Dominant Species - 24 August 2011

First outing for Orhan's birthday gift to James - Dominant Species.  This is a complex and thoughtful game simulating evolution.  It sounds quite dry but is actually a lot of fun with plenty of interaction between the players. There are a lot of facets to the game but not all come into play at each decision point so the complexity felt manageable, but we agreed this is definitely a game to play when everyone is feeling alert!

Although we avoided analysis paralysis, the game is lengthy and we played 3 turns, rather than the 5 or 6 the full game would take.  We discussed ways to shorten it (without rushing it) and having now read some of the BGG postings, I like the following suggestion:

• Remove all Action Pawn-related cards (Intelligence, Parasitism, Omnivore, Immigrants). Fewer pawns = fewer phases = shorter game.
• Randomly remove an additional card (or better still take out Blight - the devastating card that nearly wiped out David in the very first turn).
• Shuffle the Ice Age card with 4 more cards and put them at the bottom of the draw deck.

That way, the game is at least one turn shorter, and no animal has an advantage over another.

The lead changed a lot throughout the game but James' growth in number of species in the final turn meant he cleaned up in the final reckoning when each and every terrain tile is scored one last time.  James got 88 victory points, David 72, Orhan 71, Kieron 65 and Adrian 63.  One to play within the next few weeks I think whilst the mechanisms are still fresh in our minds.