In the Provinces expansion, you will come into contact with other nations, which will give you the opportunity to conquer and assimilate new territories into your Civilization!
This expansion includes exciting new tiles to add to the board, new Mastery cards, Conquest cards, Rebellion cards, Objectives cards, and more! It is also fully compatible with all of the other Dominations expansions!
At the beginning of each Age, each player will draw a Province card, then take the corresponding Province tile which will be added to their hand. This tile must be placed on the board during the Age during your Growth phase, at the same time as a regular domino. Each player will hence be playing six dominoes during the Age instead of the usual five. These dominoes will have unique illustrations and characteristics : some will have resources, some will have other effects, much like the Monument tiles.
Once your Province tile has been placed, you can Conquer it. To do so, you’re going to need a whole new resource : Conquest! Conquest is represented by a deck of small Conquest cards that can only be gained one way - using one of the expansion’s new Mastery cards: Conscription. Conscription is a unique Mastery card in that it doesn’t belong to any Domain: at has a value of 3 that can be purchased using any kind of resource. It is then used as a converter – changing any Knowledge type into Conquest cards.
When Conquest cards are purchased, they are drawn from the Conquest deck, which is placed face down on the table. Each card has a value of 1 to 5 Conquest Points, and as they’re drawn randomly, you never know what you’re going to get! Additionally, some of these cards have special powers and bonuses!
To conquer a Province, you must pay the corresponding number of Conquest points as stated on the tile’s Province card. However, these Provinces won’t allow themselves to be conquered easily. Each Province card also has a “Rebellion” value. This refers to the deck of Rebellion cards, which - similarly to the Conquest cards - are drawn randomly, have a value of 1 to 5, and some of them have special powers that can be good or bad. You must draw the number of Rebellion cards specified, then add their value to that Province's Conquest value to determine its full cost. If you have enough Conquest points, then you conquer the Province – placing a City token on it and gaining the bonus stated on its card. As with the classic dominos, just because you placed a Province tile, doesn’t mean it’s yours - once placed, any player can conquer it!
However, although the tiles MUST be placed during the Age, you don’t have to conquer them. Each Province has an End of Age effect, which is triggered if it has not been conquered. These effects can be good or bad – from allowing you to gain additional resources, to unleashing hordes of barbarian invaders to destroy neighbouring Cities!
These combinations of different effects bring a fascinating new strategic facet to Dominations. Will you conquer as many Provinces as you can to reap the benefits, or will you simply place the tiles next to your opponents’ Cities, forcing them to react to avoid negative End of Age effects?
Provinces brings a slightly more aggressive stance to your games of Dominations, in that your actions can potentially damage your adversaries : Provinces is the first expansion where your nation can actually lose ground : Cities can be destroyed, resources lost.
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