A deck building game like "Dominion" which you become the ruler of the space empire and aim for the highest score. My husband and I are quite fond of this work. I used to do it every day for a while.
Overview
I have my own deck. Draw 5 cards from there and that's your hand.
There are two things to do on your turn. "Action" and "Mission".
In "Action", only one card from your hand is used to act.
Most effects are weaker than the "missions" described below.
"Mission" is to draw one from five types of cards placed in a common place and act.
At that time, if you have the same cards in your hand, you can put them out at the same time to enhance the effect, so the effect is stronger than in "action".
However, "Mission" allows other players to play cards if they have the same card in their hand.
They can piggyback on the same mission.
Players who do not piggyback draw one card.
The card used for piggybacking can be replenished immediately.
So basically, there is no loss from piggybacking.
After resolving the effect of the mission, discard the cards drawn from the common field this turn, the cards added from your hand, and the unnecessary cards in your hand to your own card dump. Then draw until you have 5 cards in your hand and the turn is over.
When the deck runs out, shuffle the discard pile to make a new deck.
So, like Dominion, you have to optimize your deck according to your strategy, and if you want to piggyback on other players, you have to consider your opponent's deck composition.
Although the game claims to be a space emperor, there are no battles between players.
Win or lose is decided by the victory points.
There are two main ways to earn victory points.
① Get the planet card and get the victory points of the planet itself
② Produce resources on the planet card and exchange them for victory points
The game ends when one(2players) or two decks in the common field are exhausted. Alternatively, the game ends when there are no more victory points in stock to exchange for resources on the planet.
As a military specialized type, we will use force to acquire planets.
As a settlement-specialized type, while getting a planet, you will also get victory points in production trade.
As a production & trade specialized type, stop getting stars at a reasonable place and earn VP in trade.
I feel that there are many winners in those three pattern
Final thoughts
"Eminent Domain" is a game in which interaction with other players is created in the piggybacking part of the mission.
What is particularly interesting to us is the piggybacking of the "survey" mission.
"Survey" missions can draw planet cards from the deck. (The drawn planets will not be scored unless they are activated by "military" or "settlement".)
If you don't explore, nothing will start, but if possible, everyone wants to use their turn for other things, so there are many situations where everyone waits and sees, "Who will explore?"
However, in the survey mission, players other than the active player can only draw planet cards that are "the number of cards played minus one". Therefore, a player who has only 0 to 1 card in his hand will not be able to participate in the survey and will be left behind.
This "I'm not ready for the spaceship yet!" Situation is very nice. funny.
”What!?”
In addition, the planet cards discovered by the survey spacecraft also have their own personality.
Planets that increase your hand by one,
Planets with double production bases,
Military strategy, settlement strategy, production and trade strategy, planets that are very useful for each,
The planets themselves have high scores, but there are no special effects, so planets that don't need an early stage … etc.
What you draw is the realm of luck.
However, if you play a lot of survey cards, you can draw a lot of planet cards, and you can choose one from them, so get a planet suitable for your strategy and stabilize the direction of development.
But for example when you piggyback on two cards and get only one planet card, you are in the realm of luck 100%.
In that situation
when you find the planet you want
"Wow! A great pilot was on my suevey spacecraft ♪"
When you spend 4 cards and draw only scrap cards
"My survey team is too useless!"
Various dramas are born.
It's a lot of fun to do while imagining the situations of the game.
Some planets are powerful planets that will always have one surevey card, military card, etc.
The difference between the planets you got and the special cards you can get by "Research Mission" will make a difference for each game.
The game ends when the 1 deck or 2 decks of the cards in the field are exhausted, so if there is a player who draws the same card with the same strategy, it will end immediately.
In many cases, two players can finish it in 30 minutes.
Easy to play is one of the reasons why it is so popular with us.
You can't piggyback on other players, and even if you take a different strategy by yourself, you can sometimes win.
There are various patterns and it is a very interesting game.
It feels great when we can shift from activation of planets to production & trade at the right time.
It's a sober component, and I didn't have an environment to try it out, so I wasn't sure when to buy it, but I'm glad I tried it.