Dominion: Allies Coming in December

A new expansion for the long-running card game Dominion is coming later this year. Rio Grande Games has announced Dominion: Allies as the fourteenth expansion for its flagship game. This game will include 31 new kingdom card piles that feature allies that grant Favors. Favors seems to be a new type of keyword or card, although what it means for the grander Dominion game is unclear. Like most other expansions, Dominion: Allies is not a standalone expansion - the expansion requires the base game to play. Cards from Dominion: Allies can be mixed and matched with cards from other expansions to create unique game experiences.

Dominion is one of the classic modern deckbuilding games and focuses on quickly figuring out different beneficial card combos. In each game, players randomly (or non-randomly) choose 10 different kingdom piles that are placed into a common market. All players start the game with the same starter deck - however, players can purchase cards on their turn either to add more actions or add more gold to make larger purchases. Throughout the game, players can also purchase cards with victory points on them. However, these cards rarely have another effect, so the balance becomes wanting to purchase victory points to secure the victory with having your deck actually be effective on a turn. Some cards can also sabotage their opponents by adding curses (with negative victory point values) or even stealing coins from an opponent's hand. The game ends when either three stacks of cards have been fully purchased or when the Province card stack (the card with the most Victory Points) has run out.

Dominion innovated the deckbuilding game genre and has one numerous awards, including the prestigious Spiel des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Preis awards when it was first released. And while other deckbuilding games have come out over the last 13 years, none have had quite the same staying power as Dominion. Temple Gate Games is also working on a digital version of the game, which will be released for Steam, iOS, and Android devices. The digital version of Dominion is still in beta, but is expected to be released soon.

Dominion: Allies is expected to hit stores in December and will have a retail price of $44.95.