again, part of the variance.
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Jfrisch

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #22 on: April 30, 2012, 08:25:12 pm »
0

accessibility/ready access to a skilled community (primarily isotropic here, but it's so easy to start a game, and there are such good players)

The game is primarily strategic. Unlike chess, the other game I've played at all competitively, in dominion the primary decision's are strategic (do I move to the endgame/ what should I buy, in what order do I want to buy it) rather than tactical, unlike in chess the tactics are there to facilitate strategy rather than the other way round. This allows for

Making smart decisions to be more important than making a minor mistake,
in dominion, coming up with a more clever winning plan than your opponent is the primary objective if you accidentally get an third smithy, this is not as harmful as not having come up with the plan over-all. In general, mistakes hurt but, unless they are an obvious blunder, will not dramatically decrease your winning chances.

Interesting indirect interaction
Dominion is often pegged as a game with no interaction, and while this is false, at the beginner level it does seem to feel true. However, as you get more advanced the subtleties of races, denial, pacing, and endgame play all become more important. I still attribute my biggest leap as player to realizing that my goals is to get more vp than my opponent and not maximize my own VP. Endgame play, which bugged me for a long time, has now become one of my favorite parts of the game. The penultimate province rule, when to break it, and the philosophy regarding general green/timing is a surprisingly deep part od Dominion play and an extraordinarily fun part of gameplay (if a bit of an acquired taste)
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popsofctown

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #23 on: April 30, 2012, 10:03:07 pm »
+1

I'll be pithy. 

A word that comes up among MtG drafters looking at new sets is "valuation".  Deciding how much something is worth, and how much something is worth in certain conditions.  How does Witch cause me to value Moat, how much does Bridge make value Native Village highly, or does it?  It's at least a small part of any game, in chess theory widowed bishops (lone bishop) are worth less than 3 points, but paired bishops are worth 3.  You might make your own assessment of the circumstances of your game and say your bishop is worth 4 points here. 
Dominion makes valuation dominate, no pun intended, the strategy of the game.  Since it's a deckbuilding game, the probabilities are too complex to analyze directly.  Valuation is inherently fun, analysis is sometimes fun but less inherently fun.  I think valuation is a big part of why dominion is fun. 
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Willvon

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Re: Why do you enjoy Dominion?
« Reply #24 on: May 01, 2012, 12:15:26 am »
+4

Over the years I have purchased a number of different games that my wife and I have enjoyed playing together. These include games such as Torres (my first euro game), Ticket To Ride, Puerto Rico, Finca, Thurn and Taxis, Agricola, Aquaretto, Zooloretto, and others. Though I also play these games with others whenever I can, and certainly prefer to play some of them as multiplayer games, they most often get played as two-player games by my wife and me. Therefore, when I consider purchasing a new game, a big concern I have is whether it works as a two-player game or not. With the majority of these games, we generally only get one game out of an evening’s play. This has stopped us more than once from playing a game when we could have done so.

The biggest difference with this game compared to others I own has been how often we play it. Before Dominion, if we played 1 or 2 games a week, we were doing good. With Dominion, we easily play 5 to 10 games per week IRL. It is extremely rare for us to play just one game and stop there. We especially like to play the same set of cards at least 2 or 3 times (sometimes more) before we pick a new set. That gives us a chance to try different strategies with each new kingdom set, or just try to improve on the original strategy we attempted. We also like to play with Colonies and Platinums whenever we can since it adds more options to the game. Probably because of this fact along with some other factors, some of our games go over 30 minutes, but we don’t mind at all. It is still much quicker than many other games that we play.

So what is that makes this game so different for us? I would say it boils down to 6 things:
1) Replayability: I imagine that if I only had base Dominion, it might eventually grow old for me, but having five expansions means this game is always changing whenever we pull a new kingdom set. Each new random set has its own personality that you have to recognize and work to your advantage. So after several hundred rounds of Dominion, this game is not feeling old at all. (I cannot think of any other game that I have played that many times.) We still eagerly look forward to each new card set. And with more expansions to buy, I don’t see how it will ever lose that shine.

