Dominant Species - Gaming Rules! Review

[@Downloaded7]

This is the first video of yours that I have seen. Excellent! Subscribed. I would just say that your channel's name had me thinking it was a rules overview primarily and a review secondarily before I actually clicked.

[@GamingRulesVideos]

Welcome to the channel. As you may have seen, I am generally known for my rules videos which are professionally created. My review videos are more thrown together but I hope they are useful :)

[@danieleg.593]

I never played DS, and I was looking for a video which wasn't that long and very clear at the same time. This one is what I was looking for. Thank you for your work.

[@mbrochh82]

Just unboxed this. Super hyped to play this with my group.

[@apostateant]

Great review, as always, Paul. Love the clean, to-the-point, presentation.

[@GamingRulesVideos]

Thanks Anthony :)

[@TabletopGamesBlog]

Thank you for another great review video. It's so good to hear your thoughts about a game - it's always very comprehensive.

[@FCL70]

Well done. It is an excellent game and essentially the standard I use for all medium to heavy games. As you noted, the rules are essentially quite simple - lengthy, perhaps, but simple. One doesn't need a 3-layer flow chart to determine what happens next or if some trio of events have aligned to cause some other effect. This however doesn't limit the in-game complex strategies required. The game is exceedingly deep and almost all choices are difficult choices. The other measure I use DS for is to judge a game solely on it's gameplay. After my first run at Rising Sun, I was thinking back on the game. Once it wasn't actually in front of me, with all it's extremely detailed minis, metal coins, and blingged out pieces, I thought about DS. In our gaming group (with a solid core of 8-9 DS fans) I noted that Rising Sun didn't pass the Dominant Species test - which is, if you reduced everything down to wooden pieces and simple art, would the game still be as good or at least nearly as good? I've kept this in mind when playing future games, and while it hasn't really diminished my opinions of other games, it has certainly solidified that DS an amazing game to achieve what it does in such a minimalist style.

[@JamieMaltmanTube]

It's a top 10 for me too. I've got a 6 experienced player game coming up the week before Origins. And our average with 6P groups at our quarterly all day TABSCon is 2:45 to 3:15. Your brain is ON for the whole game. Love it. (But not at all for my wife).

[@JamieMaltmanTube]

We play with the full deck at 6P, and every random element shapes the given game and changes the weight of every single action every round. If yours don't come out? Adapt. If a lot come up for abundance that favour someone else? Adapt into it or add other elements to the board instead so theirs slide down to waste away. BUT that means the game can be a little fragile if someone starts to play random/irrationally when everyone else is playing it to the fine balance. So you need to make sure the group is pulling in the same direction. But if you can, it's one of the very best.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

We are trying this out for the first time tonight. Going to hold you to that rulebook verdict 😁....... Man this needs a visual upgrade!

[@Xhawk33]

Preordered and currently waiting for the 5th printing to arrive. Appreciate the video :)

[@bushibayushi]

My top 3 games of all time are: 1. War of the Ring, 2. Twilight Struggle and 3. Dominant Species - this game is EXCEPTIONALLY good. I love the artwork and the theme - it really comes through. Paul, you have to change your BGG rating because as of now you gave DS a 8.5 ;). Thank you for reviewing the game, I agree 100% with the flaws you mentioned.

[@GamingRulesVideos]

OMG, I must change it now. Thanks for letting me know :)

[@bushibayushi]

By the way, I don't know if you would agree with this, but I consider Dominant Species to be a spiritual successor of El Grande ("controllable chaos", the way the scoring works and the cards with special abilities) and Caylus (the way of resolving actions from top to bottom of the board). It feels like a marriage of both of these games, but on steroids ;).

[@GamingRulesVideos]

Interesting. Never thought of it light that, but can see where you are coming from. I know the worker placement action selection is similar to Caylus & Pillars of the Earth (two of my favourite games)

[@WanderingLunatic]

Simple. It's the best game ever. Review done.

