Project

Piazza, a Project.

Projects, introduced in Renaissance, are permanent, buyable effects not attached to cards. Players can buy Projects during their Buy phase whenever they might instead buy a card or Event; if a player buys a Project, its bonus or special effect is activated for them for the rest of the game. When a player buys a Project, they put a wooden cube of their color on it, to track which Projects' effects they receive. Each player has only two cubes to put on Projects.

Projects are not Kingdom cards; including one or more Projects in a game does not count toward the 10 Kingdom card piles the Supply includes. In fact, Projects are not considered "cards" at all; any text referring to a "card" does not apply to Projects. However, the Project effects and costs are printed on cards in a landscape orientation with pink frames.

There are 20 Projects, any number of which may be used in a game of Dominion, though Donald X. recommends not using more than two total Projects, Events, Landmarks, Ways and Traits. When choosing a random Kingdom, the Projects may be shuffled into the randomizer deck or a separate sideways card deck.

List of Projects

• Cathedral, City Gate, Pageant, Sewers, Star Chart
• Exploration, Fair, Silos, Sinister Plot
• Academy, Capitalism, Fleet, Guildhall, Piazza, Road Network
• Barracks, Crop Rotation, Innovation
• Canal
• Citadel
   

Official Rules

• Project cards are abilities that players may buy.
• You buy a Project in your Buy phase; it uses up a Buy, and costs a certain amount of , indicated on each Project in the corner.
• When buying a Project, place one of your cubes on it.
• For the rest of the game, you have that ability.
• For example when Fair is in the game, you can pay to put a cube on it; then for the rest of the game you will get +1 Buy on each of your turns.
• Normally there should be no more than two Projects in a game. If there are more, you still only get to place two cubes.
• You cannot place two cubes on the same Project.
• You cannot remove a cube from a Project once you have placed it.
• Any number of players can have the same Project ability at once.
• Paying for a Project is not "buying a card"; it is not made cheaper by cards like Inventor, and does not matter for cards like Exploration.
• You cannot pay for a Project while you have debt (from Empires).

Card gallery

Trivia

In other languages

• German: Projekt

Preview

Projects are abilities everyone can have. They go in your randomizer deck or special sideways deck, like Events and Landmarks. You only play with 2 max between these and Events and Landmarks, unless you prefer to have more, I can't stop you. Each player gets two wooden cubes, that's right we've at last moved into wood, and if you buy a Project - using a buy in your Buy phase - you put one of your unused cubes on it and then have that ability for the rest of the game. You only get two cubes, even if you preferred having more than two Projects out at once. Everyone can put a cube on the same Project, there's room for all. There are twenty Projects.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Renaissance Previews #5: Fair, Silos, Citadel, Star Chart, Sewers, Innovation

Secret History

Initially I did two things with States: I had ones that one player could have, and ones that every player got a copy of. The ones that every player got could turn over; one side would have a rule that let you upgrade it. We liked these a lot. The other two-sided States, they were good times, but did not go well with the idea of a simpler expansion. Here, read this extra card, now turn it over. They turned into Projects: you pay to put a cube on a card, and now you have that ability. This is not only simpler - no second side to read, no text to explain how to upgrade it - it also means only one card per Project, rather than six (for six players) per two-sided State. So I could fit way more of them into the set, hooray.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Renaissance

Why can't you buy the same Project twice?

Originally they were states and each player got a copy. So there was no thought of letting you have two of one then; it would have been 6 more cards per state. When they turned into projects, I just kept them at one per player. But I immediately tried a card that let you place a second token on a project, and it was a dud. In general I like to let people get multiple copies of an ability. It's the same number of rules - people are used to games not letting them have two of the same ability, so you have to spell out that they can. It generates more extreme situations and I like that. It does sometimes limit what you can do - the card phrasings have to all make sense, and it's bad if lots of abilities are now so strong with two copies that you have to cost them for that and then they suck at one copy. Here I didn't really consider it beyond that card. I didn't want to give you more cubes; sure you could have two cubes and be able to go up to two somewhere, but it would have felt like, wouldn't it be more fun to have four cubes. I wanted simplicity; this way I dodged any explanations of "what if you have two of this" (Nefarious didn't get "this twist copies the other twist" because the publisher didn't like the rules questions and phrasing changes that created). But it was not much on my mind.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.