40
Never. (Note: Many expansions have been released since I first wrote this answer, there are more exceptions than I list here, but the general principles apply.)
Well, almost never. If you have to ask, the answer is "never". Don't buy copper unless you've got a specific strategy that will make it worthwhile. Some new players have a strong urge to use all ...
36
The official rules for 5-6 players in Dominion is outlined in the Dominion: Intrigue rulebook, as it requires the extra treasure and Province cards included with that expansion.
To set up for 5 or 6 players, combine the Treasure cards from Dominion and Dominion: Intrigue. Use 15 Provinces in the Supply for a 5-player game and 18 Provinces in the Supply ...
36
From the rules:
"The player must complete all of his Actions before
he moves on to the Buy phase of his turn."
34
Yes, you can trash Copper -> Silver -> Gold, since Mine requires you trash cards from your hand, and then gain them back into your hand, setting you up for another play.
Copper -> Platinum with a King's Courted Mine is also possible (and incredibly devious!)
For clarity, