What I've Been Playing: May & June

A not untypical turn in Dominion Empires

PitchCar:

PitchCar is a game involving flicking a disk around a race track.  The flicking part I can handle, but keeping it on the track is not my strong suit.  The last time I played, I finished well behind the people who showed up 20 minutes late, and that is for generous values of finished.  The host setup the track in advance and was excited to play the game again, but mostly excited to watch me play again.  I showed up late, but not quite late enough to avoid playing.

I went first, the advantage of being terrible, and flew off a side railing.  My 2nd attempt was much better; I got slightly farther before sailing into the abyss.  Other players slowly made it around the track and towards a large ramp in the middle, while my token remained directionally challenged.  Finally, with a clear track in front of me, I managed it to the next section. The next few flicks weren't great, but I made forward progress.  Meanwhile most of the other player were having trouble getting over the ramp, knocking into each other and falling off repeatedly.  I reached the base of the hill with only two players having surpassed it.  Amazingly, I made it to the top of the ramp on my first shot.  Going down the other side took a little longer, but the people in front of me were going slowly, and the ones behind me were still stuck.  I made it around the final turns and into the final straightaway while others still struggled.  I centered myself with a short flick and then sailed over the final railing to land on the edge of the track with half my token hovering over nothing.   I finished an astonishing 2nd, just ahead of the person who played the whole game while holding a baby.  It may have been my greatest gaming achievement.
QuarterMaster General,

A 90 minute, 6 player, World War two game, where players team up as the Allies and Axis.  The 90 minute time-frame makes it much more playable than most Axis vs Allies type games, but it did lose something in the distillation.  You can only play 1 card a turn, so often you are going back and forth with an opponent without making any progress.  For particular players, you can even get stuck with little to do on your turns.  Given the positive reviews, I'd try it again, but I wasn't especially enamored with it.

Millenium Blades:

A game that was designed to feel like collecting a collectible card game without the need to take out a second mortgage.  Players buy packs (the game uses stacks of money for individual bills which is great), and build decks and collections to compete in in-game tournaments.  For better or worse, it captures that feel very much, both in the excitement and frustrations.  Despite the happy nostalgia, the game overall though felt long and overwhelming, with players receiving too many cards to be able to analyze them all.  More problematic was that the in-game tournaments were dull and lacked complex decisions or interactions.  Making cool decks isn't that much fun if you don't care about the deck you are making.  Like many Kickstarter games, the concept was great, but the execution needs some work.

Dominion Empires:

The 10th Dominion expansion, and the 2nd one after the "last" expansion, is every bit as good as its predecessors.   The set features a number of new and expanded concepts such as events, landmark cards (items that give/take away points for achieving certain things), gathering cards (cards that collect victory tokens), and debt (getting cards and paying for them later).  The quality of the game components are as good as they have ever been, with heavy and shiny new victory and debt tokens.

As with other recent sets, I hosted a tournament to get to play a bunch of games with recommended sets.   9 people came, which is a nice number for such things.  I enjoyed how the new cards changed player goals turning normal Dominion decision making on its head.  Alas I fell short in the tourney, needing 1 more copper to win a decisive qualifying match.  We did get our fifth different tournament winner in five tries, which is neat.   I have played a number of games of it since with my wife who is a big fan of the set.   She has built super-turns from cards such as the Villa (a card in the village family that allows a player to jump back to the action phase from the buying one.) and Royal Blacksmith (A debt card that lets you draw 5 cards and requires discarding coppers).  She has won a number of these games quite handily, but I did heroically buy the last two provinces and a duchy in one such contest to lose 63-32.

Jaipur:

Jaipur is a popular two player card game where players buy, sell, and trade gems and camels.  I played it first online and enjoyed having simple turns that still had multiple compelling options.  I bought a copy in a game store in my wife's hometown though that was partially to support a neat looking store while getting something that would fit in a suitcase.  I still haven't figured how much of the game is skill vs luck, but I'm curious to keep exploring.  My initial opponents were not as enamored with the game though, so I might have some difficulty finding opponents.

Above and Below:

I wanted to try Above and Below mostly because it looked pretty.  And pretty it was, though it could have used clearer visuals to distinguish between different types of cards.  The game combines an action selection game with a story telling one.  Players can explore the "below" which result in mini choose your own adventure style adventuring.  The game had some interesting concepts and fun stories, but ultimately lacked focus and ended before much could be accomplished.  For example, there was a nice tension between using common resources early to get money, or saving them for later to maximize points, but you got so few resources until the end that it didn't matter all that much.  The stories were amusing but repetitive, always having similar requirements and rewards.

Quadropolis:

Days of Wonder's latest production is a light-ish tile laying game where players draft tiles and place them in a tableau, scoring points for getting combinations of buildings together.  At times drafting choices were severely limited or unimportant, while at other points players were overwhelmed with information.  Compared to Between Two Cities, it had more interesting scoring rules, but was slower and accommodated less players.   I'd be interested in trying how the advance rules changed the dynamics of the game.
 

Dominion

My Dominion Storage System

Dominion takes the concept of building a deck and makes it into a game. Way cooler an invention then figuring out how to slice bread.

Publisher:

Rio Grande Games

Designer:

Donald Vaccarino

Elevator Pitch:

Each game of Dominion is a puzzle:  Which cards should you buy, and in which frequency to make the most efficient deck possible.  Then when to switch to buying victory cards which are worthless in your deck, but do make you win.

