Dominion is a medieval theme strategic card game where you collect and refine a hand of cards to build the most powerful kingdom. The goal is to gain the most victory points and to avoid curses. It stands out for the wide variety of strategies and play mechanics on offer with just a small(ish) deck of cards.

After setting out the special Kingdom, Victory and Treasure cards in the middle. You choose which Kingdom cards to use either via a personal preference or by picking a set from the rule book.

You start with 20 basic cards in your deck and 5 in your hand. Each turn you do three things. Use Action cards to do things like drawing more cards, discarding weaker cards or attacking other players. Spend your Treasure cards to gain more Action and Treasure cards to add to your deck. Finally, you discard any remaining cards and draw 5 more from your deck.

To begin with, you can't do very much but as you cycle through your deck the cards you buy start to turn up and you progress your kingdom. This new card enables you to do things like draw more cards into your hand, make multiple actions, make multiple purchases or take attacking actions. The game finishes when three of the action card decks or the provinces deck have been used up. You then count up your points and the player with the most points wins.

The result is a highly strategic card game where you need to balance gaining Victory cards against gaining Action cards. The combination and interactions of the Action cards make the game different each time you play, and deep tactics develop.