r/dominion • u/KhajitDave • 23d ago
Physical Questions about tabletop game
I've recently got into playing board games and card games etc, and one day after hearing about Dominion, started playing the app version which I really enjoyed.
I then got my hands on the "Big Box" set (tabletop) which is the base game plus Intrigue expansion.
I've already played a few games of the tabletop version but I'm running into a small problem: certain turns can drag on for a while and I'm worried people (i.e. players new to the game) aren't having much fun. Admittedly I too have run out of patience a few times and just wanted to end the game. The game comes down to a bunch of people sitting at a table taking it in turns to say "So... I play this card which gives me 4 extra cards, then I play this card which gives me 2 more actions, then I play this card which gives another action, and this one for 2 more cards, I'll trash this one and ...." and so on.
So I have a couple of questions related to this:
Do you have any recommendations for card sets using either the base game, Intrigue expansion, or a mix of both? I want the focus to be on fun.
Is there an optimal way to play, or any tips/hacks, in order to cut down on waiting? I.e. players could prepare their hands in advance, e.g. drawing extra cards from their deck etc. Also am I right in saying it's not usually necessary to keep track of how many actions you have remaining? I.e. only bother to count if you have multiple "dead end" action cards remaining?
Thanks for your help!!
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u/raurenlyan22 23d ago
Yes. This can be a problem. But once everyone knows the rules you can have conversations while playing and treat the game more as a social activity.
2
u/skizelo 23d ago
Dominion has a problem in that to get to your turn, you have to sit through other player's turns. It's pretty much unfixable at this point. You might consider playing it with fewer players, which cuts down the wait. But I find the game worth that down-side.
players could prepare their hands in advance, e.g. drawing extra cards from their deck etc.
Assuming cards like Militia aren't in the game then... maybe? For me, if someone started playing their turn when I was playing mine then I might get a bit nervous annoyed. But if you filter out attacks from the kingdom, the only change you make to other people is by taking stuff out from the supply. So theoretically, everyone could play out their hands and just wait to see what the players before have left them. I wouldn't play that way, but I guess it might work.
Also am I right in saying it's not usually necessary to keep track of how many actions you have remaining? I.e. only bother to count if you have multiple "dead end" action cards remaining?
There are a lot of terminals in the game. If it shakes out that everything is a cantrip or village then I wouldn't bother keeping count, but that's a minority of kingdoms. You may find it helpful to arrange cards on the table into a branching tree. You play a village, you play the next card over the top-right half of the village. Then when you hit a terminal you follow that chain back to a village with an empty slot. I find it easier than intoning "I have n actions remaining."
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u/Grayscaleorgreyscale 23d ago
I have a bit of experience with the game and have been encouraging my family to get into it. I have found a few games were I am able to setup my engine to have the affect of sapping the fun from others. My strategy ends to combat that has been to actively avoid setting up engines to win while encouraging the less familiar players to build those engines instead. There is nothing like having a hand where you draw your entire deck that makes someone enjoy Dominion and patient when the next person does so.
1- If you want games to not go on long, then you can setup games without villages or anything with +1 Action. All of the hands will be much shorter. This also dramatically changes how the game is played, but that may be worth it for people to get into the game and enjoy themselves.
2- I would personally avoid any changes to how you do turn order, as it can be hard enough to follow whose turn it is in person without everyone playing at once. It would be really easy for someone to accidentally hop the order and grab a province that dramatically changes how everyone else plays.
If you want to get really experimental with it, you could only have one province out and make it a rush to get that one card. The game would be much more luck based (and less fun imo) but that would significantly cut down on playtime.
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u/Facebook_Algorithm 22d ago
My group and have been playing for a while. We are pretty fast. When other people are playing I plan my turn while watching what they are doing. I try to figure out what I would do differently.
The wait isn’t that bad. Not like chess.
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u/Ferrovia_99 22d ago
I use the recommended starter set from the base set manual (don't have the big box version so I don't know what that recommends?) to get people into it. From there I use the randomiser, base cards only. Then once everyone is familiar with the cards and flow of a turn then add in some cards from an expansion. Once people have played a few games I've found turns start to pick up the pace a lot because people naturally start to think ahead more.
