Duchy

Duchy
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Victory
Kingdom card?	No
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Martin Hoffmann
Card text
3

Duchy is a basic Victory card included in all games of Dominion. In most games, it is (at ) the second most expensive Victory card and (at 3 ) the one worth the second largest number of victory points.

Strategy

Duchies are generally an inefficient source of  . The obvious comparison is to Province: both are stop cards that hurt your ability to draw your deck and the economy it produces, but Duchy also scores 3  less and is a less efficient method of converting into  , at 0.6  per for Duchy versus 0.75 for Province. In general, a Duchy can be viewed as a poor consolation prize for failing to buy a Province during the greening phase of the game.

As such, the use of Duchies to score during the endgame typically falls under one of the following cases:

• You are unwilling to lower the Province pile, because lowering the Province pile could allow your opponent to gain the remaining Provinces and win. For example, if there are three Provinces left in the supply, and you know your opponent can take two on their turn, you should consider buying three Duchies over one-two Provinces. In the simplest case, where both players can gain only one Province per turn, this is called Duchy dancing, and you are following the Penultimate Province Rule.
• You are not able to score solely using Provinces this turn (likely due to failing to generate , or with 2+ Buys), but need to score as much as possible to keep up with your opponents.
• An opponent is threatening a pileout, and you need to score as much as possible to get a   lead to prevent them from winning on their next turn.

Buying or gaining a Duchy in an endgame situation may also look more appealing if you believe the game is ending soon and so you won’t have to shuffle your discard pile with the Duchy, meaning it won’t hurt your ability to draw or generate before the end of the game.

Duchies’ price does mean they are easier to buy or gain than Provinces, and some strategies will exploit this fact as an additional way to score via gainers in a single-Buy Kingdom, or use Duchies as a third pile for a pileout. Gainers such as Artisan and stackable cost reduction such as Bridge tend to encourage these strategies.

Finally, Duchies explicitly synergize with Duke.

Cards that interact with Duchy

Duchy gainers

• Transmute - When you trash an Action card with Transmute you gain a Duchy.
• Tournament - You may gain a Duchy as a Prize for winning a tournament.
• Count - One of the benefit options available when playing a Count is the ability to gain a Duchy.
• Hunting Grounds - Trashing a Hunting Grounds allows you the option of gaining a Duchy.
• Annex and Alliance
• Sprawling Castle - Can gain a Duchy when gained.
• Invasion - Gain a Duchy.

• A similar effect although Exiling is not technically gaining:
  • Enclave

Other Interactions

• Duke - Duke is an Alt-VP card whose value is tied directly to the number of Duchies present in your deck.
• Duchess - Before Duchess was removed, in games featuring it, you could opt to gain a Duchess at no cost whenever you gained a Duchy.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		3	Dominion 1st Edition	October 2008
	never implemented	3	Base Cards 1st Edition	June 2012
		3	Dominion 2nd Edition	October 2016
	never implemented	3	Base Cards 2nd Edition	June 2018

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	公國 (pron. gōngguó)
Czech	Vévodství
Dutch	Hertogdom			3	Eerste editie (2008)
	Hertogdom			3	Tweede editie (2017)
Finnish	Pitäjä (lit. parish)
French	Duché
German	Herzogtum			3	(2008)
	Herzogtum			3	(2019)
Greek	Δουκάτο (pron. dhoukato)
Hungarian	Hercegség
Italian	Ducato
Japanese	公領 (pron. kō-ryō)
Korean	공작령 (pron. gongjaglyeong)
Norwegian	Grevskap (lit. county)
Polish	Powiat (lit. district)
Romanian	Ducat
Russian	Герцогство (pron. gyertsogstvo)
Spanish	Ducado			3	First Edition Base (2008)
	Ducado			3	First Edition Intrigue (2009)
	Ducado			3	Second Edition Base (2016)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

(Duchy content borrowed from the Province entry)

As mentioned in the BGN article, we changed this [Province] from 5  to 6  during development, as part of the fix to the Duchy rush. The Duchy rush was, you buy nothing but Silver and Duchies. At the time the game ended when any Victory pile ran out. If one person went for the Duchy rush you could beat them, but if two people did, you had to join them. My friends found this strategy, but it didn't seem like a problem. It was a boring strategy, so the only reason to play it was if you thought it would win for you. It wouldn't though; it would win for someone at random, since we would all follow suit. You could make the game suck but that's it. So we never did it. Well would you believe, being able to make the game suck is not so hot. Furthermore, if you're a new player, the Duchy rush may elevate your chance of winning from zero to even. So it was in fact a problem. An anonymous playtester realized this, Valerie and Dale raised the alarm, and in the end, Province changed from 5  to 6  and the end condition changed from "any empty victory pile" (the end condition we were using at the time, but not the original one, which was "any empty pile") to the one you know.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion Cards