“Play is the highest form of research.” – Neville Scarfe
With several articles under my belt in my new Command School series, I think it is time to branch out. Today I have for you a prototype test of a sub-series I am calling Commander’s Assessment. In part a review, my aim for these posts is to talk more broadly about strategy and tactics by narrowing the focus to a single game. Board games and card games will be of course on the table, and not necessarily just statecraft games either. I may even dip my toe into talking about miniature wargaming by covering some Bolt Action, Star Wars: Legion, or Warhammer 40k.
In December of 2017, our own Editor-in-Chief Wayne Basta reviewed one of my new favoured games: Dominion. I first played the exceptionally popular Dominion a few years ago, but have only recently picked up a copy for my gamer-abode. It has quickly become a staple choice and the subject of much strategic and tactical thinking on my part. As such, I could think of no better game to discuss today.
My Take
Honestly, I can’t believe I missed out on all these years I could’ve been playing Dominion. It’s a deck building game. Perhaps it’s the deck building game. This is a game that is simple to learn but challenging to master and, with a play time of roughly half an hour, one that you can play several times in one night. Most of all, I love how important it is in Dominion to combine short term thinking (what card[s] do I get now?) and long term thinking (how am I going to win the game?) to winning the game. In fact, I very nearly used Dominion as the example for my first post in this series devoted to strategy vs tactics.
For a more extensive review, please check out Wayne’s original take on the game. You can also find another solid review here from The Thoughtful Gamer.
Lessons to be Learned
As alluded to earlier, I nearly used Dominion as my example for the first post in Command School. This is because, despite its simplicity, the game provides ample opportunities for strategic and tactical decision making. Taking the lens of two of my previous posts, allow me to demonstrate.
Schwerpunkt
Dominion is not a long game. It is over in tens of rounds and tens of minutes. Understanding your point of focus, and shifting it exactly when appropriate, is key to winning the game. Ultimately, you win by having more victory points than your opponent(s). That could mean you having more than them, or them having less than you. But pursuit of victory points cards weakens your deck, adding cards that are useless until the end of the game.
All this means is one must have a clear vision of what to pursue when, starting from building the engine of your deck and switching at the right time to acquiring victory point cards to set up for victory. Do you invest time in attacking your opponent(s) at the opportunity cost of pursuing a true schwerpunkt? Decisions, decisions.
Courses of Action
Dominion and its many expansions make for a supremely customizable experience. The mix of kingdom cards selected, or randomly determined, during set up promotes thinking about just how the available cards could drive a successful deck. Do you want to get fancy with card interactions, or play more brute force? How about attacking your opponent? If there are any attack cards, are they worth it? Can their other effects be linked to your course of action, or do they present a serious opportunity cost?
How many options are available to you will vary based on what kingdom cards are available. That said, you generally should have at least two courses of action: what immediately occurs to you and the old standby of “Big Money”.
Above is a picture of my deck after winning a game with just the basic Second Edition box. As an exercise to the reader, I challenge you to reverse engineer my strategy and what tactical choices I likely made along the way.
Christopher Hunt
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