Dominion Second Edition

I enjoy playing Eurogames, and Dominion has become a favorite of mine. It's simple to learn, but has great variety and subtlety. If you enjoy it too, and have or are thinking about buying a copy, you might not have heard about the recent upgrade to a second edition.

The new edition is for the base game and for Intrigue - none of the other expansions are affected. The change involves replacing half-a-dozen cards in each of the two sets. If you're buying a new copy of the base set or Intrigue, I'd advise checking the edition you're getting. From my limited play the second edition is certainly an improvement, so get that.

If you already have the base game or Intrigue, then you can buy update packs. These are around $12 each (as I write this) and contain all the new cards, plus a new organizer strip so you can remove the deprecated cards from your box and slot the new ones in. (I've moved the decpreated cards to the boxes that the new ones came in. I won't throw them away, but I doubt if I'll play with them again.) The update packs will only be around for a while, until they feel most folks have upgraded, so I'd suggest grabbing them soon.

The new Intrigue is packaged as an expansion only, there's no base cards (treasure, provinces, etc) in there. If you want another set of base cards (some people like them to play with more players), then you can get the base cards alone.

For Amazon buyers, here's the links to the new material

• Base game, second edition
• Intrigue, second edition
• Base game, update
• Intrigue, update

For more background, designer Donald X. Vaccarino has written a short “secret history” post explaining the background to the changes. The dominion strategy wiki has pages listing the card changes (base | Intrigue).

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