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Official Dominion Rules
Dominion is a deck-building game where you acquire powerful cards throughout the game to ultimately build a strong deck that allows you to score the most victory points. Here's a breakdown of the rules:
Objective
This is a game of building a deck of cards. Your deck is your Dominion. It contains your resources, victory points, and things you can do. It starts out a small sad collection of Estates and Coppers, but you hope by the end of the game it will be brimming with Gold, Provinces, and the Inhabitants and Structures of your castles and kingdoms.
The Player with the most victory points in his deck at game end is the winner!
Setup
1. Shuffle the Kingdom deck (all the different types of Kingdom cards) and reveal ten cards from the top, placing them face up in the center of the table in a row. These are the available Supply piles.
2. Shuffle the Treasure deck (Copper, Silver, and Gold) and set aside a specific number of Treasure cards face down (usually based on the number of players) to form the Treasure pile. Do the same for the Victory deck (Estates, Duchies, and Provinces). Leave the Curse deck face down for now (it might not be used in every game).
3. Each player takes a starting deck of seven cards (usually three Estates and four Coppers). Shuffle your deck well and draw five cards to form your starting hand.
Gameplay
The game is divided into turns, and each turn consists of three phases:
Action Phase: You can play as many Action cards from your hand as you want, one at a time, following the instructions on each card. These cards might allow you to draw more cards, gain buying power, attack other players, or manipulate your deck in various ways.
Buy Phase: You can use the coins you gained from playing Treasure cards to buy cards from the available Supply piles. You can only buy one card per turn, and the cost is listed on each card. Once you buy a card, discard it along with any cards played during the Action phase to your discard pile.
Clean Up Phase: Discard your hand and your entire deck into your discard pile. Shuffle your discard pile to form your new deck, and then draw five cards to form your new hand for the next turn.
Winning the Game
The game ends when either:
The Provinces pile is empty.
Three or more Supply piles (including the Treasure or Victory piles) are empty.
Once the game ends, all players reveal their discard piles and count up their victory points from all the Victory cards they have acquired throughout the game. The player with the most victory points wins the game!
Notes/Variations
Some Kingdom cards have special abilities that can affect other players, trash cards (remove them from the game entirely), or provide ongoing benefits.
You can't save unused buying power from one turn to the next.
There are many Dominion expansions available, each introducing new Kingdom cards with unique abilities, so the game can offer high replayability.
Tips:
Pay attention to the available Kingdom cards and consider how they can work together to build a strong deck.
Don't neglect acquiring Victory points throughout the game. While some Action cards can be powerful, ultimately, victory points win the game.
Be mindful of gaining Curse cards, as they give negative points.
Dominion is a fun and strategic game that can be enjoyed by players of all experience levels. Have fun building your deck and vying for dominion!
