Eminent Domain - Tips & Strategies

One of the perks of the Kickstarter Campaign for Eminent Domain was a set of 9 bonus planets (3 Prestige, and 6 Utopian planets).

Many copies are circulating that include these bonus planets, but the full rules for these planets were not included (due to timing).

It is important to note that Utopian planets have special abilities making them much more useful than they may first appear.

Prestige Planets

If you’ve played with these, you’re almost certainly playing them correctly. There are no extra rules beyond the basic planet rules; these are worth more points than other planets.

Utopian Planets

The first ability of these planets is pretty straightforward. When Producing, you can choose the resource type to place on the planet.

In addition, Utopian Planets can count as an extra world when using Research.

What does this mean? When you have a Utopian World, it can count as one more of any planet type you have out, when counting how many of a type of world you have for Research to get Technologies. To get the level 2 and 3 Technologies you need 2 or 3 of a given planet type, plus enough research power (light bulbs).

As an additional note, you can only increase this planet count by 1, regardless of how many Utopian Planets you have.

These planets can help you diversify your planet portfolio and help get you to those higher level Technologies!

pay close attention to the level 2 tech cards that you could be getting… Some of them allow for a completely different style of game play and opening up winning strategies of their own.

For example, check out the Weapon Emporium… The ability to trade fighters for influence is a very powerful effect which opens up the arms dealer strategy.

First (or second) turn when you get your free card, what should it be and why?

Well if you’re first player and noone has gone before you, play to your hand more then your planet! yes, the technology available to you will be based on what type of planet you have but all three types are decently good at helping any strategy at tier 1, which is something most players ignore.

Few facts to consider:
The faster you get that first planet flipped, the sooner you can effectively use your research cards.
If you have Policies +military it might be a good idea to trade policies for military
If you have Policies +1xcolonize it might be a good idea to trade policies for colnize, but you really don’t haveto.
Scan as a first action can get you what you need for the role phase/help you setup your second hand for what you want so don’t be afraid to retain/throw away policies on the first turn

Just remember to aim for that first flip asap, and then aim for a two card research hand to be able to get a tech, it makes a big difference being able to start your clock/research sooner considering how fast the games go.

It’s tempting when you’re first learning the game to flip your starting planet right away. But don’t be in a rush! That may not be the most efficient use of your early turns.

For example, if you are going to utilize a strong military strategy, instead of wasting a research action to discard your colonize cards and wasting fighters on a planet that provides no benefit (beyond potential research opportunities), piggy-back on someone else’s colonize role to park your colonize cards under your starting planet. Not only does this get them out of your hand early in the game, but you can also score the planet late in the game for an extra edge!

Eminent domains only source of chaos is by default the planet deck, we wanted to increase this a little bit without just unbalancing the game, so what we did was create a stack of a ‘destiny’ deck. You take two cards from each Stack and one Politics card and you shuffle them up.

At the beginning of each first player turn (rotating one counterclockwise every cycle, meaning if you have normal play going clockwise in a three player game, on the third turn the third player will be the first player): You flip a card from the destiny deck and it is now a ‘role’ for all players (in which no one is the leader). It does lead to some interesting statistics and shakes the game upa bit. Enjoy!

In our playthroughs, my group noted that especially with the Utopian planets in the mix, it was really frustrating to survey and not get planets you need. We decided that it may be worthwhile to make two piles of planets. When you lead or follow with Survey, you may choose either pile, one at a time. You -must- declare how many cards you are using before, but this allows a little more control.

After my first play of Eminent Domain I thought, “That was okay.” I didn’t think there would be a whole lot of replay value because there are not that many different cards with which to build your deck. However, the beauty of this game is that the focus is not just about building your deck, but optimizing your choices, by following your opponent’s role as often as you can. You are truly playing against an opponent (as opposed to playing multi-player solitaire). The more you play, the more you will catch on to the subtle stategies in this game.

OK, this is not the strategy for pacifists or woosies. Get this: if you plan to go the military route, get rid of those annoying Colonize cards as early as possible. Take the Research action to get rid of your first two Colonize cards, and never take more. After that, then you will probably do a lot of Military roles to get ships and save one to use as your action to Conquer your planets without letting anyone follow.

Also necessary:
Early on, take survey roles to get more survey cards, allowing you to follow that action. In order to conquer worlds you must have them in your Empire.

Focus on worlds that add: military icons, research icons, and survey icons.

Also: Research role should be taken at least once. Three researches let you follow for a 1st level research gain. Focus on Military, Survey, and Research techs.

One thing I have found is that many hands will get clogged with sub-optimal cards, especially getting toward late game. While it is hard to justify spending your action on removing cards, definitely consider this mid-game. If your are a colonist, the Colonize cards will definitely proliferate. Keep them under control! The action you’re investing earlier will yield great returns later in the game.

Having played once (thereby making me an expert :-P) it seems a good use of Politics is to choose a Research card, as it opens the early opportunity to follow research (impossible at the beginning of the game without settling a world with a research icon).