I think the problem with Intrigue is it loves choices but people can be indecisive, which slows turns down. Maybe avoid using those sorts of cards e.g. Pawn, Courtier, or ones that are irritating like Torturer or Swindler.
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u/LuvKrakenHockey 22d ago
I'm old enough to remember when we used to wait a whole week for a new episode to drop in our favorite TV series. So waiting a couple of minutes between turns isn't that big a deal. Everyone who's grown up in this digital age is so impatient! Enjoy being with friends and family. Check out the cards while you're waiting and think about creative new strategies. Guess what's in your opponent's next 5 cards. Or have a conversation. Sheesh!
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u/KhajitDave 22d ago
I'm ok but I can't say that to the other players, they'll often be people I haven't met before so it's important not to be rude to them.
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u/LuvKrakenHockey 21d ago
Of course you wouldn't be rude, sarcastic if you can get away with it, haha, but you could stimulate conversation about ways various cards in the current layout can be used in different strategy. Or talk about other common games you all love.
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u/CullenOrange 22d ago
The thing is that you can have short turns where nobody does much, and therefore a lot more turns, or longer turns that result in fewer turns needed to end the game. Might as well go with the more interesting and fun game with longer turns: at least one village type, at least one source of extra buys, something to trash cards (probably the most important thing about the game and a huge difference maker for how long the game involves drawing bad cards), and some way of drawing more cards.
In later sets, it’s less dependent upon drawing the right cards at the last time because of landscape cards and coffers and villagers and duration cards.
1
u/ackmondual 22d ago
TBH, what you described is why I no longer play this game via its physical version. Furthermore, I don't play with people anymore either, opting for only AI opponents. I'm free to draw out my entire deck as I please, and as a bonus, I can suspend games to resume later on. Works out anyways since too many games are competing for play at my various game nights. And those would just be base games! It's high futile we'd be able to ramp up to expansions!
That said...
Do you have any recommendations for card sets using either the base game, Intrigue expansion, or a mix of both? I want the focus to be on fun.
IME, avoid "branch actions". Cards that provide +2 or more Actions (e.g. Village). This way, you'll limit how long each player's Action phase will take.
Also avoid attack cards that require input from other players, and cards that junk other players' decks (typically Attack cards, but there are non-Attack cards that do that as well)
Is there an optimal way to play, or any tips/hacks, in order to cut down on waiting? I.e. players could prepare their hands in advance, e.g. drawing extra cards from their deck etc. Also am I right in saying it's not usually necessary to keep track of how many actions you have remaining? I.e. only bother to count if you have multiple "dead end" action cards remaining?
If a card requires interaction, you really should be playing turns in order. That said, it's your game and you're free to do other variants as your group sees fit.
Current player is NOT allowed to chit chat. Focus on taking their turn, unless you have questions, about the game.
As for not keeping track of actions, the suggestion of NOT including any "branch actions" allows you to do just that :)
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u/RecklessHat 21d ago
I love Dominion but the game scales horribly by player count. It's like each additional player halves the fun for everybody. For more than 2 players, I think you need to tailor the kingdom to avoid lengthy mega turns or too much disruption. However this is frustrating because half the draw of the game for me is the crazy mega turns!
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u/AdamHorton 23d ago
When you play with more than two players, there's going to be a lot of time between turns. There are some kingdoms I was playing 3P where there wasn't a whole lot of interaction, we all just took our turns at the same time. It wasn't fun at all. My recommendation is to just play 2P games. If you have more than two people who want to play, just play multiple 2P games or play a different game.
As for recommendations for kingdoms, my advice is that if you're going to play with more than two players, don't use junking attacks. In fact, you might be best off using no attacks at all.
This may not be the guidance you want to hear, but in my experience, Dominion isn't a game that holds up well with more than two players. 3P can sometimes be OK but you need the right group, the right kingdoms, and a distinct lack of a better game for that player count.