Game Review: Eminent Domain

It's a space game - great!
It's a deck-building game - overdone!

Card games are awesome because they are pretty inexpensive to make. They also have to be innovative to stick out, but familiar enough that you don't feel like you're learning all of the rules by heart...it could flow!

I wish it had been better named. Eminent Domain exists as a specific phrase in the US system, where the state can take over property if it's in the best interests of...well, whatever. The game has NOTHING to do with it.

It was produced as a Kickstarter game for 2-4 players, and the second (larger?) printing is in stores now. You can still pick up some of the promos from the manufacturer - I found a store on ebay. $5 gets you 9 planets.

The game's premise is that as you go in a direction, your deck evolves in that direction as well. Research a lot? You'll get more research cards in your deck, thus pushing you to research more, because that's what you'll be drawing.

You start off with a basic deck - 2 Produce/Consume cards (which have almost no value in the beginning), 2 Colonize cards, 1 Military card, 2 Research cards, 2 Survey cards, and 1 Politics card (which gets changed into one of those previous types early.)

Each card in your deck has an Action listed on it, as well as one or two symbols from the basic cards. You get to play one as an Action to start your turn, and then take one of those five basic cards from the stock as a Role. So for example, you could play Survey, where its Action is "Draw 2 cards". You can also play Survey as your Role, taking the card from the center. To boost that Role, you can also discard cards from your hand to expand what Survey does for you...in this case, look at more possible planets.

Your turn ends, discarding all of the cards you picked up this turn, discard any number of cards from your hand, then draw to your hand limit. (Or just discard down to your hand limit.)

To add some interaction, the game also adds this: whatever your Role you chose for your turn, players can either do the same Role (with slightly less options) or draw an extra card. In a 2-player game, there isn't much to it...multiplayer adds some more choices.

Research is pretty awesome. As in, super great. When you buy a research card, you put it into your hand...helping you set up for next turn. At higher research levels, you can even buy cards that are worth extra VP.

In general, for your first several games, I'd recommend going either Military or Colonize for your method of taking over planets. Simplify your deck by getting rid of the ones you don't plan on using, as well as getting rid of Produce/Consume cards in the early game...you can get them again later. Plan on surveying up to 4-5 planets, and researching cards that give you some extra kick. Producing/consuming goods is complex, and difficult to manage when you have survey/research/colonize cards in your way as well.

Victory points come from consuming goods, settling planets, and adding special research cards worth VP to your deck. The game ends as a stack or two is gone, or when the VP chips are out.

Overall, it's a fair game. There are bits that don't feel like they flow for me...maybe it's just that I haven't played the same similar games to this. We've played by incorrect rules a couple of times (the designer haunts BGG, so there's a good chance to find an answer)...but I'll say this - if you answer someone's question regarding their confusion about the rules - IT ISN'T THEIR FAULT.

[design rant] As a designer or developer for a game, you have insight into the choices that went into the process of the game. YOU know that colonize was broken, and that you went back to the rulebook and changed one sentence to reflect a new difference between colonize and other cards. Saying something like "I wrote a concise and accurate rulebook, thus I didn't need to explain x" doesn't fly. You don't get to brush off their concern as if they're a lesser being. (And this wasn't even a question I asked on the 'geek.) This is a pet peeve of mine - you, the reader, don't need to embrace it.

After 15-20 games, I still feel like I haven't figured out the game. Somewhat refreshing, but irritating - I don't feel like I am playing the game well.  (The Utopian planets from the promos are...really useful to the game overall. Much better flow.)