# Did ya' like Dominion?  Try Thunderstone.



## John Crichton (Jan 24, 2010)

Picked up Thunderstone this week after reading a quickie review on boardgamegeek.com.  It was described as Dominion with better art and a D&D-type theme.  I'd say that's pretty spot on.

Seonaid and I are huge Dominion fans with many games under our belt so the 'build your deck' mechanic was easy to pick up.  In some ways Thunderstone has more strategic choices over the course of the game and in other it's somewhat limited.

Bottom line is that the game is tons of fun.  You take turns either:

1) Visiting the village to level up your heroes and/or buy stuff.
2) Exploring the dungeon to kill monsters for XP & victory points.
3) Chumping your hand for a new one and skipping your turn.

We like the D&D aspect of the game right now and it's still really fresh so Dominion and it's two expansions likely won't be played for a while.  I'd really like to try out Thunderstone with more than 2 players.  I'm sure the experience will be different enough to feel fresh.

Also, it would be criminal for AEG to not already have a few expansions in the pipeline for TS.  I can already see many different things they can add to the game in the way of monsters (bosses!), items, spells and heroes.


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## Crothian (Jan 24, 2010)

Does this mean Dominion is good?  I haven't played it.


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## John Crichton (Jan 24, 2010)

Dominion is excellent!  And it can be played in about an hour.


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## RangerWickett (Jan 24, 2010)

Dominion, Intrigue, and . . . what's the other one? Seaside? Great games, though I really dislike the cards that grant curses. I'll have to recommend Thunderstone to our resident board game guru.


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## weem (Jan 25, 2010)

Crothian said:


> Does this mean Dominion is good?  I haven't played it.




It is indeed, very good 

Gonna have to check this Thunderstone out now - thanks for the share!


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## John Crichton (Jan 27, 2010)

weem said:


> It is indeed, very good
> 
> Gonna have to check this Thunderstone out now - thanks for the share!



No problem.  It's right on theme for a D&D website.


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## Wycen (Jan 27, 2010)

Having read this thread, when one of our game group mentioned he was bringing a copy of Thunderstone to the gang tonight, I took 3 hours off from homework and went and played a game.  Took longer than an hour, but it was our first time.  I only played once, but the rest stayed for at least another game.

I did like it, but in the beginning there are a lot of symbols and numbers to keep track of.  The funny thing is that your first and second hands are almost gauranteed to be very much like Domininion, you know what you have and can only buy a limited amount of stuff.

Going thru the dungeon seemed somehow not exciting.  Maybe just the lack of interaction or limited number of monsters that keep popping up.  

Oh, yeah, the interaction between players is even less than the original Dominion (yes the Intrigue and Seaside expansions increase it).  Only the cleric, to my knowledge affects the other players.  

I'll certainly play it again, but right now my impression is the replayability is not as much as Dominion.  That might change because I know we used a basic setup and some of the monsters weren't in the dungeon.


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## John Crichton (Jan 28, 2010)

Wycen said:


> Going thru the dungeon seemed somehow not exciting.  Maybe just the lack of interaction or limited number of monsters that keep popping up.



Interesting.  I thought the basic setup had a good amount of variation with the critters.  



Wycen said:


> Oh, yeah, the interaction between players is even less than the original Dominion (yes the Intrigue and Seaside expansions increase it).  Only the cleric, to my knowledge affects the other players.



The rogue (2nd LV thief) forces a discard.  I don't have a huge problem with non-direct interaction with the other player(s).  The limited resource pool is enough for me.  I found the amount similar to many setups in Dominion.  But I can totally see if one is looking for more direct conflict how it may be less appealing.



Wycen said:


> I'll certainly play it again, but right now my impression is the replayability is not as much as Dominion.  That might change because I know we used a basic setup and some of the monsters weren't in the dungeon.



Try playing with the non-basic set-up.  Just like Dominion, the combination of certain monsters, village items and heroes can make for a very different experience.  I was surprised at how different our second game was from the first.


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## Wycen (Jan 29, 2010)

It dawns on me that because I saw this thread and what my friend said it may have triggered comparison to Dominion, but it is a different game despite similarities.  Both are fun.

A difference from Dominion which I'm now perceiving, which others might say isn't a difference is deck building.  You are building your deck to win, yes, but more immediately you are building to kill the monsters in the dungeon.  If you go to town, you aren't killing monsters, but you can't kill monsters without better equipment.  I think there were about 3 turns in a row I went without being able to kill a monster because my hand didn't allow it.  This felt like my choice was restricted.  I still had the choice of whatever gear I could buy, but couldn't go romping around the dungeon.  Being a player of Dungeons and Dragon, the RPG, not being able to do that probably irked me more than it would have otherwise.

