Last Saturday, Tabletop Day, I took some photos at Rules Of Play's gaming event which meant I didn't get much gaming done myself. As a "reward" my fiancée Aimee, who works at Rules, told me to choose a game and she'd buy it for me (us). So I browsed the shelves in store, did some research on my mobile and got a short list together. There was Arctic Scavengers, Trajan and Twilight Struggle. Then, almost without thinking, I chose a different game altogether.
Dominant Species is a worker placement and area control game with a touch of war game about it. It iis well known as a heavy euro with deep strategy and many paths to victory (points). It's very thematic and offers a fair whack of player interaction (mostly the kind that makes you want to apologise to your victim). The game is set 90,000 years ago on an earth where different animal orders - mammals, reptiles, amphibians, arachnids, insects and birds - battle for dominance as the temperature falls and the world freezes around them.
On your turn you will use a number of action pawns (APs) to program your turn, picking actions such as adaptation (which allows your species to evolve to live in different environments), speciation (where your animal will evolveentirely new species) and glaciation (where the tundra covers areas of the world, destroying their sustenance and making it all but uninhabitable). Then, these actions are resolved in order as displayed on the board. You'll be moving your species between different terrains, attacking and killing opponent species, expanding and exploring earth and avoiding the encroaching ice.
The gameplay stages and components are quite abstract which I thought would mean the theme would be muted. However this is not so. This game oozes theme. I found myself (in early turns, before there were too many of my 55 species on the board) naming my species - this one is tarantulas, this one black widows, etc. There's a sense of slow desolation on every turn; you're fighting hard to keep your species alive, constantly aware that one spiteful move from an opponent could force many of them onto the endangered list. Any species finding themselves stuck on a terrain that can't sustain them will become extinct at the end of the round.
I love this game. There's so much to it I'm having trouble describing it with any success. It's a long game but it doesn't drag, yet you feel you need more time all the time. There's no rush to the turns but you're never truly satisfied with what you're able to do. The world is killing you every step of the way, but slowly and almost without you noticing. As "heavy games" go - and I've played my share - I think this is my favourite. The theme, the strategy, the decisions available, the interaction with opponents, the possibility (in higher-number player games) for temporary alliances... There's just so much in this game that makes you want to play for hours on end. And it's not a short game; our first two-player game took a little over 2.5 hours, a time we can no doubt reduce in future plays.
I'd highly recommend this game to anyone who thinks Agricola is great but wants more depth, to those who enjoy the ticking engine of Terra Mystica but wants more freedom, to everyone who thinks solid euros are boring: this is anything but! Without a doubt - and after just one play, though I'm unlikely to change my mind here - this is one of the best games we own and one of my favourites too. I struggle to find a single negative comment to make. There are no holes here. The randomness is minimal; basically just the blind card and element draws which can be seen thematically as discovering foodstuffs and environments in a world as yet unexplored. The non-random elements of this game are brutal. Forward planning, long term strategy and some bluffing is essential.
This game is beautiful! So, so beautiful. Not visually (though the first three printings' artwork are wonderfully functional and the fourth printing is more thematic artistically yet still as functional) but mechanically, strategically and in its exquisite pace.
It tentatively joins my list of TEN OUT OF TENs, alongside Agricola and Terra Mystica. I don't think this score will need amending after more plays.
