| Dominion |
|---|
 |
 |
| Info |
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| Type |
Base Game |
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| Icon |
 |
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| Cards |
500 |
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|
252 (1st) / 262 (2nd) (25/26 sets) |
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|
208 |
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|
32 (1st) / 26 (2nd) |
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|
7 (1st) / 4 (2nd) |
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Other Card(s) |
|
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| Additional Material(s) |
|
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|
1 Trash mat (2nd only) |
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| Theme(s) |
Simplicity |
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| Release |
October 2008 (1st) / Fall 2016 (2nd) |
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| Cover artist |
Matthias Catrein (1st) / Julien Delval (2nd) |
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| Official Rulebook |
PDF |
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Dominion, sometimes called Base Dominion, the Base Set, or simply Base, is the first Dominion game created by Donald X. Vaccarino. It was released in 2008 by publisher Rio Grande Games. The box originally contained 25 sets of Kingdom cards and Basic Supply cards to support up to 4 players.
The second edition of the base set was released in Fall 2016, improving wording and formatting on cards, updating basic card artwork, replacing the Trash card with a mat, and replacing 6 obsolete first edition Kingdom cards with 7 new ones. The new cards are also available in an update pack provided to allow existing Dominion sets to be updated to the second edition form.
The Base set is also included in both the English and German Big Boxes and other collections.
[edit] Contents
[edit] Basic Supply cards
[edit] Kingdom cards, second edition
Cards with an asterisk (*) were added in the second edition.
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: , ,
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: *, *, *, ,
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: , , , , *, , ,
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: *, , , , , , , *,
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: *
[edit] Removed first-edition Kingdom cards
These cards were included in the first edition, and removed from the second edition.
[edit] Other cards
- 1 (only in first edition)
[edit] Additional materials
Mats
- 1 (only in second edition)
[edit] Flavor text
You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion!
In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner. But wait! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury. Your parents wouldn’t be proud, but your grandparents, on your mother's side, would be delighted.
[edit] Mechanics
This is a game of building a deck of
cards. The deck represents your Dominion. It contains your resources, victory points, and the things you can do. It starts out a small sad collection of and , but you hope that by the end of the game it will be brimming with , , and the inhabitants and structures of your castle and kingdom. You win by having the most
in your deck when the game ends.
[edit] Cards gallery
[edit] Basic cards
[edit] Kingdom cards
[edit] Removed cards
[edit] Impact
As the original game, this set contains the cards that serve as most players' introduction to Dominion. The cards are, for the most part, simple, yet compelling. Some of them, like , , , , , , and , are important cornerstones to strategies and strategic discussions, and serve as archetypes for card categories. As such, other cards of those categories have their costs dictated by these cards, as they tend to be these original cards with something "extra." The main strategies (engine, big money, slog, rush and combo) all have their roots in this set, in the most basic forms of each.
The Base set now is often considered simply a gateway to the more complex or "interesting" sets which introduce new mechanics and strategies, but it is the Base set which won the Spiel des Jahres, and it is the Base set which drew most players into the game of Dominion.
The original Base set had a much lower percentage of non-terminal Actions than most of the expansions, which gave it a reputation as favoring Big Money decks over engines.
[edit] Alternate versions
First Polish version (by Bard)
Second Polish version (by GFP - note: this is still Dominion First Edition)
First Polish II Edycja version (by GF)
Second Polish II Edycja version (by IUVI)
[edit] Trivia
Official Second Edition box art.
The Second Edition box art is one of the available backgrounds in Dominion Online.
[edit] In other languages
- Chinese: 皇舆争霸 (pron. huáng yú zhēngbà, lit. Struggle for the emperor's throne)
- Czech: Dominion
- Dutch:
- Dominion: In naam van de Koning! (lit. In the name of the King!) (first edition)
- Dominion: Wie bouwt het mooiste koninkrijk? (lit. Who will build the most beautiful kingdom?) (first edition)
- Dominion: Tweede editie (second edition)
- Finnish: Dominion: Valtakunta (lit. The kingdom)
- French: Dominion: Votre royaume commence ici! (lit. Your kingdom begins here!)
- German: Dominion: Was für eine Welt! (lit. What a world!)
- Greek: Dominion: Ο κυρίαρχος (pron. o kyriarchos, lit. The dominant)
- Hungarian: Dominion
- Italian: Dominion: Nasce un Regno (lit. Birth of a kingdom)
- Japanese: ドミニオン (pron. dominion)
- Korean: 도미니언 (pron. dominieon)
- Norwegian: Dominion
- Polish:
- Dominion: Rozdarte Królestwo (lit. A kingdom torn apart) (Bard edition)
- Dominion (GFP edition)
- Romanian: Dominion
- Russian: Доминион (pron. dominion)
- Spanish: Dominion
- Swedish: Dominion: Spelet om kungadömet (lit. The game of the kingdom)
[edit] Secret history
Donald X. Vaccarino gave an interview to BGN concerning the design of the base set: the Secret History of the Dominion Cards.
[edit] Retrospective (1E)
The big thing is to add more replayability. There are six vanilla cards and probably five would have been fine; the obvious one to replace is . is a fine card for the main set but the other vanilla cards are all better. That means all of the +buy cards would cost
but I can live with that. After that, adds very little. doesn't add much and would have been better in
Intrigue (where it came from); the fact that it's a puzzler is way better in an expansion than in the main set. And finally there's . is slow to resolve, that's the big thing. Over the years I have learned that ideally -type attacks don't have +1 action, or don't involve a decision, or both. is exactly what I want. has +1 action and involves a decision, so you potentially make tons of decisions per turn. I like decisions but man is not where to get them. It initially got to interact with two attacks that trashed cards from the top of your deck, and that's cool, but now it only interacts with (in the main set that is), and that combo just isn't worth the slot.
The way to think of these things is, imagine the replacement cards. Let's say I just take out and and put in and . Those are not top-of-the-line adored-by-all go-in-every-deck cards. But they still give you more to do than and do.
It would be nice if were stronger, but it already scares new players, and once everyone was new. There are some wording tweaks; and should of course say "you may." I would try coloring the coins on the treasures. The Trash card should be a mat instead.
There are people who complain about various other cards, but I am happy with those, so there.
[edit] Retrospective (2E)
I think the new
Intrigue cards are great, but should have been some different cheaper trasher, and I don't know that I needed both and even though both are fine, and may be too attractive to new players for a main set attack.
[edit] Recommended sets of 10
[edit] Dominion only
