Dominion Reviews

I hate to give it two stars but needing to restart each game to get desired decks is too time consuming. Basically, If you ever play against the AI and Militia or Witch is on the board, the AI will play them EVERY. SINGLE. TURN. meaning you’ll only get 3 instead of 5 cards each turn AND lose points AND clog your deck but if the player buys them then it’s incredibly rare for you to get them in your hand which means this game has weighted cards instead of random cards. It becomes so frustrating that you need to just keep rematching so neither of those two cards are in play ESPECIALLY if there’s no way to remove the curse cards so if you DO decide to play against Witch you NEED to also have cards in play to remove them. It requires such a specific setup of cards to play with Witch you’re better off just not playing with it at all. So, TLDR, if Witch or Militia is in play, restart until they’re not because the AI will abuse the heck out of them while the player can not because the cards are weighted and not truly random. Oh, and the placement of the cards on the iPhone means you’ll CONSTANTLY swipe out of the game because of the white bar on iPhones.

Edit: I am subtracting stars because the Hard AI literally cheats. They’re buying multiple cards on their turn when there’s no cards in play that allow them to.

Get the price down to $1.49 for small expansions and $2.99 for large. Until then I won’t spend a dime on this game. There isn’t a single game on iOS worth $50, no clue how you think yours is worth $99.

If you’re not already an expert, the inability to always have the card text visible, or at least available with less UX friction that requires memory, makes the game unplayable. Dominion is the reason people buy analog games instead.

I just paid $99 to unlock all expansions and nothing is unlocked

Updated review:

The developer responded to my initial review that the UI slowness was because of server congestion. Indeed, retrying the daily challenge, I see that every tap is responsive. However, I don’t understand why server congestion is causing my local device to respond slowly; to be clear, when I say the UI would take 3+ seconds to respond, I mean that I would tap a card to view it, and it would take 3+ seconds to respond. I tested turning on airplane mode and accessing Dominion , and this seemed to be fine, so why is/was tapping a card to view it so sluggish due to “server congestion”?

Additionally, the home bar is still active all the time, and it is easy to close Dominion or switch apps by accident. Most apps require intentional swipe to wake the home bar.

Raising review to 2 stars since it technically responds better, but not raising it higher since I am concerned about the developer’s response about server congestion affecting local performance.

Original review:

Dominion is unoptimized and unplayable for iOS (iPhone 12 mini, iOS 17.2.1). I was excited for this version of this app and the great promotional bundle of expansions, but trying to play an online game or even just the daily challenge, the UI would take literally 3+ seconds to respond to my taps. Every tap also revealed Dominion switching bar at the bottom of the screen, even when I tapped middle or top of the screen. I am incredibly disappointed that Temple Gate Games - and Rio Grande - thought this was an acceptable UX. I’ll give it another chance in the next update, and if it’s still unusable, will uninstall for good (and continue to mourn no good iOS this app app).

Playing online is terrible. If anyone leaves your lobby or game you have to create a new one, you can’t replace them with new players or AI players. The lobby page also is filled with games that have already been filled or completed, if I can’t fill an empty spot in an existing game what’s the point of them showing up in the lobby? There are rarely any open games to join but when I make my own lobby they take forever to fill just to get someone to join and leave, rendering my lobby unusable until I create a new one. The game itself is great but it’s unplayable online most of the time.

Action seems to end round every time but ai can do it till they run out of cards

Random setups can be unplayable, using Attack cards without Reaction cards to defend, or vice versa. In actual play, such a setup would be unacceptable. Don’t expect that buying expansions will address the problem, either. The only solution is to resign the game and get a new setup. The tutorial is good enough to teach you the game.

For asynchronous online play to work, badge notification are critical. They don’t work with Dominion. The banner pops up. Inside Dominion it shows an ! If it’s your turn. But there’s no badge when outside Dominion .

5 star game with a seriously simple blunder to fix.
And, yes, I’ve checked notifications and turned them on/off, and I’m not in a “focus” profile, and they work just fine in other asynchronous apps.

