How to play Dominion

Learn the rules to the card game Dominion quickly and concisely - This visually rich video has no distractions, just the rules.

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RULES:

Set up: Using the Selector cards shuffle and deal 10 cards. Find the corresponding kingdom card decks from the box and replace the 10 selector cards with these 10 decks. Each deck has 10 cards unless it is a victory card then it will have 12. Place these 10 decks on the table. I like to place them in ascending order indicated by the cost to help make the gameplay easier. Next place the victory, treasure, trash and curse decks on the table too. I prefer to place them above the kingdom cards, again in ascending order. (The amount of Curse cards is dependent on how many people are playing. 10 cards for 2 players, 20 cards for 3 players, and 30 for 4.) Deal 7 Coppers and 3 Estates to each player. This is each player’s starting deck. Shuffle, place face down, and draw 5 cards. (if you are playing with 2 players you need to limit the deck size of each victory deck from 12 to 8 cards each).

Here is a card’s layout: Name: This is how you identify each card. Type: what type of card it is. Cost: how much it costs to buy this card. Treasure cards have this in the top corners telling you how much money they produce when played. Its easy at first to mix this up with their cost. (The main image also supports how much they produce). Text box/ability area. This is the card’s affect it has when played. You always must complete each card’s abilities to its fullest before you can move on. Abilities are activated from top to bottom, left to right. Victory cards cannot be played during the game they are only useful once the game ends. Their point value is seen here. The little symbol in the bottom right corner tells you what expansion the card is from.

The object of the game is to build your kingdom be the player with the most victory points at the end of the game. The game ends at the end of the player’s turn when the last “Province” card leaves its kingdom pile or when any other 3 piles run out, whichever happens first.

On your turn you have different 3 phases: Action, Buy, Cleanup. During your action phase you are allowed to play 1 action card from your hand. An action card is any card whose type says action. You don’t have to play an action card if you don’t want to. When you play cards you place them on the table overlapping from right to left. This helps you stay organized when you played things.

The Buy phase is when you place down your treasure cards, as many as you want. These also are played from left to right overlapping each other. Each one you play adds to your total pool of money for the turn. You are then allowed to buy 1 card from the kingdom piles. Whenever you buy a card it goes to your personal discard pile. You don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want or can’t afford.

After your buy phase you cleanup everything in your cleanup phase. You discard all your cards in play (Action and treasure cards) as well as all your cards in your hand. All unused money is wasted. After this, you draw 5 new cards from your deck.

Whenever you try to draw cards and your draw deck is empty or runs out, you shuffle your discard pile and it becomes your draw deck. If you have no cards in your draw deck or discard pile and you still need to draw a card, you then ignore your need to draw and move forward.

Action cards have numerous abilities which are as follows:
+ Cards – draw as many cards from your deck as indicated by the number.
+ Action – This allows you to play more action cards as indicated by the number.
+ Buy – this allows you to buy additional cards during your buy phase
+ Coin – This adds money to your money pool. There is an invisible pool of money you obtain through each turn and can use.
Gain a card – this means that you acquire a card without having to pay for it or use up your buy. Gaining a card does not use up a buy. Whenever you gain a card the gained card goes to your discard pile. You can gain cards when it isn’t your turn if another player plays a card telling you to do so. If you gain a card based on a certain cost, you cannot play treasure or use coin to increase the value.
Discard – place a card from your hand to your discard pile
Trash – this is the only way to permanently remove cards from your deck. You may only trash a card if an action card you play tells you to. You cannot trash cards in play, only cards in your hand or a specific card if it says specifically.
If you do – this is a conditional effect. If you fulfill doing the previous text’s requirement completely, only then do you receive the following effect.
May – if a card say you may do something, that means it is optional and your choice.

When the game ending conditions are met, sort all the cards you have (hand, draw deck, discard pile) and add up all your victory points....