Online Dominion is the most time-consuming game I’ve ever come across, especially the online edition.
I put off writing this essay by spending some time on the game’s website, Dominion. games. Having written the introduction, I went back and played around with the track a little further.
When one of my pals took a little too long with his turn, I went back to Dominion. games to play a little more before realizing I was already in the middle of the game. Dominion has become my go-to method for passing the time during games, to the point where I tried to start another game while one was in progress.
That is how habit-forming online Dominion is, and why it’s become such a deeply essential aspect of my work-from-home existence amid the coronavirus outbreak. “My work-from-home life,” on the other hand, is misleading because it implies that I didn’t play Dominion on my business laptop while working in the DC office of Vox.com. I did, of course.
When my editor saw me playing so frequently and openly, he was motivated to acquire a real copy of the game for himself. After all, I’m not a complete wreck. But there was a lot of Dominion interspersed with the main narrative.
The online version of Dominion’s fundamental game is free to play. Both computer opponents and human opponents are available. Sign up if you work from home or are currently unemployed or out of school and looking for something to do. Soon enough, you’ll be spending €3.90 a month (about $4.34 right now) for a “gold subscription” that includes all 13 expansion sets, playing as many as 10 games a day for as long as I have.
How Dominion works
Technically, Dominion is a game about rulers constructing a land empire. As developer Donald X. Vaccarino describes in the rules, “You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small lovely kingdom of rivers and evergreens. … You desire a bigger and more attractive kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. … Several other kings have had the same idea.
You must hurry to get as much of the unclaimed territory as can, battling them off along the way. To do this you will employ minions, develop structures, freshen up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury.”
However, this type of medieval conquest is simply a theme in Dominion. Ultimately, Dominion is a strategy game with medieval-sounding names, but it’s a rather abstract one.
Dominion is a card game that involves developing a “deck.” Each player begins the game with 10 cards, seven Coppers, and three Estates, which are “treasure” and “success” cards that each offer you one “coin” to spend on additional cards. At the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins.
Treasure cards are similar to resource cards in Settlers of Catan if you’ve played that game. It’s much more convenient to buy them and have them circulate throughout your deck than it is to get them from a public pool. You can’t do anything with victory cards once you get one in your hand, unlike other cards like treasure or actions, therefore they take up a lot of space in the deck.
Every player takes five cards from their deck at the beginning of each turn. After that, they can perform one “action” and acquire one new card in turn. When the game begins, you have no action cards, but you can purchase them from the board and they will be added to your deck. Depending on the activity, you may be able to draw more cards from your deck, gain more money to spend on cards or perform multiple actions or purchases at once.
You can also purchase treasure cards (such as Silver or Gold, each offering two or three coins) and more valuable victory cards (such as Province cards, each offering six victory points and costing eight coins). You discard all of your cards at the end of each turn, including those you’ve played or purchased. The discard pile becomes your new deck when your deck is depleted, and you begin drawing anew.
At the end of the game, if players have purchased all three sorts of cards on the board (say, if three separate action cards have all been purchased), then the game is finished.
And… that’s all there is. Although the game has several different expansions, Dominion’s primary rulebook is incredibly simple. Draw a hand of five. Start with a few cards. Purchase a new card. Everything you’ve played and bought should be thrown away. More cards will be dealt. Repeat.
This game’s simple ruleset gradually spirals into intricate strategic decision-making, just like in other abstract strategy games like chess or go. For the majority of Dominion games, buying Provinces quickly is the best tactic. Only Coppers are available when the game begins, meaning the best hand you can get from your deck of 10 is a five-card hand.
That would leave you with five coins, which isn’t enough to purchase a province. So you’ll need to buy some new luxuries. ‘ Even so, there is an opportunity cost: Every time you buy a Silver or Gold card, you’re doing so instead of purchasing an action card, which may be of greater value to your game.
Complex compromises like those can be found throughout the game. And, unlike in card games like Magic: the Gathering or Hearthstone, your chances of winning are not dependent on how much money you spend on the greatest cards. Each game begins with seven Coppers and three Estates on each side. You all have to start from the same place when it comes to building your decks.
In Dominion, the cards you play with each time are also randomly chosen, so no two games are ever the same. It’s practically infinitely replayable because there are so many different ways the board might look and so many distinct combinations that allow for diverse strategies. Ticket to Ride is one of my favorite rail board games, but after a few rounds, I noticed that there is a specific path across the United States that you should always take. In Dominion, I’ve never come to a point where I’ve been unable to progress further.
The Easiest Way to Learn Is to Play Online, and It Only Takes 5 Minutes
A lot of it may sound complicated. Even in real life, when you have to draw out physical cards and shuffle them, the complexity of the game can deter players from going beyond the initial set. (With each new addition, the game grows better and better.) You can learn the game quickly and experiment with new cards and expansions without having to fork out $40 for each box in the online version of Dominion.
Just play a game against a computer right now if you don’t trust me. There are a few simple rules you should follow for your first game: There are only 10 action cards in front of you, so don’t buy any of them. Buy a Silver every turn if you have three or more Coppers. Continue until you have six or seven coins in Coppers and Silvers, at which point you should purchase a Gold coin. Buy a Province if your cards total eight or more coins.
A “Big Money” plan is what it’s called. You can play a whole online game in roughly five minutes with this method. After that, you’ll have a better understanding of how things work. After that, it’s up to you to do some experimenting. Buy a couple of action cards. Check out their antics. If you buy various action cards, see if you can beat a bot by more points or more frequently.
Playing games online is far more convenient than playing them face-to-face since it takes much longer to play and set up a game.
The negative of playing online is that it’s a solitary experience. Although the bots are quick, they can also be startlingly untrained. Even better, if you’re willing to limit yourself to using only the included cards and not any additional expansions, you can play against other people for free.
Playing Dominion online versus strangers has its perks (there’s even a regular Dominion League), but my favorite part of the game is playing against friends who are also playing. My wife and I are now unable to meet friends in person to play board games, but we can FaceTime them as we play Dominion. We get to learn about new cards and how they operate together, as well as socialize during quarantine.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve already held three online Dominion parties, and I expect there will be dozens more before the social isolation phase is through. In this increasingly solitary age, it’s the greatest kind of remote party, in my opinion. While I prefer to play against people I know in real life, if you ever find yourself in a match with the user @dylanmatthews, I’d be delighted to engage in combat with you.
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