Also - more QOL than issue: adding a setting to enable end-game conditions to be chosen would be great - playing til 3 piles exhaust regardless can be a lot more fun than someone racing to exhaust the provinces.

All processing seems to take place on their back end servers. A 10 minute game takes 30 because the server can’t handle it.

Just got dropped from a game because my turn timed out, it was just frozen waiting on server.

Now “server full” so I cannot play.

The AI players always forfeit. It’s super annoying literally NEVER have completed a game. Please change this behavior and let us at least finish a game once in a while.

Let me preface this by saying the game is smooth and works well. That said, if you hop on for a single player game, prepare for some wild rides in how badly the AI is programmed.

Sometimes you get an AI that refuses to buy a Treasure card the whole game, so you win pretty much no matter what you do.

Another time you’ll get an AI that buys Treasurw cards so aggressively they’ll be up 20 points on you before you can buy your first Province.

And finally, you have the AI that is down by a lot but suddenly remembers it’s supposed to be a Medium or Hard difficulty opponent so it buys 10-24 points in a single turn (most of it before it even plays its treasure cards).

Oh, and the AI always guesses correctly with the Wishing Well. Always. Essentially, the AI know the order of its deck and optimizes to win.

Finally, I’ve had games where I buy the final Province to win and I lose anyway because Dominion swaps the scores at the end. Additionally, I often lose by tying the AI despite winning in all tie-breakers.

So yeah, smooth for online play. Garbage computer player.

Been waiting years for this? I’m also not paying for all the expansions yet another time.

I love this game and I also have the physical copies of most expansions. If i were only rating the game I would give it 5 stars. There is multiple issues I see with this game. I don’t understand why there should be an option to have turns more than 5 minutes long. This isn’t chess where you can see the whole board and decide your next move. If you were playing multiple games at once, you would have to go through the entire log to try to remember all the cards you bought. Not to mention these long turns promote poor sports to exit the game when they are losing so that other players have to either wait for them to time out or abandon the game. There should definitely be a 5 minute limit per turn that if elapsed your turn ends before you finish. Why would you charge $99 for all the expansions?? I couldn’t even justify buying one expansion for $10. Knock the price way down and maybe I will consider.

*update- the game also kicks you off the server way too often, sometimes not even letting you back in, causing you to potentially lose a game from running out of time.

It is a fun version of this game.
It would be 5 stars if one thing was added and was thing was tweaked.
There needs to be a way to pick cards not just random (main reason for 3 stars)
Also, as with many games on iOS, the AI cheats. It gets perfect draws and the player gets average to below average draws.
If I could pick my cards this would not be as much of an issue.

My partner and I played this app the board game for years and eagerly awaited Dominion version so we could quit carrying around suitcases of cards. Dominion is well-designed and easy to use once you get familiar with it (especially if you are already familiar with the board game). The biggest problem is that playing together requires going through the server and the servers are constantly down. This ends up being very frustrating as the game is essentially unplayable until they come back up. Sometimes it makes me wish we just stuck with the board game. When Dominion works it is great.

I’ve played this game a ton, and can say with certainty that the game is rigged. When playing against hard AI, they pick up a single attack card, yet somehow they use it EVERY turn.

Another problem: I’ve used a cellar to exchange a card with another one in my deck. However, I clicked undo because I wanted to exchange 2 cards instead. Guess what? Neither of the two cards I picked up were the one that I got before I hit undo. The game is rigged to make it more challenging, and I don’t like it. I’d rather the hard AI simply be a good player, rather than a cheating one.

Lastly, there’s a glitch where sometimes the game crashes mid game. Doesn’t happen often, but it happened to me 3 times today.

Like I said, this app is a fantastic game. I think there are some things that the developer could do here to make their app up to this app standard. First off, if you have multiple devices things don’t sync well. It would be better if you had a clear account you were logging into, currently you just have to pray that when you put your email on two devices it’ll figure it out. Secondly, the stats page is terrible, there should be a lot of data there to comb through, but there’s just a bunch of numbers without any labels so it means nothing.
Lastly, and I’m sure there’s some setting I’m missing for this, it can be very hard to realize what an opponent is doing and before you know it they’ve given you an entire pile of curses without you being any the wiser. This really bugs me about playing online but I guess it’s something you get used to.

I like the game a lot but there are glitches. Sometimes when a card gets you another draw card, or an exchange of a card for a card of more value, it will treat it like a buy. Sometimes when you have a witch, it is supposed to be a draw two, but it won’t draw the two. There isn’t anything you can do once it happens, and it has happened enough times to know it is absolutely happening, but its inconsistent. Frustrating. Won’t stop me from playing though.

The game plays smoothly. No bugs. But the “Easy” AI is way too easy. I usually beat it by 50 points or more. No challenge there. But I lose to the next AI level, “Medium”, 9 games out of 10. Not fun.

One (or both) of those AI choices needs to be adjusted.

Edit #1:
I’ve played a dozen more games. And I’ve done some reading on this app strategy. The unbalanced AI here is just ridiculous. Now that I understand the cards better, I’m beating the “Easy” AI by at least 50 points every game. Sometimes I win by 75 points or more.

If that sounds like fun, it’s not. Boring is a better word. I go through the motions. And I win by a huge margin. But the “Medium” AI continues to beat me game after game. I’m lucky to win 1 out of 10. Being slapped around constantly is also not fun.

Edit #2:
I finally figured out a way to rein in the “Medium” AI. The game lets you ban cards you don’t want in the game (which is a nice touch). I banned all the Extra Action cards.

Now “Medium” plays reasonably. It can’t chain all sorts of actions together at the last minute. With this in place, I’m beating Medium a little more than half the time. It’s a nice challenge, as it should be.

this app is my favorite card game. I’m so happy to have this available finally after a long wait. But I am so disappointed that it’s only on iOS and not the other Apple platforms as well.

There seems to be some dynamic with playing against bots and ?trashing cards? or purchasing certain types of cards. You can be playing along then suddenly the iPhone goes back to Home Screen and you have to start over again.

It would be a lot more fun if it was stable. I have this glitch happen about 50% of the time with intrigue deck. I have yet to figure out which specific card or type of card causes this. Some 10 card decks never do this; others do it almost every game.

This is a good implementation of a good game. You can permanently buy expansions as a one time cost. The AI is strong, which is nice.

The nature of the game is that good play can involve long combos on a regular basis. The AI is good at finding such combos, and it can be tedious to watch them play out. Even with the fastest animation setting, you might take a 5-10 second turn then watch for 30-45 seconds as the AI plays out a combo. On some boards, that happens every turn. I find myself resigning games I could win just because I don’t want to watch the AI take long turns. I just want to know the end result of the turn.

A very fun game, but I have a couple problems. First, the AI players are simply too fast to follow (the slow animation speed is still lightning fast) and scrolling through the text wall that is the log to see what happened takes the fun out of a round. Besides that, the expansions are overpriced, even if the base game is free.

Overall I recommend it, just expect to pay a lot if you want more variety.

This is a great version of the game. I definitely recommend it. However, I wish there was a feature to turn off the point counter during gameplay. When you play the game live, you don’t know what the score is, and it adds a bit of fun mystery. Furthermore, the hundred dollar price tag for all the expansions is a bit excessive. Especially when you can get them much cheaper if you play the online version in the browser. For these reasons, I can’t give five stars.

this app is finally on iOS and it is magnificent
Game play and legibility are dialed in. Connecting cross-platform is simple, and I love the ability to sustain multiple games with notifications for your turn
Only downside to the “swipe to buy/play” mechanic is the tendency to pull up the apple “dashboard” when buying/selecting cards on the top row, otherwise, flawless execution

Dominion is amazing if you like this app. Purchases are linked to your email across platforms, so you can buy sets here and they show up as purchased on the steam version (and vice versa). The hard AI is a real challenge to win against. I played magic the gathering in the ‘90s and I prefer this app because you build your deck during the game. So many risk/reward situations.

The looong wait is over and they did a fantastic job bringing this app to life in app form. The controls are clean and fluid, Dominion looks great. They implemented a very good AI for daily challenges which is one of my most fun things to do. You get the one free attempt if you don’t have the expansions. Also they made the base game free which is a great way to learn and play. This game has endless variations from all 15 expansions. The expansions are actually quite affordable when you consider the physical versions are $$ There’s an online opponent option which works flawlessly. I tested it out with my wife on her phone. It’s great.

this app is one of the best deck builders created and reminds you why every time you boot it up. Give it a shot, you’ll see why it’s won awards and continues to please players.

Anyone not rating a 5 for Dominion is not being accurate. I read many reviews prior to trying game and was initially hesitant on downloading. Glad I tried Dominion because it’s now one of my favorites.
PROS: Great playability (with expansions), no game plays the same; AI is challenging which I love; Mechanics work intuitively.
CONS: Expansion sets range from $5 to $10 each and there are 15 of them, so it can get expensive; I wish the records for stats were more detailed.

Download this game, you won’t be disappointed if you’re a strategy player like me who enjoys digital board games.

I have played the physical game and a few expansions but I am actually enjoying the mobile version even more. It is more convenient (no setup or cleanup), much more portable and easier to play since you don’t have to manually keep track of all the various effects. I love the pass and play functionality. I really like that you can easily turn on/off expansions. It’s easy to read all the cards and keep track of the state of the game. If I had one minor suggestion it would be to disable the iOS “swipe up to close application” I keep accidentally closing Dominion when dragging my cards. It’s really minor, though! I highly recommend this game. The game itself is fantastic and very replayable and this digital adaptation really makes it shine.

By far the best card game to mobile game ever. Love this app, but put it on the back burner behind Catan, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne, other games that don’t take that much room and have a decent mobile version I can play whenever I want, or can breakout the full game for a game night with multiple people. This makes me want to break out this app again, it is that good. Sometimes the drag motion makes me almost close the game out, but I think that is more of a ‘me’ issue and not necessarily Dominion .

We have the physical version, with several expansions, but it’s hard to get to the table often because it’s such a chore to randomize and set up. This is such an awesome way to get my “fix” by either playing solo or roping my husband into joining me from his phone. Fun!

As a long time this app player who has tried every digital implementation that has been attempted, this is the one. There are a few individual cards that might still need some work but otherwise it’s pretty great and so far every expansion I’ve bought has been worth it.

… finally gets the digital version. It deserves.
This implementation of Donald Vaccarino’s masterpiece is everything a board game lover could want. If you act fast, there is a special price for all of the expansions. In Cardboard, you would’ve paid over $700. And the result would be an unwieldy collection. This wonderful little app gives you instant access to every card ever made, and creates fun challenges for you with capable AI opponents or real life players.

Give it a try, the base is free, and see why this brilliant game has won so many awards.

I am a long time fan of this franchise and I’ve been waiting for Dominion for over a decade. I’m very thrilled to see that it is [mostly] polished on release. I just bought all of the expansions again, and I’m excited for more to come. Keep up the great work, this UI is the best yet. Consider bringing back in game chat, at least for private matches.

I’ve played this app for a couple of months now. It started with the physical board game, then the Steam app, and finally now on iOS. I especially appreciate that DLCs can be accessed by my steam account and Dominion via my email. It’s astounding how many games make this process difficult.
This game is so incredibly in depth and well thought out. It’s obvious the developers of this game put a ton of effort and enthusiasm into making this game. Thank you for putting out a product that is really special.

A top board game, now on IOS!

The game itself is amazing, and Dominion version is super. Streamlined very well, font size options can be made to jumbo without cutting off so easy to play on phone. AI is very fun to play and will challenge all but the most dedicated of this app players. I waited a looooong time for this to come to iOS but its even better than I hoped. They do need to figure out with Apple how to enable it on Macs though because I would love to play on my Air

Beautiful on iPad and iPhone. This is the perfect app to enjoy, explore and experience this app! I love the challenging neural net based AI. It’s my favorite way to spend 10 minutes of downtime, or an hour or two when I’m winding down. It’s great for experimenting with strategies, and learning the cards at my own pace. The UI has lots of neat options for how to handle/automate specific situations. Looking forward to going deep with Dominion.

