I am the kind of person that loves games, however I never seem to get anyone else "on board" to play. I sit in front of my computer researching day in and day out for a new one that I can play (geek right). When they arrive I open them up, get the bits organized just so, read the instructions again and again and get ready for the next gaming time, which is very scarce to say the least. Anyway so I get dominion, mainly based on its hype I guess. I was once into playing the card game Magic somewhat, however I didn't really take well to it. So I thought I would give this a try, maybe I would like it. Let me say first this is definitely no magic, different than that. This game is great! I tried it our on my kids, usually this helps me understand the game, but usually I am explaining and explaining and my kids really don't "catch the wave" and I have to force them to play (boy I'm a meany). Not this game. They love to play dominion and they understood it right away. They are 9 and 12. I play my heart out and my kids beat the snot out of me. I started playing on the BSW website and probably have played 50 games, they go pretty quick and I win better than half of them. Then I think I'll try a game on my son and really wear him out. Nope, 3 games in a row I am defeated. Get this, I love every minute of it, even with all the bruises. You really don't know if your winning or not till its all over. It stays tense the whole time. Anyways I can't recommend this game enough. Now I can play a game at home and play it often.

I have never written a review before but this game was worth it.

I buy games about once a year or so so that I can get free shipping. I added this game to the mix as a second thought. Wow! Has it been fun. I have played the game twice so far and have not yet played the other games I bought. My friends who don't play board games very often keep asking me when we are going to play the game again and saying that that was fun.

It is an easy game to learn and teach to others. On my second time of playing, it took me only a few moments to setup and a minute or two to describe how to play and then we were playing.

The game has three phases: Action, Buy, and cleanup. In the action phase, you play one of your action cards which may enable you to pick up more cards, play more action cards, convert cards into other cards, or increase buying power. In the buy phase your use your treasure to buy more cards. And in the cleanup phase, you put all used cards and your entire hand into your discard pile and then grab five new cards from your deck. When the deck runs out your shuffle the discard pile to create your new deck.

Now to make things a little difficult. You are only allowed one action and one buy per turn unless you play an action that gives you more. Because of this, you may have a few good actions in your hand but are only able to play one of them before you discard the others at the end of the turn. Victory point cards add another curve ball to the game. During the game, these cards serve no purpose but to reduce the number of playable cards in your hands. So throughout the game you have to decide when to start buying victory point cards or finding creative ways to get rid of the three victory cards you start with (my little trick). You also find out partway through the game that you have several cheaper cards that keep weakening your hand of only 5 cards, like the 7 coppers you start with which gives you only one treasure each. To upgrade those you use the mine card that converts a copper into a silver worth 2 treasure.

There are some of the basics. I have played it twice and already really enjoy it. I actually enjoy it as much or more than Settlers of Catan (one of my favorites) because it has seems to have a large appeal and is easier to teach and begin play with. It doesn't appear to be a game that someone can consistently win, which is good thing for attracting the nonboardgame fanatics.

So far it appears to be an hour long game instead of half hour as advertised. I bet our games will get faster as we play more though.