Dominion: Intrigue - First Impressions

I got dominion for a christmas gift last year and have enjoyed it quite a bit, however, I do have two major complaints.

 1: the artwork is disappointing, especially compared to a lot of games coming out these days where good game art is a major component of the production. I am personally willing to pay the extra 5-10 bucks for my game to be aesthetically pleasing to play. Sure, many classic games are nothing special to look at, but on the same note, new games should give me a reason to buy them over the classics, right? Some may consider this a minor issue anyways.

2: There is a distinct lack of player interaction. The Darkster's brother said while playing dominion that it was a game where every turn was like running off an awesome combo in Magic, without the in between. Problem is, it seems like during your opponents turns you're just sitting around waiting for your own, essentially playing solo. Of course the opponents' plays needed to be considered for ones own strategies, but only in the big picture, not on a turn by turn basis.

After some searching the internet I found others had similar complaints, and most notably, Rio Grande (the game developers) had responded to the latter with the first expansion, Dominion: Intrigue.

This game is actually a stand alone game which can be combined with the base game to allow for 5 or 6 player games (hear that, 5 guys), essentially doubling the size of dominion for a grand total of 50C10 = 10^10 possible different games.

Being a stand alone game, however, it isn't as focused on player interactions as I thought it might be, adding only 4 attack cards to the game. What it does add, however is another response in the form of the secret chamber. Here, as opposed to completely denying the attacks on you for the whole round, it merely allows you to adjust your hand before the attack resolves. I like this a lot and hope to include it in many games as an alternative to the moat.







We also receive some non-attack cards that affect the other players in the game such as the masquerade and tribute. Being specifically not attack cards means they cannot be moated, interesting...

Overall I like what I see, and need to get a few more games in to fully appreciate the new stuff (yes, that is an invitation). I don't feel that my concerns were immediately addressed though. The new player interaction seems a bit gimmicky, as opposed to actually game relevant, but of course time will tell on that one. As for the art, it seems like this game has a few different artists, as some cards have beautiful art (see great hall above), and some have worse art than the base game did!

Right now my favorite card is the shanty town. I feel that it addresses the problems I was having with the village in a perfect way and will probably be vouching for its inclusion in coming games.