Great application of a great game. The sound is a little loud and shuts off randomly, but that’s a minor issue. It works really well overall and the AI is pretty challenging. Fun sound effects for each card too.

this app is such a classic, and it’s awesome that it works so well here. Smooth, easy to use, easy to play, I can see this taking over what few spare minutes I have in my day!

Props to the developer!! Great game and excellent adaptation. Clearly listened to the feedback from fans, and provided exactly what was asked for. If I had to offer up one thing: a better soundtrack would be great :) but… that’s being picky lol

It’s this app. You’ve played it before and bore you can play it all the time. Watching TV? Play this app and watch TV. In an Uber? Play this app. Waiting for the fire department to show up with the jaws of life? Distract yourself by playing this app.

And I can attest from months of beta testing that this is a perfect implementation. To say the hard AI is a worthy opponent would be an understatement…

A faithful and professional implementation of the original card game, with all the expansions!

One issue I'm seeing is that expansion purchases aren't being shared correctly. My spouse and I are on the same family so game/app purchases are shared usually without issue, but I bought the Intrigue expansion and she can't get it for some reason - Dominion shows the purchase price instead of it being owned, clicking Restore Purchases doesn't work, and neither does going to Dominion Store and under Purchased and choosing it from my purchases.

Brings the table to life without all of the overhead if you are getting the rules correct. Plays fast, challenging against the ai or against your friends… be warned, you are likely to buy a lot more of the pricey expansion!

I’m having trouble accessing online play. It will say I’m in offline mode. I’ll click “go online” and then it will say offline and “not connected to game server”. Any solutions? Do you have to pay to access online?

Thanks!

More multiplayer games should support this. I don't have time for real time games so this game fits my time schedule perfectly

I’ve been waiting 15 years for this. It was worth the wait.

Wow! The free base game has got me hooked. With some looong flights in my future, spending $100 for 15 expansions doesn’t seem that crazy… Dominion is really smooth and I have enjoyed Race For the Galaxy by these guys for years.

I’m so glad this finally released!! Been waiting for at least a year. Thank you for all your hard work developing it! Gameplay is everything I hoped for. I do have one small grievance though. Playing on an iphone, when I am swiping up from the bottom of the screen to play cards or select them for discard, it’s very easy to start the swipe a bit too low and activate the return to home screen feature. This can get annoying pretty fast :( Is there anything y’all could do about that?

I love this app. It was one of the first games my wife and I played together. Dominion is fast and snappy! I already went all in on the bundle. I have 2 questions/requests: (1) When playing a randomized game online or offline, can you add a feature so we can save the setup as a favorite? There are so many permutations to try, it’ll be good to save one that we stumble across. (2) Can you make in-app purchases shareable in family purchases? My wife is only able to play the expansions with me, but not when offline. And the bundle isn’t cheap. Thanks!

Wow, TGG knocked this one out of the park! This game was in beta forever so that the dev team could make the launch as smooth as possible and it shows. Just a perfect digital version that is smooth and works intuitively. The Daily this app is a fun challenge that makes you use cards you may not play with often to try and do the best you can against the challenging AI. Love this game and it’ll be fun to watch it become my most played iOS game.

Like every other Temple Gates game, Dominion is a labor of love that has no business being as polished as it is. The UI is slick. All of the hundreds of cards are implemented, and their nonsense interactions have been hammered into correctness. The AI is the AlphaGo of this app, representing the very best of this app’s strategy. It’s really, really good.

Would love it if I could set a custom tone alert when I get a “my turn” notification.

As a this app fanatic, I own all expansions, editions, and promos. Generally I enthusiastically recommend the iOS implmentation; it is well thought out and the AI is quite strong.
I have noticed a very few cards not implemented quite right, such as Way of the Pig from Menagerie (doesn't give the +Action), but my big gripe is that it will sell you things (namely, the removed 1st Edition cards) that are never selected for play, and they aren't cheap either! Please implement these cards!