My opponents were Player_1 who owned the game, Player_2, and Player_3. The setup of the game took a few minutes because of the large number of cards that were to be used; Ten stacks of ten action (Kingdom) cards, three piles of treasure cards of differing values, and three more stacks of Victory cards representing the land conquered under your dominion.
The game was described as a deck-building game where each turn the player plays the top five cards from their hand, from which they can play one action card, and then buy one more card. Certain cards will modify the number of times you can play an action or buy, but the order remains the same; flip, action, buy, end turn. A player wins by having the highest number of Victory cards at the end of the game.
Player_2, Player_3, and myself had never played the game before, so the beginning was slow and confusing. After ten or so rounds us newbies had gotten a handle on the game and it began to run smoothly.
My strategy at first was to mimic Player_1 since he had played before and thus likely knew what he was doing. Once I understood the game a bit better, I focused on building my deck in a way that was a balance of both action cards and treasure cards. Once my deck was strong, I focused entirely on buying Victory cards. I noticed that Player_2 was focused on gathering money (treasure cards) while Player_3 gathered mostly action cards.
The game felt as if it went by quickly once it got going, and it was hard to judge where each player ranked. By the end, I was quite uncertain of which player would win. As we counted victory cards, I realized that I was still counting past Player_1 and Player_3. I ended with a total of 32 victory points and Player_2 was counting in the mid-twenties. As he counted to 30 I became nervous, but then he stopped. I had won by two points! Sweet victory was mine!
