How to play Dominion

How to play

Setup: Each player shuffles 7 Coppers and 3 Estates face down as their own deck and draws 5 cards as a first hand. Lay out the Supply: Copper, Silver and Gold; Estate, Duchy and Province (8 each with two players, 12 with three or four); Curses (10, 20 or 30 for two, three or four players); and 10 Kingdom piles of 10 cards (a Victory card such as Gardens uses 8 or 12, like the other Victory piles). For a first game the rulebook suggests Cellar, Market, Merchant, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village and Workshop. Later, shuffle the blue-backed randomizer cards and turn over 10. Put the Trash mat nearby.

Action phase: Your turn has three phases: Action, Buy and Clean-up. In the Action phase you may play one Action card and follow it from top to bottom. A card that gives +Actions lets you play more Action cards once it's finished; +Cards draws from your deck; +Buy and extra coins help in the Buy phase. Attacks hurt the other players, and a Reaction such as Moat can be revealed from your hand to ignore one.

Buy phase: Play any Treasures you like from your hand and add up your coins, plus any coins your Actions gave you. Then buy one card from the Supply costing that much or less, or more than one if you have +Buy. A bought card goes to your discard pile, not your hand, so you'll first see it after your next shuffle.

Clean-up: Discard every card you played and any left in your hand, then draw 5 new cards. Whenever your deck runs out, shuffle your discard pile to make a new one.

Trashing: When a card tells you to trash a card, put it on the Trash mat. It's out of your deck for good, which is how you get rid of weak Coppers, Estates and Curses.

Victory points: An Estate costs 2 and is worth 1 point, a Duchy costs 5 for 3 points, and a Province costs 8 for 6 points. Each Curse is worth −1, and Gardens is worth 1 point for every 10 cards you own. Victory cards do nothing in your hand, so each one you buy slows your deck down.

End of the game: The game ends after the turn in which the Province pile runs out or any three Supply piles are empty. Everyone counts the points in all their cards. Most points wins; if tied, whoever took fewer turns wins, and otherwise the win is shared.

Strategy

Quality over size: Every card you add waters down the rest of your deck. Early on, favour cards that improve every future hand: Silver, strong Actions, and trashers such as Chapel, which can clear out Coppers and Estates so your best cards come round more often. Plan your opening: Your first two hands always add up to 7 coins, split 5 and 2 or 4 and 3. Decide before the game what you'd buy with each split, because those two cards shape the next several turns. Know the money baseline: The simplest plan buys Gold with 6 or 7 coins, a Province with 8 and Silver otherwise, perhaps adding one or two draw cards such as Smithy. It's stronger than it looks, so treat it as the bar any fancier plan has to beat. Engines: Villages give extra Actions, draw cards like Smithy, Laboratory or Council Room fill your hand, and +Buy cards such as Market or Festival let you buy several cards in one turn. Put them together and a single turn can buy two Provinces. The risk is drawing two terminal Actions, ones with no +Action, together: you can play only one of them. Engines also take a few turns to build, so they need a Kingdom with the right pieces. Read the Kingdom first: Before your first buy, ask what's on offer. Is there a village, strong draw, +Buy, trashing, an attack, a way to defend? A Kingdom with Witch and no trashing rewards whoever gets Witches first; one with Gardens and Workshop opens up a plan built on having lots of cheap cards. Attacks: Militia makes everyone else discard down to 3 cards, Witch hands out Curses, and Bandit gains you a Gold while trashing opponents' better Treasures. Moat blocks an attack when revealed. When harsh attacks are out, either use them yourself or build a deck that shrugs them off. When to buy green: Victory cards clog your deck, so buying them too early stalls you. Start buying Provinces once your deck can reach 8 coins reliably, and switch to Duchies when the Provinces are running low. Keep an eye on the other piles too, since three empty piles end the game just as surely.

Tips

- Your first two hands always total 7 coins, split 5/2 or 4/3, so plan both opening buys together. - A bought card goes to your discard pile, so you won't see it until your next shuffle. - Without a +Action card you can play only one Action a turn, so don't fill your deck with terminal Actions. - Trashing starting Coppers and Estates makes your good cards turn up more often. - If Witch is in the Kingdom, get one early or have a way to trash Curses. - In money-heavy games, buy Gold with 6 or 7 coins and a Province with 8. - Three empty Supply piles end the game as surely as the last Province, so watch the small piles. - Keep a Moat in mind when attacks are out: revealing it lets you ignore the attack.

Player count & time

2–4 players in about 30 minutes. Two-player games use 8 of each Victory card and 10 Curses, so they're quick and direct; with three or four, attacks hit more players and piles run out faster. For 5 or 6 players you need extra basic cards (from the Base Cards set, the Big Box or a second copy), 15 or 18 Provinces and more Curses, and the game ends when four piles are empty.

The vast expansion library

There are 16 expansions, from Intrigue (2009) to Rising Sun (2024), and Rio Grande Games announced another, Arcana, in 2026. Good next steps are Intrigue, with cards that offer choices and more interaction (its second edition needs the base game, since it no longer includes the basic cards); Seaside, which adds Duration cards that keep working on your next turn; and Prosperity, which adds Platinum and Colony for bigger, richer games. Every expansion mixes with the base game, and the rulebook includes recommended Kingdoms that combine them.

Kingdom selection

Any 10 Kingdom cards make a playable game. For variety, shuffle the 26 blue-backed randomizer cards and turn over 10. For your first game, use the rulebook's First Game set (Cellar, Market, Merchant, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Workshop), then try its other sets, such as Size Distortion, Deck Top and Improvements, which are picked to show off particular card interactions.

Common beginner mistake

Buying lots of different Actions that don't work together, especially many terminal Actions (ones without +Action) and no villages. When several terminals land in the same hand you can play only one, and the rest are dead cards. Pick a few cards that combine well, and keep buying Silver and Gold as well.