Again, it has too many symbols on the cards.  I think they could have gotten rid of the strength/weight numbers and it would be fine.

However, I will play it again.


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## arscott (Jan 29, 2010)

Bought it on wednesday, and played three games (2 starting setup, 1 random).

I enjoy it (though, to be fair, I've won every game I played).  Despite what was said above about player interaction, I feel like there's generally more than most games of dominion:  The fact that you can battle a monster, denying other players the chance to do the same, is pretty profound.

I picked up on the symbols pretty quickly, and I think everyone else did too.  I still wish they'd used tokens instead of cards for xp, though--and I wish they'd gone with a box design more like dominion's.


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## John Crichton (Jan 31, 2010)

Wycen said:


> A difference from Dominion which I'm now perceiving, which others might say isn't a difference is deck building.  You are building your deck to win, yes, but more immediately you are building to kill the monsters in the dungeon.  If you go to town, you aren't killing monsters, but you can't kill monsters without better equipment.



It's worth noting that each of the level 3 heroes in each pile (2/pile) is worth 2 VPs.  That's 16 VPs up for grabs if you level up a character twice.  I've even had games where they could be purchased straight up. 



arscott said:


> I picked up on the symbols pretty quickly, and I think everyone else did too.



Same here.  We played our third game tonight and had no trouble with them.



arscott said:


> I still wish they'd used tokens instead of cards for xp, though--and I wish they'd gone with a box design more like dominion's.



The box certainly sucks and you don't have to use the XP cards, you could use anything you like if you prefer tokens.  

Another thing that annoys me is that all the backs are the same, even for the XP and quick ref cards.  And the dividers.  I may buy a CCG 500 count box and just put everything in there.


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## Wycen (Feb 6, 2010)

Played another game this week, this time with a random setup.  I still think the dungeon portion could use something, like why limit the types of monsters there to just 3?  It was funner this time since I had a handle on more of the rules.

Ended the game again with unspent XP.  Two of us did I think.  That part is frustrating.  I chose to kill a humanoid monster since he was worth 3 gold, but no Victory points.   I guess I should have spent the XP one my hero instead, but those are the choices this game entails.

I think I suffered from a mini-bout of analysis paralysis about 3/4ths of the way thru once all the useful 5 or 6 cost cards were gone, leaving crap spells, torches, daggers and things I could not afford.


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## arscott (Feb 6, 2010)

Each monster group has a theme.  By including only three groups, the game lets careful players build towards that theme.  Doomknights?  Better bring extra light.  Undead?  Stock up on clerics.  Dragons?  Be able to dish out attack.

Also, I'm very surprised that you ran out of so many cards.  In the games I've played, The only (non-hero) stack that ever runs out is Fireball.


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## Wycen (Feb 6, 2010)

arscott said:


> Each monster group has a theme.  By including only three groups, the game lets careful players build towards that theme.  Doomknights?  Better bring extra light.  Undead?  Stock up on clerics.  Dragons?  Be able to dish out attack.
> 
> Also, I'm very surprised that you ran out of so many cards.  In the games I've played, The only (non-hero) stack that ever runs out is Fireball.




You touched on a few points left unsaid.  We played with 5 players, so all the Militia cards were dealt from the beginning.  All the Iron Rations were gone and the Feast as well.  The Barkeep was gone and we were down to the last of another town card.

We had undead monsters, but no Cleric hero card.  We had the expensive "Selucid Archmage" (I don't remember the actual name, but that was what I called him reading the cards upside down).  All the cheap and most of the mid-range hero cards were gone.

The dungeon setup sucked, which we should have fixed, but didn't think about it at the time.  The very first monster was a 7 strength and the next deeper monster was a 9.  At this point it didn't matter what the 3rd monster was, but needless to say we spent a few turns building our decks in order to actually kill something in the dungeon.  We should have just redealt the dungeon deck.


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## John Crichton (Feb 7, 2010)

Wycen said:


> The dungeon setup sucked, which we should have fixed, but didn't think about it at the time.  The very first monster was a 7 strength and the next deeper monster was a 9.  At this point it didn't matter what the 3rd monster was, but needless to say we spent a few turns building our decks in order to actually kill something in the dungeon.  We should have just redealt the dungeon deck.



In that case, someone can run in and just lose to a monster so it goes to the bottom of the deck.  If someone doesn't want to do that then getting stuck at the start is just part of the game.  I have no problem when that happens.  Just gives me more time to develop my deck while I know my opponent is just as stuck.


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## Wycen (Feb 7, 2010)

What happens to you when you lose?


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## John Crichton (Feb 7, 2010)

Wycen said:


> What happens to you when you lose?



Whatever it says on the monster card under BATTLE.  Lots of times, nothing.  It just wastes a turn essentially.


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