Stats:
No. of players: 2-4 (2-6 if you have both the Dominion Base Set and Dominion: Intrigue)
Amount of time to play: 30 minutes
Age requirements: 10+
Set-up time: 5-10 min

Description of Dominion Seaside:

Dominion Seaside is the second expansion for Dominion. The first expansion was Dominion: Intrigue. Unlike Intrigue though Dominion: Seaside cannot be played by itself. You must have the base set of Dominion or Dominion: Intrigue to play Dominion: Seaside.

Not only does Dominion: Seaside add new cards to the series it also adds new mechanics to the game play. The biggest change is duration action cards. They allow you to take an action now and another on your next turn. Ex: The card Caravan says, “+ 1 Card, +1 Action and At the start of your next turn, +1 Card.” So if you play Caravan as your action card you get the extra card and extra action now and at the beginning of your next turn you get an extra card. Caravan goes away during the Clean-up Phase of the second turn. This can be a little tough to track at first, but after a couple plays you get used to it.

Player mats are another addition. When you buy certain cards you get a player mat. The actions on the cards that get you a player mat allow you to set aside cards or treasure tokens which go on the player mat. Again this is something to get used to but integrates easily with Dominion’s normal game play.

New actions allow you to keep a specific card at the top of your deck, draw a card from the bottom of your deck and place it on the top, or even make players buying a card get a curse at the same time. The new action cards and mechanics add more variety to either Dominion or Dominion: Intrigue, but as before they do not make the game too complicated.

A Quick Review of Dominion Seaside:

Dominion: Seaside adds some fun new possibilities into Dominion. I do not recommend starting with Seaside, but after you have a handle on either the base game or Intrigue, this is an excellent addition to the series. The added mechanics deepen gameplay a bit but do not make the game overly-complicated. It may takes a couple plays before the duration-actions seem to flow well with the rest of the game, but once you are used to playing with them they are well-worth it.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 3 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 6 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6