How To Win Dominion: Mid/Late Game (Part 2) | Strategy, Tips, Guide

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Dominion is all about having a more efficient deck than your opponents. In this video, we talk about what to do in the mid and late game to maximize the deck you built in early game so you can win and make everyone hate you.
Music: bensound.com
Part 1: Early Game
• How To Win Dominion: E...
Dominion Wiki:
wiki.dominionstrategy.com/

[@Torin3000]

Thanks for this mini-series. I just started playing this week and consistently lose by a little bit. I appreciate you giving concrete signals during the game that point to you needing to change focus

[@hardyhousegames]

Glad to help!

[@PJ-rp5gb]

My Husband and I just started playing this, we are addicted lol

[@FranRojo91]

An important concept you haven't touched is the draw pile size, sometimes is not worth drawing more cards since the cards you played this turn will go to the discard pile, and if you already shuffled your discard pile, you'll loose them in a rotation

[@gabrielcastillo7638]

This is really helpful! I'm a big fan of Dominion, and seeing this has made me have a different opinion on other cards

[@hardyhousegames]

Glad to hear it!

[@lxw47]

Thanks for these helpful ideas. I'm going to try to put them to use.

[@fallrising5443]

I'm littlerally only trying to learn this game to beat a friend lol.

[@hardyhousegames]

A noble endeavor. *salute*

[@arielbenjamin3253]

Can’t figure out how to play Ways profitably , any examples out there?

[@MountainHawkPYL]

If you have trash-for-benefit cards, remember to buy cards to "feed" them.

[@hardyhousegames]

Great call out. Super valuable for Dark Ages specifically.

[@Vox24]

Very concise, I love it, earned my sub just because of it, great content!

[@potato4481]

I had this one deck where i would just keep playing council rooms and festivals until i had drawn everything, and then i played a militia to get rid of all those extra cards they had. Only danger was if they drew a moat with their extra council room cards. Also just discovered Dominion has expansions last week and im so pumped to play all of them, any suggestions on the best ones to start with?

[@collinredwine2274]

Dark ages and Prosperity are my favorite.

[@Torin3000]

Intrigue is the classic expansion, not too many more crazy mechanics than the base. The main addition is that you get many more decisions with the cards

[@hardyhousegames]

Everyone else's responses nailed it. My thoughts on these 3 expansions:
Intrigue: Excellent classic expansion. No crazy new mechanics, just a lot of new possibilities within basic Dominion. You can't go wrong getting this one.
Prosperity: Super fun if you like tons of money and big purchases. This expansion feels like an experiment in maximalism. Some of the craziest games I've played have been with this expansion.
Dark Ages: Super fun if you like to keep your deck small and snug. With all of the trashing options in it, this expansion feels more technical and makes for more thought-provoking strategies. Honestly it's my personal favorite.

[@ReadingandRelaxingMusic]

nice

[@genericR]

Ok I'm sorry to say this but if there is Chapel on board and you buy a silver in the mid game you are not playing well what is that example? Also many games enter "late game" on the first province buy many times I and my playgroup refer to buying either the first colony or province as first blood which signals the late game starting. Don't get me wrong you have some good advice in the abstract but I really question some of the examples you give.

[@hardyhousegames]

"Late game" is when you no longer are building your deck and instead are intentionally bloating it with victory cards as a last-ditch effort to get points. Turning to that behavior too early (e.g. after only the first province is purchased) can prove to be detrimental to the trajectory of your game.

[@genericR]

When to "green your deck" is defiantly a thing, that's what I was saying. Once someone starts buying provinces or colonies it's probably because they think they can buy one a turn or more for the rest of the game. Thus first blood. If someone starts buying victory cards to early they normal end up unable to keep pace as they have way to many dead draws. I get the feeling we are at it's core saying the same thing.@@hardyhousegames

[@alyssar4513]

👍

[@hardyhousegames]

👍

[@lorenzobolis5166]

You lost me at the "instead of Gold, maybe buy a Silver and a Chapel"
Why would you ever buy a Chapel after the opening?!?!

[@hardyhousegames]

A sloggy game in which opponents are giving you tons of curses or ruins.

[@sashakondrashov1451]

​@@hardyhousegamesthis isn't a thing, you'd buy the chapel before the first shuffle

[@voswouter87]

In my friend group we banned cards like Village because it causes turns to take too long.

[@hardyhousegames]

Definitely a unique set of cards when there aren't villages or any village variants.

[@foobar5809]

if you are shuffling every third turn in the midgame you are doing something wrong. You should be shuffling every turn in the best case.

[@kindofagod7]

That's not entirely true. In games with Gardens it's good to have a big deck. Also, in expansions like Prosperity you focus more on having lots of very powerful cards rather than less powerful cards that you can cycle through to achieve a similar result. For example if you start your turn with a Platinum in hand you don't necessarily need to cycle through your deck to find 3 silvers. Additionally it can be confusing for newer players and boring for opponents to have huge turns with multiple cascading actions each turn. It is pretty unenjoyable to watch someone go through a Throne Room -> Throne Room -> Smithy -> Village -> Throne Room -> Council Room -> Village type of turn. It's nice to create decks where someone can use cards like the Bank to have a big turn with only 5 cards. However you do have a point, if it takes more than about 5 turns to shuffle in any deck you have a card draw problem. It just doesn't need to be an every-turn thing.