Hinterlands
Hinterlands | |
---|---|
Info | |
Type | Expansion |
Icon | |
Cards | 300 |
266 (26 sets) | |
26 | |
Blank Card(s) |
8 |
Theme(s) | On-buy/gain effects |
Release | October 2011 |
Official Rulebook |
Hinterlands is the 6th Dominion expansion, released in October 2011. The basic theme of the set is cards that either have or cause effects when you buy or gain them. Hinterlands is a popular expansion, offering a nice balance of engine, BM, and alternate VP cards.
Contents |
Contents
Basic Supply Cards
- Hinterlands is only an expansion, so no Basic Supply Cards are included.
Kingdom Cards
Crossroads, Duchess, Fool's Gold
Develop, Oasis, Oracle, Scheme, Tunnel
Jack of all Trades, Noble Brigand, Nomad Camp, Silk Road, Spice Merchant, Trader
Cache, Cartographer, Embassy, Haggler, Highway, Ill-Gotten Gains, Inn, Mandarin, Margrave, Stables
Border Village, Farmland
Additional Materials
- None
Flavor Text
Impact of Hinterlands
Engines
Hinterlands introduced a number of cards which are popular in building engines. Some of these include:
- Scheme - Allows you the ability to top-deck actions played last turn.
- Highway - The Bridge-effect encourages megaturn strategies.
- Crossroads - The card is a cheap source of +Actions.
- Border Village - Allows you to gain both a village and a power card.
- Haggler - Acts as a pseudo +Buy, giving you a cheaper extra card (perhaps a Cantrip or village) to go with your main purchase.
- Cartographer - A Cantrip which allows you to sift through your deck to ensure you hit your key cards.
- Inn - A village which is particularly good when much of the deck is discarded, to play multiple actions in the same turn.
Big Money
The expansion offered three cards which are relatively effective for BM strategies.
- Jack of all Trades is a solid BM card because of its ability to both gain Silver and trash your starting Estates or Curses.
- Embassy offers a combination of both large draw and sifting ability.
- Oracle offers weak draw, but offsets that somewhat with its attack and sifting ability.
Rushes
Hinterlands has two cards which will often lead to rush strategies.
- Silk Road - An easy rush option with Workshop or Ironworks. The card gains a lot of power with the presence of cheap alternate VP such as Tunnel or Great Hall.
- Ill-Gotten Gains - Another popular rush target, finishing off the IGG's will typically empty the Curse pile at the same time. Gardens or Duchy are typically the third pile to be finished in these rushes.
Silver
There seems to be a consensus in the Dominion community that Hinterlands increased the importance of Silver relative to the other expansions.
- Jack of all Trades - Displayed the power of gaining silver for simple BM strategies.
- Trader - Showed the potential of flooding one's deck with Silver.
- Silk Road - A way to easily gain Silver is often all that is needed to enable a Silk Road rush.
"Fixes"
Hinterlands introduced cards that can, in a broad sense, be considered "better" versions of earlier cards - that is, an attempt was made to "fix" what seemed to be problems with the original cards.
- Noble Brigand - A "better" Thief, since it doesn't trash Copper (and in fact distributes them), and gives - however, it cannot gain more exotic Treasures
- Spice Merchant - A "better" Moneylender, it is more flexible, both in what it can trash, and what it does after trashing, though it does not field as much
- Cartographer - A "better" Scout, it discards from your deck instead of drawing Victory cards, and also draws a card, though it costs more
- Highway - A "better" Bridge, it brings costs down much more easily given its cantrip nature (and thus is much better for tricks requiring cost-reduction), but is more expensive and does not give +Buy
Hinterlands Theme
Game designer Donald X. offered some insight into some themes of the set here.
- 9 Effects when gained/bought: Noble Brigand, Nomad Camp, Cache, Embassy, Ill-Gotten Gains, Inn, Mandarin, Border Village, Farmland
- 4 Other interaction with gain/buy: Duchess, Fool's Gold, Trader, Haggler
- 7 Victory/Treasure/Reaction: Fool's Gold, Tunnel, Silk Road, Trader, Cache, Ill-Gotten Gains, Farmland
- 4 Interact with Victory cards: Crossroads, Duchess, Fool's Gold, Silk Road
- 8 Card filtering: Oasis, Oracle, Jack of all Trades, Cartographer, Embassy, Inn, Margrave, Stables
Trivia
Secret History
When I showed the game to RGG, I had five expansions. During development of the main game, I briefly tried out the expansions in 16-card versions. As part of doing this, I split up the second expansion into two expansions - one for the next turn theme, another for the right now theme. Both themes seemed good enough to support an expansion. Later, when I turned everything back into 20-card expansions (which became 25 during work on Intrigue), I kept those two themes separated. The next turn theme came out as the actual second expansion, Seaside, and now finally we have come to the when-you-gain-this expansion.
A few of these cards date back to 2006, and the original expansion with both themes. More are from when I split up the themes, then more got added to get back up to 25, and of course some cards are more recent, due to the usual process of getting rid of duds and trying new things.
