How Do You Play Dominion: Intrigue (5 minute guide)

OVERVIEW

Dominion: Intrigue is an expansion of the original game Dominion. Both games follow the same set of rules, but Dominion: Intrigue supports games of 6 players instead of 4. It is a card game where players build their deck or “dominion” to earn more points than their opponents.

If you don’t own Dominion: Intrigue already, check it out here on Amazon.

GAMEPLAY

Setup

To begin, each player will get 7 Copper cards and 3 Estate cards for a total of 10 cards. They will then shuffle their decks and place them face down in front of them, drawing 5 cards from the top that will serve as their starting hand.

The Supply cards are all placed facing up in the middle of the players in piles. The Treasure cards (Copper, Silver, and Gold) should also be placed facing up in the supply after all players have drawn their 7 Copper cards at the beginning of the game along with the Victory Cards (Estate, Dutchy, and Province) that are placed in the supply in piles of 12. A certain amount of Curse cards are placed in the supply depending on the number of players. Randomizer cards, which you will notice has a different back than the other cards, can be placed face down under these piles to indicate when the cards in that stack have run out. Lastly, the Trash Pile card is placed next to the supply cards to indicate where it should start.

Once this is set up, players choose 10 different types of Kingdom cards and place 10 of each kind in face-up piles in between them. However, the amount of Kingdom Victory cards that can be used depends on the number of players. For 3-4 players, this number is 12. The players can agree on which Kingdom cards to play with in any way they choose. The starting player is also decided this way.

Goal

The object of Dominion: Intrigue is for each player to gain more valuable cards than the ones they started with in order to acquire the most points at the end of the game.

Player Actions

There are 3 phases that take place in each player’s turn, known as A, B, and C:

Action Phase: In the first phase, the player will play one Action card from their hand by placing it face up on the table and following the instructions on it. If they are unable to do everything the card says, they should do as much as possible. The card should be kept on the table until the clean-up phase unless the card says to do otherwise. Players do not have any action cards in their initial deck of 10, so they will skip this step for their first 2 turns.

Buy Phase: During the buy phase, the player can buy a card from the supply by paying its cost that is indicated on the lower left corner. They are allowed to purchase any card in the supply aside from the trash pile using treasure cards or coins provided by the action card from the previous step. Some action cards give players advantages like buying multiple cards, but the normal buy phase will include the purchase of 1 card only.

Clean-Up Phase: In the final clean-up phase, players should discard all cards in front of them in their play area whether they were played or not. These cards will go to the player’s discard pile next to their deck and they will draw 5 new cards for the next round. If there are not enough cards left in their deck for this, they will shuffle the discard pile and place it face down to serve as their new deck.

This cycle continues around the table clockwise and each player will complete all 3 phases during each turn.

How to End the Game

The game ends when the supply pile of Province cards is empty or any 3 supply piles are empty.

How to Score the Game

Each player will calculate the victory points in their entire deck, including the cards in their hand and their discard pile. The winner is the player that has the most victory points. In the event of a tie, the player who has had the least amount of turns in the game is the winner. If the tied players have had equal turns, they both win.

Variations of the Game

Although Dominion: Intrigue is already a variation of the original Dominion game, it has multiple versions in different languages including Polish, Italian, German, Korean, and Norwegian.

How the Game Changes Depending on the Number of Players

For a 2-player game, the Victory cards should be placed in the supply in piles of 8 instead of 12 during setup. Similarly, Curse cards should be placed in the supply in the amount of 10 cards.

Curse cards are the only things that change from a 3 to 4 player game. They should be placed in the supply in a group of 20 cards for 3 players or 30 cards for 4 players.

Common House Rules

Since Dominion: Intrigue is an expansion of the original Dominion game, it is a common practice for players to combine or switch out the playing cards from each game since they follow the same set of rules. To keep the game interesting, some groups of players choose to use the randomizer cards when choosing the initial 10 Kingdom cards in the beginning of the game. This can be done by placing a randomizer card on the top of each pile to keep the selection anonymous.