Saturday, March 21, 2009

Interactivity in Dominion

Nadine came over for dinner and we ended early enough to convince Rachel to try another game besides Puerto Rico (or Scrabble). We would have tried Agricola, but we wanted something quicker so that we could also play Puerto Rico afterward.

So I taught both Rachel and Nadine how to play Dominion (Amazon's price right now: $159 ???).

We used the basic set; I've yet to play with any other. One of the problems with the basic set is the lack of interactivity. Aside from the very remote possibility of cards running out in a stack (unlikely, unless everyone is following the exact same strategy), there's only the Militia kingdom.

As a result, Rachel found the game rather boring. Nadine liked it, although she is also looking forward to sets with higher interactivity. I beat her 40 to 39; pretty close.

It shouldn't be hard to increase the interactivity. Instead of 10 cards in 10 kingdoms and the game ends when 3 piles run out, why not 3 cards in 20 kingdoms and the game ends when 12 piles run out? This way, you get the interactivity of running out of piles quicker, more strategic options, and less of the game running out really quickly (if it still does, make it 14 or 15 piles).

Of course, you can't buy tons of all the same card. And there's less variance in the game, but once the first few expansions come along, that won't be a problem.

Anyway, after Dominion we played Puerto Rico. I started the game really well, so well that I though victory would be a piece of cake. I traded tobacco early, pulled two corn plantations with a Hacienda and got a Wharf (we don't play with Harbor). All well and good, but Nadine's coffee, Factory, and Discretionary Hold managed to trump me. If I had gotten a Factory before my Wharf and I would have done much better.

Nadine won with 54, to my 48 and Rachel's 39.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The reason my Factory strategy worked this time was partly Discretionary Hold which is a really good building, but mostly because the Trading House was blocked half the game. I think you could have traded Sugar, but maybe it wasn't worth it due to having Wharf, and everything Rachel had was already traded except Corn.

Anonymous said...

Judging Dominion after playing only the basic set does not do this game justice. The basic set is easy to understand and has very minimal interaction. I recommend playing few games with random sets, with which every game is different.

Yehuda Berlinger said...

Tal: will do.

Eric Franklin said...

Regarding the Amazon price on Dominion:

It's sold by a third-party vendor (Wizard Entertainment) through Amazon. That third-party vendor set the price.

Amazon themselves aren't selling it.

My wife is currently working there - I brought it to her attention. She said that there are other third-party vendors who sell it less expensively - This link is where it will appear when it shows at a reasonable price. The other vendors just don't have it in stock at present.