2) Equal Opportunity: No offense to our opponents, but there are some games we just really grasp better than others do. So if 2 people play a game a number of times, and the other person wins 90% of the time, we are likely not going to want to play that game as often as one that we can win more. We might still play it at times because we like certain aspects of the game, or we like the challenge of trying to beat our opponent, or we want to experience the exhilaration that comes when we do get that elusive win. Dominion, though, is a game where any reasonably experienced player can win on a regular basis. Even someone new to the game can win over a more experienced player from time to time. The good thing is that it only takes a few games to become a reasonably experienced player. My wife and I are very evenly matched in this game, and it shows in that we are just about dead even in the number of wins between us. There are certain kingdom sets where one or the other of us does better, but because we usually play the same set more than once, we get to try different strategies and if we didn’t win it the first time, we usually do so on the second or third try.

3) It’s Not Rocket Science: From posts that I have read on BGG, it appears that some people feel that it’s not a real game if it doesn’t require the Rosetta Stone to decipher how to play it, or that it has so much depth, it takes you many hours of play to even begin to master its nuances. I do like those kinds of games also. However, I did not buy Dominion with that idea in mind. So I am not disappointed by what others might conceive to be a depth issue. Though it has depth to it, especially as you add expansions to the mix, the learning curve tor Dominion is not that large. It is easy to teach and easy to learn the basics. You do continue to learn and adapt as you go along. That helps keep it enjoyable and interesting, but it is easily understood by those who are more casual gamers. Everyone to whom we have taught the game has had no difficulty grasping the game concepts.

4) The WOW Factor: I love how various cards in combination can create surprising results. I have to admit that I have found out about many of these combinations through BGG forums and DominionStrategy.com, but it is so cool when you get to try them in a game. No matter how I discovered these combos, there has been so many times where I said to myself: “I can’t believe how well that card works in this game!” Certain cards, when they are in play, are always game changers. However, because a certain card may work great with the cards in one deck, but be of marginal use in a totally different deck, you get the chance to discover new ways to play and use these cards again and again.

5) 2-Player Heaven: This game is the perfect mix of all the things that make a great 2-player game. (I am not in any way inferring that this is a bad game for more than 2 players. I merely have come to appreciate its excellence for 2 players.)
• It has plenty of strategy, and no one strategy works for all kingdom sets. With some games, the options in strategy are much more limited when just 2 people play. Not so with Dominion.
• Due to the number of cards available through expansions, along with the added features of various expansions such as victory points, embargo or trade route tokens, duration cards, potions, etc., there is a lot of variety in the game. So it doesn’t get old as some 2-player games can where the number of options are limited due to the number of players.
• It doesn’t rely as heavily on chance as some other 2-player games do that I have played. It does play a role, but that factor allows for some miraculous last-minute comebacks.
• It plays fast, allowing for multiple plays in a session, which I personally prefer if there are just 2 people playing.

6) Interaction: I know that there are some people who feel that this game is just multiplayer solitaire, some vehemently so, but I don’t agree. For my wife and I, there is plenty of interaction in the game. Obviously, any time there are attack cards in the kingdom set, you are going to be affected by what the other players play. And there are a great number of other cards that result in interaction with your opponent, such as Tribute, Bishop, Masquerade, and many others. On the other hand, if you think that all you have to worry about is attack cards, you are going to quickly find yourself in trouble. Though it is possible to devise a plan and play it, sometimes even with little interference, if you ignore your competitors and concentrate too much just on what you are doing, you will get surprised more often than you may think. You have to be alert to what the other person is doing and react accordingly. If not, you may pay for it later. On the other hand, if your idea of interaction is a game where every move someone makes affects another player and you have to constantly reevaluate your strategy, then this is not that kind of game.  For me, though, the interaction that exists is just right for the type of game that it is.



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