First Game

Recommended set from Dominion

First Game is a recommended set using only cards from the Base set. It is the first recommended set of 10 contained within Dominion, and is designed as an introductory game to demonstrate the basic card types and to allow new players to explore some of the most basic strategies available in Dominion, most notably simple engines and Big Money-style tactics.

Cards

Cellar

Main article: Cellar

A card costing that acts as a sifter, replacing cards you do not want in your hand with an equal number of cards from the top of your deck.

Market

Main article: Market

A card costing that is a cantrip (meaning that it gives +1 Card/+1 Action and does not prevent you from drawing or playing other action cards) which also gives you + and +1 Buy - a little bit of everything.

Merchant

Main article: Merchant

A cantrip costing that gives you + if you are able to play a Silver after it in the same turn.

Militia

Main article: Militia

An Attack costing that is a handsize attack, making opponents discard down to three cards in hand. It is also a terminal silver, giving + but no +Action.

Mine

Main article: Mine

A card costing that is a trash for benefit card applying only to Treasures, allowing you to trash your Coppers to gain Silvers and trash your Silvers to gain Golds, gaining the upgraded treasures directly to your hand for immediate use.

Moat

Main article: Moat

A dual-purpose Reaction card costing : when played, it gives +2 Cards, and if it is in your hand when an Attack card is played, then you are immune to the attack.

Remodel

Main article: Remodel

A card costing that is a flexible trash for benefit card which allows you to trash a card from your hand, and gain a card costing up to more, thus improving your deck.

Smithy

Main article: Smithy

A terminal draw card costing which gives +3 Cards, allowing you to obtain an increase in handsize, but not giving any +Action.

Village

Main article: Village

A card costing which gives you +1 card from the deck and +2 actions, allowing you to play more than one terminal action each turn.

Workshop

Main article: Workshop

A card costing which is a gainer, allowing you to gain cards without buying them; though it is limited to cards costing up to .

Strategies

This recommended set is designed to expose the player to some of the key basic strategies available in Dominion, and to facilitate the learning of basic concepts without adding many of the additional complexities that come with other cards in the Base set and in later expansions. In keeping the game relatively simple, it is not typically expected that Curses would feature in games using this set, there is only one Attack, and there are no additional Victory card or Treasure options beyond the standard cards. However, even with this simplicity, this recommended set is an excellent demonstration of the scale of tactical variety which can be deployed in any one game of Dominion.

Big Money

Main article: Big Money

At its simplest, Big Money can be played as follows: buy Province with , buy Gold with -, buy Silver with -, and don't buy anything else. It will not take many Dominion players long to learn that this is a reasonably mediocre and fairly boring strategy, however its key feature is that the possibility of doing it will be present in every single game of Dominion, no matter how many expansions are used or how complex the kingdom is. It therefore provides two key learning opportunities: (i) learning how Big Money be optimised by including complementary Action cards within one's deck and choosing the opportune moment to buy Duchies, and (ii) providing a barometer against which all other strategy ideas can be judged - if it won't beat Big Money, then you should just play Big Money (or better still, develop a strategy that is better still).

In this kingdom, the most likely choices of Action card to buy that will assist with playing a Big Money strategy are:

• Smithy, to facilitate the classic "Smithy - Big Money" strategy by increasing handsize to maximise the chance of hitting ;
• Mine, allowing you to speed up the process of acquiring Silvers and Golds; and
• Cellar, allowing you to bypass Victory cards in your deck (particularly useful if you do not trash your initial Estates,

but most of the other cards can also be incorporated into what is essentially a Big Money deck ({{Card|Merchant will give you money for playing Silver, Remodel may allow you to quickly speed up the endgame etc.).

Cards that it is probably unwise to purchase if attempting a Big Money strategy are:

• Workshop: since this only permits gaining cards up to , the only card you are likely to want within that price band is Silver, but there will come a point where having too many Silvers becomes a hindrance since you would rather be drawing Gold in their place, because in order to buy a Province, four Silvers are required in a hand of five as opposed to three Golds (or two Golds and a Silver);
• Moat, simply because its +2 Cards are not as good as Smithy's +3 Cards (unless your opponent has bought Militia and you can therefore benefit from its defensive ability; and
• Village, whose +1 Card ability simply replaces itself, and so whose real benefit is in its +2 Actions, which are no good to you if you have no other Action cards to play (nobody wants to be a Village idiot!) - but see Engines below for where these will come in handy.

Engine

Main article: Engine