Dominate

Dominate
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Empires
Illustrator(s)	Martin Hoffmann
Event text
Gain a Province. If you do, +9 .

Dominate is an Event from Empires. It gives the player a Province plus 9   tokens, for a total of 15 . It has the most expensive cost of any card or Event in the game, and can be thought of as the next step up on the basic Victory card chain from Colony.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• This does nothing once the Province pile is empty.

Other rules clarifications

• If you exchange the Province with a Silver or a Changeling, you still get +9 . But if you Possess a player and make them buy Dominate, no one gets +9 .

Strategy

Dominate is a powerful source of alt-VP with very good efficiency and density (i.e. a large amount of   scored compared to Buys used, spent, and number of stop cards added to your deck). Although Dominate relies on the Province pile, it is similar in effect to Colonies: there is a higher density and larger total amount of   available, and its presence tends to require and reward additional building. In order to buy Dominate, you need a deck with both strong draw and strong payload, likely in the form of an engine; in some Kingdoms, building one may not be possible, and so buying Dominate may not be feasible.

The higher density and greater total amount of   available has some important effects. Most crucially, you can easily come from behind using Dominate against an alternative method of scoring. This is because it will generally outscore most other sources of  : two Dominates score as many points as three Colonies and also provide more   than the complete pile of Duchies.

Dominate relies on the Province pile, so it behaves differently from typical alt-VP strategies. In particular, you can sometimes opt to buy two or more Provinces instead of Dominate; while this may be a less efficient way to score, it brings the end of the game much closer and helps you threaten to conclude it. By the same token, if buying Dominate would allow an opponent who has also been buying Dominate to simply buy out the remaining Provinces and win, you may be in a potential Duchy dancing situation. Conversely, unlike a scoring strategy that relies solely on Provinces, Dominate provides over half of its   in VP tokens, so you can potentially trash the Province and still keep a significant amount of  . This is most relevant with trash-for-benefit cards like Salvager or Apprentice, which can trash a Province to help you get your next Dominate. Milling effects via Remodel variants can also be useful.

There are several interactions that arise because Dominate is an Event rather than a Victory card. On the negative side, cost reduction (such as that of Highway) does not reduce the cost of Dominate. On the other hand, buying Dominate does not entail buying a card, which negates attacks such as Haunted Woods and allows you to sidestep the drawbacks of Mission.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain a Province. If you do, +9 .	Empires	June 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Overheersing			Pak een Provincie. Die je dat, +9	(2016)
Finnish	Nöyryytys (lit. humiliation)
French	Domination			Recevez une Province. Dans ce cas, +9 .
German	Beherrschen			Nimm eine Provinz. Wenn du das tust: +9 -Marker	(2016)
German	Beherrschen			Nimm eine Provinz. Wenn du das tust, +9 .	2. Edition  (2021)
Japanese	制圧 (pron. seiatsu)			属州1枚を獲得する。獲得した場合、+9 。
Polish	Dominacja			Dodaj Prowincję. Jeśli to zrobiłeś +9 .	(2017)
Russian	Господство (pron. gospodstvo)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Dominate is like a new Victory card above Colony - for 15 . But instead of a pile, it's just this Event; and you use Provinces for the Victory card, so buying Provinces also runs out the Dominates.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Empires Previews #5: Events

Secret History

This never changed. Which is funny for an Event costing . The idea was to have a next step after Colony, and I could simulate it with an Event rather than spend 12 cards on it.

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

Why does Dominate have "if you did?"

Multiple cards say "if you did" in order to make sure you can't endlessly make   with them (except with rarer combos). With Dominate I just automatically matched the other cards. I never sat down and thought "can I cut those words here since emptying the Provinces ends the game, or what." Trader aside, I do like that buying Provinces eats up Dominates, one to one.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominate and Possession