For most of its life, this has been an ordinary expansion. For a while there though, I was thinking maybe it would be good to do another standalone. There are various virtures to standalones; someone else can talk them up, as I know there are other people who will argue against them. Anyway it seemed good to me. And so for a bit I focused on trying to make sure the set wasn't as complex as the couple sets before it. It gets some simplicity from the when-gain theme, although some of those cards still look complicated because they need text for both the normal and when-gain abilities. This focus helped protect a few of the simpler cards, and then late in the going Jay decided it would be a normal expansion after all. So the set is 300 cards, with no tokens or anything, and had that extra push towards simplicity, which is nice. And for those of you who were wondering, this is also why the rulebook has an unprecedented number of recommended sets of 10.
Some of you are thinking, simplicity lol. No really; whatever strategic complexity the set has, it does have some simple, easy-to-play cards; it's simpler than Prosperity but more complex than Seaside. You can sit a new player down with Nomad Camp and Crossroads and so forth and while they may not know what they're doing, they won't be confused by their cards.
The when-gain theme was always the focus of the set. A few of the cards are when-buy instead; this was necessary, as I will explain for those cards. I have a few cards that latch onto when-gain from different angles, rather than just doing something when you gain them. And then, when-gain abilities are good fits for victory cards and treasure cards, so the set got three of each. Some of the victory cards died and were replaced by other ones without when-gain abilities, but there are three, see for yourself. With three victory cards and three treasures it seemed cool to have three reactions, and towards the end I managed to squeeze in a third one.
Some of you who are word people or have internet access may note that one meaning of "hinterlands" is, the land behind the coast. So even the flavor is a complement to Seaside.
Recommended Sets of 10
Hinterlands Only
- Introduction - Cache, Crossroads, Develop, Haggler, Jack of all Trades, Margrave, Nomad Camp, Oasis, Spice Merchant, Stables
- Fair Trades - Border Village, Cartographer, Develop, Duchess, Farmland, Ill-Gotten Gains, Noble Brigand, Silk Road, Stables, Trader
- Bargains - Border Village, Cache, Duchess, Fool's Gold, Haggler, Highway, Nomad Camp, Scheme, Spice Merchant, Trader
- Gambits - Cartographer, Crossroads, Embassy, Inn, Jack of all Trades, Mandarin, Nomad Camp, Oasis, Oracle, Tunnel
Hinterlands & Dominion
- Highway Robbery - Cellar, Library, Moneylender, Throne Room, Workshop / Highway, Inn, Margrave, Noble Brigand, Oasis
- Adventures Abroad - Adventurer, Chancellor, Festival, Laboratory, Remodel / Crossroads, Farmland, Fool's Gold, Oracle, Spice Merchant
Hinterlands & Intrigue
- Money for Nothing: Coppersmith, Great Hall, Pawn, Shanty Town, Torturer / Cache, Cartographer, Jack of all Trades, Silk Road, Tunnel
- The Duke's Ball: Conspirator, Duke, Harem, Masquerade, Upgrade / Duchess, Haggler, Inn, Noble Brigand, Scheme
Hinterlands & Seaside
- Travelers: Cutpurse, Island, Lookout, Merchant Ship, Warehouse / Cartographer, Crossroads, Farmland, Silk Road, Stables
- Diplomacy: Ambassador, Bazaar, Caravan, Embargo, Smugglers / Embassy, Farmland, ill-Gotten Gains, Noble Brigand, Trader
Hinterlands & Alchemy
- Schemes and Dreams - Apothecary, Apprentice, Herbalist, Philosopher's Stone, Transmute / Duchess, Fool's Gold, Ill-Gotten Gains, Jack of all Trades, Scheme
- Wine Country - Apprentice, Familiar, Golem, University, Vineyard / Crossroads, Farmland, Haggler, Highway, Nomad Camp
Hinterlands & Prosperity
- Instant Gratification - Bishop, Expand, Hoard, Mint, Watchtower / Farmland, Haggler, Ill-Gotten Gains, Noble Brigand, Trader
- Treasure Trove - Bank, Monument, Royal Seal, Trade Route, Venture / Cache, Develop, Fool's Gold, Ill-Gotten Gains, Mandarin
Hinterlands & Cornucopia
- Blue Harvest - Hamlet, Horn of Plenty, Horse Traders, Jester, Tournament / Fool's Gold, Mandarin, Noble Brigand, Trader, Tunnel
- Traveling Circus - Fairgrounds, Farming Village, Hunting Party, Jester, Menagerie / Border Village, Embassy, Fool's Gold, Nomad Camp, Oasis
Hinterlands & Dark Ages
- Far From Home - Cartographer, Develop, Embassy, Fool's Gold, Haggler / Beggar, Count, Feodum, Marauder, Wandering Minstrel
- Expeditions - Crossroads, Farmland, Highway, Spice Merchant, Tunnel /Altar, Catacombs, Ironmonger, Poor House, Storeroom
Hinterlands on DS.com and F.DS.com
Dominion Strategy Forums
- Hinterlands Speculation
- Staggered Release Discussion
- Full List Leak Discussion
- Three Sentence Overviews.