Dominion brings together some of the best elements of gaming and makes them collectively great. There's no board—just cards, from which players construct personal decks piece-by-piece in order to collect the most victory points. Some cards represent coin values, some are simply point cards, some allow actions, and others help you collect more cards.
This is almost entirely a logic-based game. The only element of chance is not knowing which of your own cards you'll turn up on a given turn, though this typically won't alter gameplay too much. One of the great things about the Dominion games is that there are multiple successful strategies, and exploring each of them makes the replay value extremely high.
Currently there are eight expansions in addition to the original game, each containing 14-26 card types. There are plenty of possible variations with the original set alone; with the expansions, variations become innumerable. Gameplay is challenging but not overly complicated, and the challenge lies in building an effective deck rather than navigating a poorly translated rule book.
If we seem overly enthusiastic about this series, don't worry—this is legitimately one of the best games ever made. It's almost as awesome as the movie Labyrinth, which may not seem like high praise until you stop to remember that Labyrinth is the greatest movie ever made, which in turn makes Dominion pretty ridiculously cool. Sure, playing games like this makes you a geek, but playing Dominion at least makes you a cool geek.
NOTE: Only the Dominion base game is independent and contains all the instructions and basic cards needed to play the game. The expansions are just expansions, and can only be played in conjunction with the original Dominion game or with the base card set.
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