Dominion - Dark Ages

Another combo-heavy set, this time focused around the trash. There are cards that do something when trashed, get things from the trash, and care about the trash. There are Shelters which replace starting Estates, Ruins to give to other players, and Spoils to gain for yourself.


One of two new Supply piles that have a variety of cards in them, the Knights pile contains 10 unique cards. The only card that may be bought or gained or chosen from this pile is the card on top. Only the top card is public information.


Dark Ages includes three Shelters - Hovel, Necropolis, and Overgrown Estate. These cards replace starting Estates in some games. Shelters are not part of the Supply. Additional non-Supply cards in this set are Madman, Mercenary, and Spoils. These are present if a card mentions them. Non-supply cards cannot be bought, they must be gained through other means.


Ruins are only included in the Supply if a card with the Looter type is present in the Kingdom. These also form a varied pile, of which only the top card may be bought or looked at.

Flavor

Times have been hard. To save on money, you’ve moved out of your old castle, and into a luxurious ravine. You didn’t like that castle anyway; it was always getting looted, and never at a reasonable hour. And if it wasn’t barbarians it was the plague, or sometimes both would come at once, and there wouldn’t be enough chairs.

The ravine is great; you get lots of sun, and you can just drop garbage wherever you want. In your free time you’ve taken up begging. Begging is brilliant conceptually, but tricky in practice, since no-one has any money. You beg twigs from the villagers, and they beg them back, but no-one really seems to come out ahead. That’s just how life is sometimes.

You’re quietly conquering people, minding your own business, when suddenly there’s a plague, or barbarians, or everyone’s illiterate, and it’s all you can do to cling to some wreckage as the storm passes through. Still, you are sure that, as always, you will triumph over this adversity, or at least do slightly better than everyone else.
-- Donald X. Vaccarino

Features

• 56 unique cards - large sized expansion
  
• 35 Kingdom cards
  
• 22 Trash-related cards
  
• 2 Upgrading cards
  
• 3 Shelters
  
• 5 Ruins
  
• Spoils
  
• Medium complexity