Aaron Lawn: Dominion Versus 18XX.

Hah!  Bringing a 30 minute card game into contention with a 3+ hour train game.  A card-train rush of optimization buying.  An extravaganza of ever increasing decks and portfolios.  Who will come out ahead?

Neither really.¹ But last week, as I was playing both games, I was struck by one of the continued tensions within the hobby of Boardgames… the tension of time and variety.

Dominon joins Race for the Galaxy as a recent larger game that takes a short amount of time.  These two games alone have caused a reevaluation of the short game.  Traditionally, a game that lasts just 20-40 minutes has been super light or super simple.  The most tension filled short games have typically been auction games like For Sale or High Society².

But both Race and Dominion have created a new slot – a short game with decent complexity and numerous varied decisions.  Neither games are the pinnacle of strategic complexity, but when compared to games like Coloretto, Circus Flohcati, or the aforementioned auction games, you find a different level of rules and decisions than most short games.

This is in stark contrast to the games of yore, of which I am using 18xx as the current example.  Games in the 18xx series are long.  They provide many decisions over several hours.

But both 18xx and Dominion offer a significant amount of depth of learning³.  Specifically, Multiple plays of the same game offer increased comprehension of the decision you are making, and gradually you become a stonger player.  By the fourth or tenth game you play of Dominion, you’ll be a better person player.  You’ll be earning points faster and putting cards together in stronger ways.⁴

Of course, the same thing applies to 18xx.  By your 10th game, you’ll be a stronger engineer and financier.  You’ll know when to sell out of a company, and when the potential for profit is high.

But it took you 40+ hours to get there.  And only 6 hours for 10 games of Dominion.  What does that mean?  Is Dominion a better game?  A worse game?

Here’s what I like about Dominion.

Dominon brings the ability to fully explore a game with some depth of learning to the modern boardgamer.  Seriously.  One mainstay of hobby boardgaming is the Five and Dime list.  That’s a list of games that you managed to play 5-10 times a year.  That’s less than once a month.

So take any game that supports and rewards repeated play.  Dominion.  18xx.  Half of the contents of most gamer’s closets⁵. 

Obviously, there’s a benefit of creating games that are played often.  And Dominion has brought the potential of fully exploring a game back to the attention of the hobby of gaming

But wait.  Dominon wasn’t the first.  Didn’t I mention some other game earlier?

Oh right.  Race for the Galaxy.  Probably not also the first.  But, if RftG does all these things, why am I writing this now?  Shouldn’t I have said all these things 11 months ago when RftG came out?

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  I reference the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement.  To paraphrase.  One is just One.  Two is a step in the right direction.  And Three… Three is getting close to a movement⁶.

We need more games like Dominion and RftG.  I’m looking for the third.  And the fourth.  And more games that will encourage, allow, and demand repeat play… providing gamers with the experience of exploring all the nooks and crannies of games.

Because then, maybe, we’ll start to do it with all the other games that deserve it.

Because then we won’t get reviews of games based on opening the box and looking at the pieces⁷.

I’m off to play 18xx now⁸.

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¹Truthfully, titled “The Short versus Long”, but this is shock-blogging.  Go for the Jugular!↩

²Okay.  Auction games.  These are a different beast.  They rely entirely upon valuation, groupthink, and the players to succeed.  Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t.  But it’s hard to explore an auction game in the same way as most other games. ↩

³I’m ignoring Race for the Galaxy now.  This isn’t an article about it.  Otherwise it would be in the title.↩

⁴Okay, not fully ignoring Race for the Galaxy.  The above is also applicable to RftG.  I’ve previously stated my disenchantment with RftG, and that hasn’t changed.  But there is no denying that RftG does provide a) significant decisions and b) depth of learning with c) Short play time.↩

⁵I completely lied!  Okay.  We need to retitle this post.  New title. “Dominion and Race for the Galaxy gang up on 18xx in a playground brawl”.↩

⁶What do you think?  Are there other games that the masses of critical hype have missed?  20-40 minute games that are reasonably accessible, match current hobby board game tastes, and strongly encourage repeated play?↩

⁷Or worse, a review based on looking at pictures that someone else took of the pieces.↩

⁸Final title.  “Ranting about people not playing games a second time. For the second time.” ↩

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