Designer: Donald X. Vaccarion
Manufacturer: Rio Grande Games
Year: 2009
Players 2-4
Time: 20-30 minutes
Ages: 10 and up
I’ve talked about Dominion a couple of times before, both the original and Intrigue. It’s one of the games we play on a regular basis, but we’ve finally played the new Seaside expansion a few times. I think it’s as good as the other two, although this one is a true expansion. It does not come with any treasure, victory or curse cards, so you must have one of the other editions.
From Rio Grande Games:
All you ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. And someone who knows how to steer ships using stars. You finally got some of those rivers you’d wanted, and they led to the sea. These are dangerous, pirate-infested waters, and you cautiously send rat-infested ships across them, to establish lucrative trade at far-off merchant-infested ports. First, you will take over some islands, as a foothold. The natives seem friendly enough, crying their peace cries, and giving you spears and poison darts before you are even close enough to accept them properly. When you finally reach those ports you will conquer them, and from there you will look for more rivers. One day, all the rivers will be yours.
It adds 26 new Kingdom cards to Dominion. Its central theme is your next turn; there are cards that do something this turn and next, cards that set up your next turn, and other ways to step outside of the bounds of a normal turn.
I like the variety added by this addition. The cards are getting more complicated, but it’s fun. We’ve played the three set-ups suggested in the games instructions, two of which were a lot of fun. The other seemed to go awry, but I think it may have just been how we played. I actually like the whole theme this time around. I’m not sure how well it work with kingdom cards from the other two editions, though. We’ll have to see next time we play.
I will say that we rarely manage to play a whole game in 20-30 minutes. If we do, it’s an incredibly short game. But we usually play with 5 or 6 players, which probably makes it take a little longer.
The nice thing about all the Dominion variations is there’s not much of a learning curve. Even people who don’t play games often will be able to catch on fairly quickly.
Rio Grande has also announced the next expansion, Dominion: Alchemy, but no release date has been set. Apparently, people in the labs are looking for a way to turn lead into gold or at least into something better than lead.
The copy we played was purchased by a friend and the above is my honest opinion. I am an Amazon and Funagain Games affiliate.
I am so raiding your game room one of these days. I get green with envy every time you do one of these posts.
I want to come over and play! I bought my hubby a new game as part of his Valentine gift (it’s time together right?) and it’s fun. It’s called Eye Know.