Dominion – Prosperity

About This Content

This is the fourth expansion to the game of Dominion. It adds twenty-five new Kingdom cards to Dominion, plus two new Basic cards that let players keep building up past Gold and Province. The central theme is wealth; there are treasures with abilities, cards that interact with treasures, and powerful expensive cards.

Ah, money. There’s nothing like the sound of coins clinking in your hands. You vastly prefer it to the sound of coins clinking in someone else’s hands, or the sound of coins just sitting there in a pile that no-one can quite reach without getting up. Getting up, that’s all behind you now. Life has been good to you. Just ten years ago, you were tilling your own fields in a simple straw hat. Today, your kingdom stretches from sea to sea, and your straw hat is the largest the world has ever known. You also have the world’s smallest dog, and a life-size statue of yourself made out of baklava. Sure, money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy envy, anger, and also this kind of blank feeling. You still have problems – troublesome neighbors that must be conquered. But this time, you’ll conquer them in style.

Mechanics

Prosperity has been a best-seller expansion, since its themes tend to encourage elaborate engine building and spendy buy phases, which give a sense of achievement. Many of the cards contribute wealth, and Kingdoms that draw heavily from this set lend to uncommonly high VP accumulations. Part of this comes from cards which continuously award VP every play. This expansion has pushed Dominion strategy toward engine building more than others.

Special Cards

• City – A card that upgrades automatically
• Grand Market – An expensive but powerful cantrip
• King’s Court – A way to triple your Action

VP Tokens
Bishop, Collection, Investment and Monument are four cards which directly grant VP tokens. This frees up the player from having to gain useless VP cards to their deck. Because they each provide coins, they also reduce the need for Treasures, opening the possibility of a very lean, efficient deck. These three cards are player favorites as they can lead to games which favor accumulating tokens rather than advancing toward the end game. Even though only a few cards in this set offer VP tokens, they are thought of as a key component in Prosperity because of their power.

Treasures
Prosperity introduced Treasures that have effects beyond granting money. It was the first expansion to include a Treasure costing $7, and in keeping with the wealth theme, doesn’t include any $2 cost Treasures. On average, cards in Prosperity heavy Kingdoms cost more than those from other sets. Even though this expansion includes the most Treasures, these cards tend to lean toward engine building and combos over big money.

• Anvil – A gaining Treasure
• Investment – A VP token collector rewarding Treasure variety
• Crystal Ball – A flexible Treasure scryer
• War Chest – A 5 cost card gainer with a catch
• Collection – A VP token acquirer on Action gain
• Quarry – Enables early high-cost action acquisition
• Tiara – Treasure doubler and topdecker
• Bank – Combos with large hand sizes for mega money
• Hoard – Passively amasses a trove of gold

Colonies and Platinum

Two new basic cards, Colonies and Platinum serve as even more expensive and powerful versions of Provinces and Gold, respectively.

• Longer Games – Colonies are expensive, so they tend to extend the game duration as players work their way up to paying for them..
• Engine Building – Since these games are longer, players have plenty of time to build out elaborate engines.

Themed Content

• 10 Special Treasure: Anvil, Investment, Quarry, Collection, Crystal Ball, War Chest, Tiara, Hoard, Bank, Platinum
• 6 Treasure interaction: Investment, Magnate, Mint, Grand Market, Hoard, Bank
• 4 Non-attack player interaction: Bishop, City, Vault, War Chest
• 3 VP tokens: Bishop, Collection, Investment and Monument
• 7 Expensive: Grand Market, Hoard, Bank, Expand, Forge, King’s Court, Peddler (Platinum, Colony)