Bidmeadman's Besties: February

So many cards!

It's Dominion!

Getting a classic out of the way early in the year, Dominion (Rio Grande Games) is THE deck building game. I haven't met one person who's played this game and not loved it.

Put simply; it's a big box of cards. 500 to be precise. And that's just the base game, there are several expansions as well (but I'll just be sticking to the base game for this post).

It's an easy game to teach:
Everyone starts with the same ten cards - 7 Copper and 3 Estate. The Estate cards are worth victory points at the end of the game and are of no use to start with, but the Copper can be used to buy other cards. Each player shuffles their ten cards to make their own personal draw deck. A turn consists of drawing five cards from the draw deck, using those cards to purchase another card from the centre of the table, discarding the five cards along with the new card, and finally drawing five new cards. Once the draw deck is empty the player then shuffles the discard pile and that becomes the new draw deck, complete with any recently purchased cards. So each time you reshuffle your deck is getting bigger and bigger, filled with more varied and versatile cards.

The cards to purchase consist of Treasure, Victory and Action cards. Victory cards are what you need to win the game; Treasure cards allow you to buy cards during your 'buy' phase; Action cards are used during your 'action' phase and provide the core strategy to a game of Dominion.

There are 25 different decks of Action cards (each deck consists of the same card) and a game is played with a combination of 10 decks. This means there's a whole load of combinations to play with, and loads of variety. The abilities of Action cards allow you to do things like draw more, buy more, steal from other players, make other players discard etc.

It's such a straightforward, simple and pleasing mechanic - shuffle, draw, action, buy, discard, repeat - with plenty of room for strategy. It's really easy to get your head around, which means you can get straight in to buying action cards, playing around with what they do. There's a constant feeling of anticipation, waiting for purchased cards to turn up in your hand to use. There's strategy in trying to figure out the right number of a certain card to have in your deck so the right combination of cards will appear in your hand. Too few and the card won't appear enough; too many and it might clog your deck, stopping other cards from being drawn enough. It's a bit like building a deck for Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon TCG, only with Dominion building the deck is the game.

It's a quick, casual game, and a great gateway game. If you've got a group of gamers - or potential gamers - who just want to get stuck in and not spend loads of time learning rules (what's wrong with them!?) Dominion is perfect. I can teach this game in five minutes, mainly just by taking the first turn and talking through the few steps it entails. And people seem to love it! The folks I game with rarely buy their own copies of games I own, content with playing mine on the occasions that we meet up. But two more copies of Dominion now exist within my gaming circle.

There's no real theme to speak of. There's not a great deal of player interaction.

That's about all I can think to say against it. Even then, those two points don't really amount to much. A stronger theme wouldn't make Dominion more fun for me, it would just be a nice bonus. And although player interaction is minimal depending on the deck combination, it's the sort of game that allows room for interaction outside the game. Great if you want a casual game with room for chatting with drinks and snacks, but still want to plan and play out a strategy. It has a perfect blend of strategy and accessibility.

My wife and I tend to play a lot of games just the two of us, and in my experience I sometimes find games that are designed for 2-? players don't play as well with just two. Dominion is one of the few exceptions I have come across. It's meant for 2-4 players and I think it feels just as great with 2, 3, or 4 players.

So there's my view on Dominion, for what it's worth. I'm interested to know your thoughts and experiences with this game. Do you like it? What expansions have you tried? Is there anything about it you'd change? any favourite cards/strategies? Leave a comment or tweet me.

Let's Work Together

I think I've fallen in love with Samurai Spirit (Antoine Bauza/Funforge). It's such a satisfyingly tough game.

