"Outdoor Tinker"

Highly Recommended

"Outdoor Tinker" by Lacey
Requires: Dominion, Fairytale, Cornucopia, Prosperity, Seaside
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Magic Beans, Trade Route*, Workshop, Menagerie, Storybook, Gardens, Cutpurse, Rabble, Tinker, Bazaar
• *Additional Set-up Required: Trade Route Mat, Place 1 token on top of each victory supply pile (including Gardens)

Gain cards and play them next turn using Tinker in combination with Magic Beans and Workshop.  Collecting as many cards as possible with multiple buys is also important, so think wisely before trashing cards for Trade Route. 

"Village Story"

Recommended

"Village Story" by Lacey
Requires: Dominion, Intrigue, Alchemy, Fairytale
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Herbalist, Moat, Great Hall, Masquerade, Storybook, Mining Village, Hedge Wizard, Minion, Torturer*, Tribute
• *Additional Set-up Required: Curse Cards (10)

Money is limited and Storybook is key to gaining higher cost cards and ultimately the victory. Find combinations to keep Storybook in your hand as often as possible along with victory cards.

"Mid-evil Tournament"

Highly Recommended

"Mid-evil Tournament" by Lacey
Requires: Cornucopia, Dominion, Intrigue, Prosperity
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Cellar, Moat, Woodcutter, Mining Village, Horse Traders, Tournament*, Moneylender, Library, Witch*, Forge
• *Additional Set-up Required: Add 'Prizes' to supply (Bag of Gold, Diadem, Followers, Princess, Trusty Steed), Curse Cards (20)

The key to this game is Tournament, you will want to get prizes early so you have plenty of time to use them. 

"Dirty Rotten Scoundrel"

Recommended

"Dirty Rotten Scoundrel" by Daniel
Requires: Intrigue, Dominion
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Pawn, Shanty Town, Steward, Swindler, Conspirator, Torturer*, Laboratory, Witch*, Saboteur  Festival
• *Additional Set-up Required: Curse Cards (20)

An evil game, lots of attack cards and no defense (reaction cards).  You must be more evil than your opponent to win.

"Worker's Comp"

Highly Recommended

"Workers Comp" by Lacey
Requires: Prosperity, Dominion
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Cellar, Watchtower, Workers Village, Thief, Witch*, Mountebank*, Mint, Grand Market, Forge, Peddler
• *Additional Set-up Required: Curse Cards (20)

Full of fun combinations and different approaches to victory, you have to work to make that money.

"Dark Forest"

Highly Recommended

"Dark Forest" by Lacey
Requires: Fairytale, Dominion, Intrigue
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Magic Beans, Soothsayer, Werewolf, Wishing Well, Druid, Dryad, Tinker, Laboratory, Sorceress*, Golden Touch*
• *Additional Set-up Required: Curse Cards (20), put Golden Touch on top of the Gold supply pile

This game involves a lot of strategy, due to the wide variety of routes you can take to victory.  Cards are a bit more complicated and require lots of thinking and strategy to find the best combo of cards on each hand to gain the most victory, gold and/or higher level kingdom cards.

"City Thugs"

Recommended

"City Thugs" by Lacey

Requires: Prosperity

2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Trade Route*, Watchtower, Rabble, Mountebank*, City, Contraband, Goons*, Grand Market, Bank, Expand
• *Additional Set-up Required: Trade Route Mat, Coin Tokens, Victory Tokens, Victory Token Mat (1 per player), Curse Cards (10)

Money is key here along with taking out your opponent by filling their hands with curses and limiting them to 3 cards to start by using 'Goons' to your advantage.

"My Path to Victory"

Highly Recommended

"My Path to Victory" - by Lacey
Requires: Prosperity, Intrigue
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Bishop, Counting House, Goons*, Monument*, Peddler, Baron, Harem, Pawn, Shanty Town, Expand (10 each)
• *Additional Set-up Required: Victory Tokens, Victory Token Mat (1 per player)

A very fun game with lots of tokens thus creating many paths to your own personal victory.  Original set was titled "Paths to Victory" by Rio Grande Games, it plays with 'Upgrade', I feel the game plays better with 'Expand'.  