Personal Impression:

Most of my Boston gaming life, and a good deal of my social circle, can be traced directly to my first game of Dominion.  Which means that I would really be thankful for Dominion even if I didn’t like it, but  Dominion is my favorite game.  I have always loved building decks and Donald Vaccarino built a game that revolves around it, which is incredibly elegant yet dynamic.  Cards that are worthless in one setup, can be incredible in the next.  With expansions there are trillions of game setups that can be used, yet the game has and needs no errata.  There have been many copycats of Dominion, but playing them mostly makes me wonder why I’m not playing Dominion instead.  I don’t get to play it as much as I used to, but I’m always happy to play.  In fact, I run periodic tournaments for it, which are mostly an excuses to play a full day’s worth of Dominion.

*Conveniently named Periodic Dominion Tournaments

Good for People who Grew up Playing:

Magic or other collectible card games.  

  

Ease of Learning:

The basic rules of Dominion are pretty straightforward, though the timing of when you do things can be a little confusing if you haven’t played similar games before.  Most of the complexity is in what cards you use (you pick 10 kingdom cards to play with each game), so you can choose how difficult you want the game to be.  There is the added difficulty that after you learn how cards work, you will likely be using at least some different ones in the next game.

Fidgety Index

How much do you like shuffling?  If the answer is constantly you are in luck.  Expansions add some more little shiny things to play with.

Universal Theme:

As much as I like remodeling villages into mines, Dominion is one of those theme in name only games.  Reading the thematic text in the rule books, though is highly amusing.

Player Count and Length:

2-6 though I wouldn’t recommend 6.  It varies depending on cards used and player’s analysis paralysis tendencies.  Let’s say 20-45 minutes with perhaps another 10 minutes to setup and take down the cards.

Expansions:

I am morally obligated to buy every Dominion card ever made.  Your god may not require such an obligation, but still having an expansion or two will greatly increase replay-ability and strategic depth.  The base games is not as well balanced as future sets, which allows for some boring strategies to prevail.  Basically any expansion fixes this problem.

Intrigue:  The first expansion and the only one to include all the base cards, which allows it to be playable out of the box.  When combined with the base set it allows for up to 6 players if you want (you don’t).  It adds interactivity which is good, but some of that comes in crippling attacks, which can be less enjoyable.  It also introduces cards with multiple choices.  

Seaside: Seaside provides cards that affect the current turn as well as the next, called duration cards.  Once you understand the duration mechanic, the cards are simple to use.   If you are going to get one expansion, this is the one I’d recommend.

Alchemy:  The most controversial expansion, Alchemy is a mini-expansion that provides another currency called potions. It features some powerful game changing cards, though the changes aren’t always fun.

Prosperity:  Essentially, Dominion on steroids.   Prosperity lets you do insane things as you go for platinum and colonies.  It is great fun, though you will probably appreciate it more if you play some other sets first.

Cornucopia:  A mini-expansion that encourages variety, so it’s good if you are the type of player who likes to try everything.

Hinterlands: Has cards that have an effect when acquired.  This originally was going to be a starter set, so the cards are on the more basic side.

Dark Ages:  The last expansion designed before Donald Vaccarino was done.  It is filled with cards that change into other cards or have trash or upgrade related effects.  And Rats.  A huge set and a fairly complex one, so including them can slow the game down dramatically even for experienced players.

Guilds:  Designed before Dark Ages, but released after, guilds is a mini set that features cards you can overpay for and cards that let you save up money.  It is fun, but the fact that you can pay any number for specific cards greatly increases the amount of options.

Adventures:  The first after Donald Vaccarino decided he wasn’t actually done making Dominion Expansions.  Donald originally planned on making Dominion spinoffs, but mostly gave up on that idea.  Instead he threw everything in here.  This is the kitchen sink expansion.  Fun, but probably not for a new player.

Base Cards:  The money and victory cards of dominion with alternate art.  These allow multiple games to be played by different groups simultaneously, or for the expansions to be played without first acquiring the Original set or Intrigue.

Promos: A half a dozen or so other kingdom cards.  I especially like the black market, though it is a pain to setup.

Spin Offs:

There are hundreds of deck buildings game now.  With few exceptions, when these other games, I wonder why I'm not just playing Dominion.

Introducing the Game to New Gamers: 

Choose a simple set that has a little of everything.  Try the crazy strategy you always wanted to try rather than the most efficient.  Avoid buying devastating attack cards.  Buy cards your opponents aren’t to show how they work.  Try not to end the game before opponents’ decks can get going.

Apps:

Once upon a time there was a website named isotropic.  It was free and glorious and I spent countless hours playing thousands of games there.  Then it went away and was replaced by something less free and far less wonderful.  To give you an idea of the problems, in the current app, which has been years in the making, you have to purchase in-game currency to buy expansions, but the units of the in-game currency you can buy do not match expansion prices, forcing you t overpay already ridiculous prices.  Of course if the product was good,  I'd pay whatever the cost.  It is not, it is terrible, lacking standard features like ability to play offline.   Thus ended my online play of Dominion.  There are some knock off apps (Android has a pretty good one) to hold you over until the Dominion license reverts to someone who knows what they are doing.  

Links:

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Dominion Strategy