[@FredzGreen]

I think your home made tiles were really beautiful. They should have used them when they made the second edition. Good review and good tip to warn about the cards.

[@johngentry2794]

funniest part, the 3rd edition comes out in June. curious to those updates if any.

[@bushibayushi]

It's not a 3rd edition, it's just another (5th) printing of the second edition (the one with new artwork). As far as I know, the game will be 100% the same.

[@johngentry2794]

Yea, I just saw that on BGG. The game is due now for June I believe. No changes at all.

[@GamingRulesVideos]

good. no changes needed :)

[@OutOfCuriosity]

Hi, nice to see a review of such a classic. For me this game probably ranges in my top 10 games. I agree on nearly all of your points mentioned, I'm also a euro game player, I dislike conflict or area control games etc. But I surprisingly like this game. The artwork however (I own the German edition from 2011, I don't know if this corresponds to the first or second printing) feels for me outdated and seems to have lot's of potential to be approved on. As there are lots of bits on the board, it is probably no easy task to add more flavor to the art and still don't distract the eye too much from the strategic elements of the game though.

[@mikelecsus1328]

The games not looking that much , i mean graphic and pieces.. but as i see it has pretty interesting mechanic which as you wrote make the player alert of everything that happens and if he missed or not notice will eventually bring to his down. As pc games same board games , not always the graphic is what matters , the game-play much more important.

[@B0rghalRantipole]

Paul, you say that you can go first and deal with the domination card that will destroy you - but that's really only true for the first two players. It's been my experience that powerful domination cards get snatched up ASAP whether it is because they help you, or hurt your opponent(s). This makes it so that a catastrophic event can appear that you can do absolutely nothing about because you happen to be third or fourth in that particular round. This is perhaps true to the game's theme, but absolutely devastating for the mechanics. All it takes is a ill-timed volcano for someone to never want to play this game again because of all your plans being killed by a (un)lucky draw of a single swingy card, which is sad, because otherwise the game is a masterpiece in terms of planning moves. I think a fix would be to see the cards one turn ahead so that you can actually PLAN instead of being at the mercy of turn order, but then that introduces even more complexity into an already busy game.

[@confusedgaijin]

"I'm not going to explain the rules. I don't do that in this video" Well that is a bit problematic given your channel is named Gaming Rules 😉

[@GamingRulesVideos]

The channel is, but I also do other videos too :)

[@Messengus]

I mean... if you don't think gaming rules you might want to not look at all these reviews of games that rule

[@guilhermebelmonte1]

When is coming the gaming rules for this game?

[@GamingRulesVideos]

Hi. No plans to create a rules video for the game. They take me a bit longer to create than the review videos :)

[@Quiffedd]

No car one what are your thoughts on Twilight Struggle Paul?

[@Quiffedd]

Nice*

[@GamingRulesVideos]

I have thoughts on the game :) Maybe a good question for my next live Q&A if I remember.

[@FCL70]

Great review, though I'm biased as I love this game. On your dislike of the element draws - for Adaptation and Abundance, a player is far better off having none of their existing elements come out than having too many (or frankly even just a few), because as you know, unselected elements drop down and have negative effects. Additionally, having none come out means other players can't muscle in on your tiles. For Wanderlust, I'd agree, having none of your elements come out is problematic, except that if you've been diversifying in Adaptation, then you should have more options down in Wanderlust. Man I love this game!

[@repeataftermeme75]

Is the 5th edition or ?

[@repeataftermeme75]

Never mind, I miss read. Still don’t know which edition is the most current but it’s the 5th printing.

[@alexisle7053]

Ok tell me. Why don’t u make a tutorial when its a 10/10 game?

[@GamingRulesVideos]

My "How-to-Play" videos take 40-50 hours to create :)

[@alexisle7053]

@@GamingRulesVideos pls make 1 for these. I personally prefer this over Evolution. So underrated thank u! b(^__^)d