"Oceanic Traveler"

Recommended

"Oceanic Traveler" by Lacey
Requires: Seaside, Dominion or Intrigue
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Pearl Diver, Fishing Village, Navigator, Treasure Map, Sea Hag*, Pirate Ship*, Ghost Ship, Treasury, Merchant Ship, Wharf (10 each)
• *Additional Set-up Required: Curse Cards (10), Pirate Ship Mat (1 per player)

This is a very quick game, lots of actions, cards and money.  Quickest to the finish line wins!

"Noble Court"

Recommended with Reservations

"Noble Court" by Daniel
Requires: Intrigue
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Courtyard, Steward, Masquerade, Iron Works, Scout, Tribute, Torturer, Minion, Harem, Nobles

This game starts out quickly but has a very slow middle game.  Money seems hard to come by and often requires the use of Kingdom Cards to gain Victory Cards. 

"Royal Victor"

Highly Recommended

"Royal Victor" by Lacey
Requires: Intrigue, Prosperity
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Great Hall, Monument*, Baron, Duke, Royal Seal, Vault, Hoard, Goons*, Nobles, Grand Market
• *Additional Set-up Required: Victory Mat (1 per player), Tokens go into supply

This games focus is around victory cards and victory points with multiple ways to gain each.  If you are looking for an even more interesting game, add the kingdom card Expand. 

"Secret Gardens"

Recommended

"Secret Gardens" by Lacey
Requires: Dominion, Intrigue
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Cellar, Secret Chamber, Gardens, Remodel, Laboratory, Thief, Village, Witch*, Woodcutter, Workshop
• *Additional Set-up Required: Curse Cards (10)

This game is all about using your kingdom cards to gain a victory, since money is scarce in this game.  Key cards will include Gardens, Remodel and Workshop.  

"Shipwrecks"

Recommended

"Shipwrecks" by Rio Grande Games
Requires: Seaside, Dominion
2 Player Set-Up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Ghost Ship, Merchant Ship, Native Village*, Navigator, Pearl Diver, Salvager, Sea Hag*, Smugglers, Treasury, Warehouse (10 each)
• *Additional Set-up Required: Curse Cards (10), Native Village Mat (1 for each player)
• I recommend: Remove Smugglers from the supply, add Woodcutter (from Dominion)

This game involves many long turns once you get started, many cards give you additional cards and you will need to get your hands on Native Village, Warehouse and Treasury if you want actions. 

"First Game"

Highly Recommended

"First Game" by Rio Grande Games
Requires: Dominion
2 Player Set-up:

• Treasure Cards: Copper, Silver, Gold (all)
• Victory Cards: Estate, Duchy, Province (8 each)
• Kingdom Cards: Cellar, Market, Militia, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter, Workshop (10 each)

A good game for learning the basics of the game and how to play, was well balanced and teaches attack (Militia) and defense (Moat) cards. 

Setting up Dominion

Set-up for Dominion involves putting cards into a 'supply'.  The supply are all the cards on the table that are available for play during the game, including treasure cards, victory cards and kingdom cards.  Each game has treasure (Copper, Silver and Gold (if playing with the expansion 'Prosperity' you would also put out Platinum) and victory cards (Estate, Duchy and Province (if playing with the expansion 'Prosperity' you would also put out Colony) in addition to 10 sets of kingdom cards.  Each set of Kingdom cards gets 10 cards (for a 2 player game).  In addition, if a kingdom card has special requirements, set-up may include putting out additional cards such as Curse cards, mats or tokens.

I will be discussing the different recommended sets of 10 Kingdom cards that both the makers of the game, Rio Grande Games, recommend, in addition to ones that I have created.  I'll also be giving a score to each recommended set of 10, on a scale of 1 - 3 stars (3 being highly recommended, 1 being not recommended).

Dominion by Rio Grande Games box art