Dominion: Seaside

I'm not going to lie to you. I love Dominion. I love Intrigue. But when I first heard of Seaside, *ahem* when I opened my Intrigue box, I was worried that the designers were pushing too hard, too quickly and were going to quickly exhaust the franchise, and dilute the game play. I could not have been anymore wrong*.

First - Packaging

This is the first true "expansion" to Dominion in the fact that you require one the other two (Dominion or Intrigue) games as you do not receive money card (copper, silver, gold), victory cards, or curse cards (and trust me, you'll need them).

Instead of the various "core cards", you instead get 18-play mats (six of each type of three) for some of the new mechanics in the game. Furthermore, you also receive gold coins (made of actual real metal**), and embargo tokens (made of actual metal**) also used in a new mechanic.

Other than this, the packaging is exactly what you'd expect from a Dominion game - tons of cards, tons of slots to put cards in, and instructions.

Next - New Mechanics

The biggest game changing mechanic is duration which allows you to play a card on your turn that has effects on your next turn as well. For example, it might be something like "Get +1 Action, +1 Copper, and on your next turn +1 card".

The next is the use of playmats. These mats are only used when the cards with the same name end up in the supply (Native Village, Island, and Pirate Ship). Islands allow you to store cards safely out of the game to thin out your deck, while native village lets you build up a hand blindly from the top of your deck and then retrieve it later.

But my favorite is the pirate ship. The pirate ship allows you to accumulate wealth by punishing other players for having coin. Each time you successfully plunder, you get to put one of those shiny gold coins on your pirate ship. And when you think you have enough, you cash out and get bonus copper.

The final new mechanic, I feel worth mentioning, is the embargo. Notice your enemies are buying too much of a card? Want to slow down the game? Just want to make someone cringe at getting an duchy worth 0? If so, then the embargo card is for you. The embargo card gets trashed, you place an embargo token on a supply pile of your choice, and the next person to buy from that pile gets one curse card PER embargo token on it. And trust me - buying a 3-victory point card for five copper and then getting slammed with two curse cards - it hurts.

Finally - the card variety

While Seaside does have the 'standard' "+1 buy, +2 copper, +1 action" cards it also has a new flavour to its cards with a bit more focus on trashing then in the previous two. And somehow surpinsgly, the balance has been kept perfectly. No matter how weak or overpowered a card looks - it has a real solid place in multiple strageties. Imaging stuffing curse cards in your enemies hand while throwing away your own. Or ending up with 4-gold in your hand by turn three or four.

The conclusion

Seaside does great glory to the series. If you're not a fan of Dominion, Seaside is probably not going to change your mind. However, if you're a fan of the game, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

* Not an admission of being wrong.

** Metal is not actual gold.