Seaside is the second expansion to Dominion and one of the most beloved sets of cards. Designer Donald X. Vaccarino has revisited it to scrap eight of the cards that didn't work as well and add nine new ones to bring the total unique cards in the Seaside set to twenty seven. Some of the new additions revise old versions, and some of them are totally new. Overall, the percentage of Duration cards has increased.
How does first edition / second edition work?
All expansions, including Seaside, come with the up to date content on purchase. To play with these new cards, buy Seaside. If you're itching for that nostalgic game, Seaside First Edition cards are still being supported as a standalone pack. This pack includes the eight cards that have been since removed. If you already owned Seaside before we published this revision, you lucky duck, you now own both. We do this so we aren't scooping anyone's favorite card out from under them. If you own both Seaside and Seaside First Edition you can choose which you want to play with or combine them together.
Notes from Donald included below.
"I guess someone out there will miss the blanks. I think they're still available as a promo? Obv. the set would be better with a card in that slot. There's still a single blank.
Astrolabe is a Treasure - Duration! And not something like Contract that manages to avoid any issues if you trash it from play. What can it mean? Well, when the time comes to reprint the sets with Bonfire etc., those cards will get errata so that they don't mess up with Durations. And then so much for trashing Astrolabe in a confusing way. So anyway, Astrolabe itself is just a vanilla Duration card, but it's a Treasure and well just look at it. So pretty."
"Embargo requires dedicated tokens, just for this card that often no-one buys. That sure wanted to be fixed. And it already had errata due to the changes to Band of Misfits & co.
Blockade is the new Embargo. No tokens required. And it blocks other players and not you, and they can't even get around it with Workshops. It really embargoes things, you get the embargoing experience you always wanted."
"Ghost Ship actually won a most-hated attack poll on Reddit. Expert players may miss it, but it makes casual players miserable. You don't get to see your deck, that's the main thing. For Dominion and Intrigue 2E, weak cards left; for Seaside 2E, a few strong cards left too.
Monkey isn't even an attack; Seaside is following in the footsteps of later sets, that are a little lighter on attacks. It's interactive though. You draw cards if they gain cards. They'll feel attacked, take it from me."
"Navigator is fine to play if nothing else is claiming your action play, if you can just put this in instead of a Silver and never notice that action cost. And if not then you don't touch it.
Tide Pools has nothing to do with Navigator; it's just some cool new card. Seaside had a few things that pushed bigger or smaller turns, so Tide Pools pursues that angle, making one turn bigger and another smaller, in the reverse order that Tactician does."
"People were telling me how little they liked Sea Hag from the moment it came out. Some people just didn't like that all it does it attacks. And it wasn't very good, and games where you did want it were miserable.
Sea Witch is a more classic Witch. In fact it starts off being classic Witch exactly. Then it hangs around and Cellars a little next turn."
"Pearl Diver is inoffensive but also very low value. You want it when a cantrip that does nothing is useful.
Sea Chart is a better cantrip. It plays into the Duration cards theme: Duration cards are in play more often, and so easier to draw with Sea Charts."
"Explorer is fine. It's been complained about a lot over the years, but well, it's really not so bad. But it was borderline, it was a contender for going, and then I wanted to add Pirate, which is similar. So, out with Explorer.
Pirate gains a Gold next turn, or maybe some other Treasure, and maybe faster than it looks."
"Pirate Ship for years has been one of the very weakest cards in the game. At the same time it terrifies casual multiplayer groups, where everyone buys it and so someone who bought it wins. It also requires tokens for again just a single card in the expansion.
I felt like some people would be sad to have no piratey shippy thing, so there's Corsair. It attacks Treasures in a way that doesn't help your opponents."
"Ambassador! It's such a classic old Dominion card. At first it just looks silly; later you find out it's a powerhouse. It's not necessarily a problem in 2-player, though you get a sub-game of trashing down with Ambassadors before you get to the main game after that. But in multiplayer, it can just shut you out. As with Ghost Ship, you don't get to see your deck.
Sailor is unrelated, other than also covering trashing. It's a Duration card that ties into Duration cards, by letting them leap into play. And if there aren't any other ones on the board, well it can work with another Sailor."
"But wait, there's more. A few cards got errata. My philosophy has shifted on "while in play"; now I think it's way more confusing than "this turn." For some years there I thought the opposite; let's hope I don't reverse again there. So, Lighthouse has a different phrasing to get rid of "while in play." And then Treasury wanted to not be in the tiny font if possible. And it was possible. Here's the whole set, with all current wordings / images, only small." - Donald X.
In addition this patch includes:
- Base game achievements
- More Kingdom customization options
- Hints UI
- Other fixes and improvements
You've been asking for achievements! Here they are, designed by Donald X.
We also offer more ways to create a game. You can customize your game, or use a pre-set configuration. You may want to try a 'Learning Game' if you're just playing Dominion for the first time, which gives you unlimited undos and shows your detailed score breakdown as you play. Or maybe you want to play very strictly to the letter of the law, no undos, you don't see the score until the end ot the game. You can right click on each configuration to see exactly how it affects your game. Or you can choose custom to manage a configuration yourself.
Finally, our favorite new feature, hint UI! Especially helpful in asynchronous games, hints UI does the math for you so you don't have to track it all in your head for cards like Philosopher's Stone, Gardens, or Bank.
