Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Dominant Species
As my mother used to say – “What’s good for the goose is good for the meat-eating desert goose sh*t-stomping anything that comes near its marshlands.” Anyways, let’s talk about Dominant Species. The game is 16 years old, has had two editions, and a re-skinned streamlined version made for people who like Baby Shark. I don’t care what anyone says, I have no interest in playing an easier version of this cut-throat hoot. This competitive Euro animal-battler is best when the Jaws of Hard-Mode is activated.
Dominant Species is great for one million reasons, but the main reason is because of one particular mechanism – delayed worker placement. On your turn you will place one worker onto a board of actions that are stacked in a particular order, but that worker doesn’t do sh*t until every player has placed all of their workers. They then fire off, top to bottom, left to right. The timing in which they were placed doesn’t matter. And the most important actions go off near the end. It’s a system that ties knots of tension around your heart for 3 gosh darn hours.
It is a take-that Euro war-game that is as brutal as the players make it. Because each player can co-exist on the same tile as another, combat doesn’t happen until someone decides to take the competition action (The only attack action). This is an area control game, but you rarely want to wipe out the other species – you want to live in the same areas as they do to leech their points. You don’t score for killing – you score locations based on animal population majorities, but only on the tiles chosen by players. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll spread your herds wide in the hopes of mingling with those who may very well try and eat you.
Gameplay
Dominant Species is an area majority game where each player controls an asymmetrical species. It is a VP salad of sorts where the majority of points are scored by taking the “domination action” AND inhabiting the tiles of opponents who also take the “domination action.” The main board is made-up of hexagonal landtypes tiles (Forest, sea, mountains, etc) and each tile can supply up to 6 different types of food (Different species need certain types of food to survive on tiles). Players can move about the board freely; however, if an animal ends the round on a tile that doesn’t have their food type, they will die.
Each round begins with action selection. Players place action pawns, one at a time, selecting an action they will take later. They can even choose the same action multiple times – players have an average of about 4-7 action pawns. However, no action will be triggered until all action pawns have been placed. The action board then fires off, from top to bottom, left to right. The timing of your placement does not matter.
Action options include moving your animals, creating more of your animals, gaining the ability to live off new food types, expanding the world by adding land tiles, etc. There is also the competition action, which allows you to remove enemy pieces. There is no rolling dice – you simply grab and remove. The final action to fire off every round is the most important action of the game – The domination action. Everything you do (Moving, competing, adapting, etc) is done to set up for the domination actions.
When a player performs a domination action, they choose any land tile they want. The amount of VP awarded is decided based on the land type chosen (Seas give the most points and tundra gives out the least). The most dominant animal receives the highest points offered; the next most receives the 2nd most points. The species that lives off the tile the best (Decided by what food the tile offers) will be able to activate one of the 5 powerful domination cards that sit off to the side. Each card is used once and is then removed from the game. Five new ones will come out each round. Once this deck is done, the game ends.
One last mechanism that is worth mentioning before I describe the flow of Dominant Species is the glacier action. In the center of the board is a glacier that will grow in size, destroying land types and killing any species it spreads on to (Ironically you can move onto it after it spreads and survive – just not when the tile is dropped). This spreading glacier, which is controlled by the player who chooses the action ensures that you can not sit idolly. Throughout this game, you will be moving and moving and moving, surviving the best you can against the elements and that bastard joey whose snakes keep eating you.
The Hook
Infest and React
The Hook of Dominant Species is the ‘delayed worker placement’ mechanism. From the first pawn played to the last, your heart is squeezed by the tension caused by the ungrateful bastards living rent free in your land as they choose the action you were PLANNING on taking. Each action selected exposes just a little bit of the player’s plan – whether it is moving, attacking, or claiming one of the domination action spots. But it ain’t just you – everyone’s plans are are being scrutinized. The Hook sees your plans change in real-time as players react to your action selection as much as you react to theirs.
If an opponent chooses to expand the map, you will attempt to calculate WHERE that expansion will happen and get near it. If an opponent chooses the competition action, well G*d d*mm*t who will they attack? If an opponent chooses to move, who are they planning on joining? And if they choose to gain more animals (Called the speciation action) then where the hell are they about to multiply? The Hook is comically chaotic. The main board begins small, so spreading out is easy – as long as you avoid those trying to eat you.
And of course … you have to watch any player who chooses the domination action. From beginning to end the domination action will be the majority of points scored – it is often the first action selected by the first player. Better come up with a plan to infest their areas. The Hook is fast, tense, and oh so much fun. Plans are made, revealed, and changed. You have to calculate each decision knowing it could all change, doing your best to pivot when an opponent’s action shocks the dickens out of you. It is a thrilling beginning to a 3 hour game.
The Turn
Watch and Fortify
Due to the fact that those selecting the “wayfare action” get to choose where the new land tiles go, Dominant Species’ map grows unevenly, and unfairly, just like your body during puberty. The point-loaded tiles may have spread away from you while mountains and deserts surround your barren kingdom. And, spreading much faster than the map, are your numerous enemies. It ain’t hard to pump out animals if a player sets their mind to it – one species may multiply comically quick. You must figure out which areas of concentrated enemies will be chosen to score, while trying to fortify your own … and keep the bastards out as best you can.
This is the beginning of the Turn, when the map has grown by 150% and much of the tiles are now covered in animal tokens. It is fun and unnerving – your large army may, or may not, look large next to 5 other armies. But you have watched your opponents and learned their favorite actions. Everyone has their penchant for a playstyle – some constantly move around, others multiply every round, and some can’t help but attack. Your guesses become educated – it is now easier to plan what an enemy will do. This is the joy of The Turn – Surviving the onslaught of predictable decisions while pushing your plans forward.
And I can not stress this enough – One of Dominant Species greatest qualities is no one’s turn is boring. Enemies spend their actions either dealling with you, or attempting to ruin another enemies plans. Do your best to watch and fortify your roots.
The Bite
Spread Like Fire
The end of Dominant Species is triggered once the last dominance card is triggered. It will be the very last action of a round and the game will then go into final scoring. And final scoring in Dominant Species is INSANE. What will happen, whether you want it to or not (And you will sometimes definitely not want it to happen), every single land tile will score for majority, as if the domination action was triggered for each of them. By this time there are often over 20 tiles making up the world; that is SO MANY POINTS waiting to be fought for. At some point, when the dominance card deck has shrunk quite a bit, you will need to think about spreading out all over the world.
This is The Bite, when your paranoia of being hunted out of your dominions is replaced by the joy of infesting everywhere. You will add food sources in places not normally seen so you can mingle with the water spiders, you will choose the competition action just so you can remove anyone challenging your majority holdings.
The Bite is exciting for those both winning and losing. If you are winning, keep doing what you’re doing and hold what you can. If you are in second or less, it is time to press your luck. Spread out, spread thin, and mingle on every tile you can survive off of. If you can’t survive on one tile, take an action to change that and hop on to what has been denied from you the entire game!
Many of the games I review on this blog usually have one weaker section. A game can begin slow, and explode near the end. Sometimes the middle is boring as people take long turns with AP. And sometimes a game falls flat during scoring. Not the case with Dominant Species. From the moment you place that first action pawn and until final scoring, you are running scared across a world trying to kill you. You will never feel comfortable with the spreading glaciers, or the world which expands away from you, or the arctic flesh eating spiders that seem to always be looking at you. AND YET! You will score points, you will leach the points of your neighbors dominant action, and you will be in control of some powerful dominant cards when they go off. Though the game is three hours long, it is a fast paced war-game that somehow manages to feel like an energetic race. 10 out of 10, will always play again.
