Finally, somewhere to talk about board games.
Recently I've been playing a ton of Dominion, and man do I ever love Dominion. I bought it back in 2011 or so after one of my cousins introduced me to the game. My friends and I were not aware of modern board games, and it was a massive hit with my group. We played it all the time, and we would teach it to whoever was over. I keep reading stories about how someone finds a gateway game and then starts buying tons of other games. Instead we just stuck with Dominion for years and added more and more expansions. I think we slowed down around 2016 when we all started playing D&D.
But, about a year ago I dug out all of my Dominion boxes and found that I could just fit everything into the smallest one if I tossed out the molded plastic card divider, which made it way easier to get it out and set up games. Then I taught Katie to play and we picked up a new expansion. So I've been playing it a lot again, and I think I like it as much as when I first played it.
So, what's so great about Dominion? Well, first of all, it's extremely easy to learn. On your turn you start with five cards, you play one action and make one buy (adding a new card to your deck), then discard everything and draw five new cards. That's it! As you play you want to make your deck stronger by adding good cards to it and potentially removing weak cards. The ultimate goal is to have the most victory points, but VP only comes on cards that don't do anything else. So, there's a wonderful built in tension between wanting to build a strong deck, and then having to slowly make it worse by adding victory cards to it.
The game has a ton of variety. Each game has ten random stacks of cards available to buy, in addition to a few default money and victory cards. These stacks are randomly selected each time you play, and expansions add more possible cards to pick. I have around 100 stacks of cards, which gives me well over a trillion possible combinations. I could play for the rest of my life and never see the same game a second time. And I have fewer than half of the available expansions.
Finally, this game has layers to it. When you first start playing, you might find that certain cards are better to buy than others. Then, you realize that your starting cards are actually awful, and you will do better if you can find a way to remove those cards from your deck. Then, you start finding that some cards that you thought were good are actually not helping you that much, and ones that you thought were bad are actually good in certain situations. you learn how to put together good engines and slow your opponent, and how to make the most of what you have available. There are people who have played tens of thousands of games and it's still offering up new experiences.
There are downsides, too. It's sort of dry. There's not much theme. It involves a lot of set up and shuffling. It's just not for everyone. But, if you do like it, it's an extremely rewarding and fun game to invest your time in.
Anyway, what games do you love? What have you been playing recently? Or, is there something new coming out that you're looking forward to?
Recently I've been playing a ton of Dominion, and man do I ever love Dominion. I bought it back in 2011 or so after one of my cousins introduced me to the game. My friends and I were not aware of modern board games, and it was a massive hit with my group. We played it all the time, and we would teach it to whoever was over. I keep reading stories about how someone finds a gateway game and then starts buying tons of other games. Instead we just stuck with Dominion for years and added more and more expansions. I think we slowed down around 2016 when we all started playing D&D.
But, about a year ago I dug out all of my Dominion boxes and found that I could just fit everything into the smallest one if I tossed out the molded plastic card divider, which made it way easier to get it out and set up games. Then I taught Katie to play and we picked up a new expansion. So I've been playing it a lot again, and I think I like it as much as when I first played it.
So, what's so great about Dominion? Well, first of all, it's extremely easy to learn. On your turn you start with five cards, you play one action and make one buy (adding a new card to your deck), then discard everything and draw five new cards. That's it! As you play you want to make your deck stronger by adding good cards to it and potentially removing weak cards. The ultimate goal is to have the most victory points, but VP only comes on cards that don't do anything else. So, there's a wonderful built in tension between wanting to build a strong deck, and then having to slowly make it worse by adding victory cards to it.
The game has a ton of variety. Each game has ten random stacks of cards available to buy, in addition to a few default money and victory cards. These stacks are randomly selected each time you play, and expansions add more possible cards to pick. I have around 100 stacks of cards, which gives me well over a trillion possible combinations. I could play for the rest of my life and never see the same game a second time. And I have fewer than half of the available expansions.
Finally, this game has layers to it. When you first start playing, you might find that certain cards are better to buy than others. Then, you realize that your starting cards are actually awful, and you will do better if you can find a way to remove those cards from your deck. Then, you start finding that some cards that you thought were good are actually not helping you that much, and ones that you thought were bad are actually good in certain situations. you learn how to put together good engines and slow your opponent, and how to make the most of what you have available. There are people who have played tens of thousands of games and it's still offering up new experiences.
There are downsides, too. It's sort of dry. There's not much theme. It involves a lot of set up and shuffling. It's just not for everyone. But, if you do like it, it's an extremely rewarding and fun game to invest your time in.
Anyway, what games do you love? What have you been playing recently? Or, is there something new coming out that you're looking forward to?