It's a cooperative game in which you each take on the role of samurai defending a village from raiders. Each turn you can Fight, Support or Pass. If you chose to Fight you draw a raider from the deck and then choose whether to attack or defend. Each raider has a numerical value which goes towards filling your battle track. Go beyond the last number on your battle track and you're out of the round and a barricade burns down, meaning the raiders are closer to taking the village. Defending doesn't fill your battle track, but options for defending are limited so making the right decision at the right time is crucial. Each samurai has a unique ability that they can use and also - by Supporting - have other samurai use. It's quite a simplistic overview of the game (there's much more to it than what I've explained) but there are pros and cons to every choice you can make, and your samurai will have to be in complete harmony if you are going to have any chance of saving the village.

I have limited experience with co-op games. I own several - and I love them - but there are loads out there, with all the variety of competitive games. The people I game with tend to be quite competitive, and so cooperative games don't make it to the table that often. One friend whom I often game with won't touch a co-op. If the goal isn't to thrash the other players she's not interested.

I, on the other hand, don't really mind who wins, I just like to have fun (as soon as I wrote that I felt like a massive loser), but I love puzzle solving. I love the race to the goal - especially when it's close - but I don't get disappointed if I don't win.

I love beating the game though. I love working with the other players to figure out the best way to achieve the objective. For me a co-op has to be hard. I've got to go in to it knowing our chances of beating it are slim. I'm slightly masochistic in that sense. As long as I get a sense that it is beatable I will keep coming back for more. There's so much fun and satisfaction in you and your team beating a really challenging game.

I've only had Samurai Spirit for about a week, so maybe it's too early to really know how I feel about it. But I've played a lot of it in that time and it seems to hit that co-op sweet spot for me. I'm not sure how to explain it. Maybe if I just ramble it'll become clear.

Pandemic (Z-Man Games) is a co-op that has loads going for it. The biggest problem I have with Pandemic is me. I guess it's because I'm usually teaching it (and also because I'm a bit of a control freak), but it can feel like a solo game with 4 people just taking it in turns to move the pieces. It's so easy to play the whole game with one person making all the decisions and just telling the others how to move. Maybe it's because - aside from the individual character abilities - there aren't a lot of individual decisions to be made. Everyone can see at any given moment the next step to take. Sometimes there's a few areas that need equal attention and the players need to figure out where to prioritise, but whenever I'm playing it it's usually the same person making those decisions (hint: it's me!)

It's a hard game, but the more I play it the easier it gets to beat. But then that's why the game has the option to play at a harder difficulty. It's still a fantastic game. I've had some great games where it's been a mad panic to get things under control as the diseases spread at an uncontrollable rate. I love the look of it, the components, the game length; I'm not trying to knock it. I'm just exploring what I love about the co-op experience.

Forbidden Island (Gamewright) is another great game with similar mechanics to Pandemic, but unfortunately suffers the same problem with me playing it.

Elder Sign (Fantasy Flight Games) goes the other way. You're working towards the same goal without really working together - if that makes sense. Several turns can go by without input from the other players. Saying that, I like how you can support each other in Elder Sign. If your character is in the same room as the person who's turn it is you have the option to lock in a die for them, at the risk of losing your sanity if it all goes wrong.

Like I said before, Samurai Spirit hits that sweet spot for me. It's (really) tough to beat, but it can be beaten (I've not been bold enough to try the Hard or Heroic set-ups). You have plenty to think about as an individual player but you can support your fellow samurai if and when they need it. And it's finding that balance of when to support and when to fight. When to attack and when to defend. It's a tense and exciting game. When that last farmstead burns down and the village has succumb to the bad guys, it feels like it was my fault for the decisions I made. It makes me want to go again straight away and do better!

So there you go; not necessarily that Samurai Spirit is better than the other games mentioned, just that it balances all my needs for a co-op game so neatly. I also love playing it solo. I've tried a few 3-player set-ups on my own where I'm controlling each samurai and I still found it great fun.

There's still plenty of cooperative games out there that I want to play: Flash Point, Mice and Mystics, Mysterium, Forbidden Desert, Robinson Crusoe... and I'm interested in hearing about your experiences with co-op games. Do you enjoy them? Do you have a favourite? Have you played any from my wishlist? If so, leave a comment or tweet me.