Introduction

Welcome to my blog, where I will provide you with a complete resource that focuses on the first Dominion card set. Over the course of eight weeks and eleven more posts, I will look at each of the 25 action cards¹ individually, and I will talk about the more general strategies that involve these cards.

Presumably, you’ve bought the original Dominion card game. You've learned the rules, and maybe played a few times with your friends. You know how to play, but that’s not enough -- now you want to learn how to win.

Online strategy guides will help you get on your feet, but they vary in quality. Most guides offer an overview of all the Dominion expansions, which doesn’t help you very much if you’re learning with just the basic set. You can learn a lot about general Dominion strategies, but you also need an analysis of every action card so that you’ll know what your first purchase will be when you see the ten action cards that made it into the supply. I'll do my best to provide you with the information you're looking for.

Copyright 2013 M. Stith

I started playing Dominion in 2009, but I didn’t play it very much until this September. Now I play as many as three games per day, and I have gained valuable experience with every card from the first set. I hope to accelerate the learning process for you by giving you my take on the strengths and weaknesses of each action card...

• Some cards are so powerful that you should always consider them.
• Most cards are only good under certain conditions -- I will help you identify these situations.
• A couple of the action cards are quite mediocre -- once you know which cards to avoid, you can safely take your buys elsewhere.

All of this information will make the first few minutes of a game much less overwhelming as you plan your strategy around the cards on the table.

As you become more advanced, you may be eager to test your new knowledge. If you don’t have friends who are available to play Dominion, I recommend playing the online version of Dominion, where you can play against competent computer players for free². Be careful though: if you rapidly play dozens of games against the computer, you will get bored of Dominion much faster than if you had enjoyed the game with friends over a longer period.

References...

1 Dominion Game Manual (2008). Dominion. Rio Grande Games, Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

2 Goko Games. (2013, March). Dominion. Retrieved from http://play.goko.com/Dominion/gameClient.html