Rio Grande Games: Dominion Big Box 2nd Edition: Strategy Board Game, Comes with Extra Base Cards for 5-6 Players, Compatible with All Dominion Expansions

I'm new to the board game hobby and heard Dominion is one of the classics, and the originator of the deck-builder genre, so I figured I had to try it out.I ordered this big box because it was only 5$ more than the base game and it came with the expansion Intrigue and extra base cards to allow for 5-6 player play; a great deal!The game is as simple as your ABCs. Every player's turn is just : 1 Action, 1 Buy, then Cleanup. You use treasure to buy new cards from the middle shared supply to add to your deck, and at the end of the game, the winner is whoever has the most victory points in their deck. It sounds (and is) super simple to pick up and play, which was super important to me, because I've had to teach it to many friends / family members. The rules are simple, but figuring out the best strategy? Not so much. I have so much fun playing this game and trying to figure out what is the most effective strategy with the cards on the table. And what's even cooler, is that no game will play the same, because you pick 10 kingdom piles to play with out of the 52 (26 from base game, 26 from intrigue) leading to an ever changing modular experience.I've played Magic the Gathering for years, so I expected to like this game because card games and deckbuilding is something I enjoy, however I didn't expect my girlfriend to enjoy it so much as well! The day after the game arrived we tried playing our first games together and ended up playing for 3 hours straight without even realizing! This game is a ton of fun and a staple of the board gaming hobby. Dominion deserves a spot on everyone's shelf!The only downsides I can think of are :- With constant shuffling, cards may get damaged over time (and if sleeved, cards will no longer fit into their organized places in the box)- The box is big (as said in the title) and fairly heavy. I bring it to my friend's houses but you will need both arms to carry!- And finally, the game isn't anything to look at. The cards themselves have pretty dull art and the art style / art direction is a little dated. Going from Mysterium (a solid game with GORGEOUS ART) to this with my family was a bit of a shock. So if pretty pictures is really important to you for enjoying your board games, take that into consideration. Take a look at some of the card art online and judge for yourselfOverall, this game is phenomenal, and its surface simplicity paired with potential depth lends itself to players of all degrees of gaming ability. I 100% recommend, what are you waiting for? Get Dominion! Play games with friends and family!

I played Dominion for the first time about 4 weeks ago and have played probably 25 hands since. I and my friends enjoy the game quite a bit and would recommend it for everyone who enjoys game playing.That said I do not recommend this edition. It's not a terrible edition if you can get it at a good price, but here are a couple thoughts to consider:1) I have played Dominion, Dominion Prosperity and Dominion Intrigue. Dominion and Dominion Prosperity were very enjoyable. Dominion Intrigue not as much. It had a couple of likable cards, but altogether lacked the flow of the basic game and the smoothness of Prosperity.2) This Edition offers 100 extra base cards to provide for 6 player play. I'm not sure of the exact overall distribution of those 100 cards but six of them are Province cards and none of them are Duchy cards. This does not work out well since it results in 12 Duchy cards and 18 Province cards when the Duke card in Intrigue (for example) relies on duchies. I think the extra Platinum and Colony cards in Prosperity work better to support at least five players comfortably.3) The interior construction of this box stores all of the cards vertically rather than horizontally to conserve space. This results in the cards standing in the card tray less distinctly from one another than with other Dominion editions which store the cards horizontally. This makes the cards in this set more difficult to remove and replace quickly.These things said I love the game, but would recommend basic Dominion and a separately boxed expansion such as Prosperity over this big box solution.I am also anxious to try Seaside and Dark Ages!Update:I have updated this post to 4/5 stars as I have learned through more playing that the Intrigue and basic Dominion cards work together much better when mixed rather than using exclusive Intrigue combinations as I first tried.Also, I want to note that there are currently three different sets of base cards for American editions of Dominion:1) the original base cards which use large round symbols of coins for treasure cards2) the updated base cards which are sold in the base card box and have pretty pictures without large coin symbols on treasure cards3) and the second edition base cards which have both the pretty pictures and mid-sized coin symbols on the treasure cardsThe type contained in the second edition sets such as this one are IMO the best looking. Other posters on Amazon or a Google search can be checked for images. I just want to mention this because since a second edition of Prosperity has not yet been released it is not possible to get a complete set of second edition base cards including Platinum and Colony cards. This might annoy some a bit.Update: Prosperity is now second edition and I was mistaken about the need for more duchies. 12 is proper, even for 5-6 players. Dominion has now become my and my friends favorite game. This is an excellent edition and the best one to start with! It is still slightly annoying that the cards rest vertically in this box (because they fan out more than in horizontally positioning boxes), but now that I have all the sets I use my own custom box anyway. 5 stars!

I picked this up when I was looking for more base game cards for my set of Dominion and saw that this box came with the first expansion and all the cards you would need for the same price as Intrigue anyway.I already played Dominion a bunch by the time I had bought this. The game is easy to learn and really quick to pick up, play and put away. You can get a few games in in the time it would take most other board games.Rating: 10/10 Base game 8.5/10 IntrigueI love Dominion and Intrigue is a really good first expansion(my other favorites being Empires or Prosperity.)Dominion is a deck building game where you make a deck as you play to combo things together on your turn to get enough money to buy the best Victory Point cards. Plenty of strategy and replayability abound.Intrigue adds cards that have multiple options as you play them and feature Victory cards that can do more than just sit there and give you points. I really like that it features cards from the base game with some sort of downside but are cheaper and don't really feel like a bad card.Overall, if you are looking at getting into the game or have the first edition and was looking at maybe getting the second edition I highly recommend this box!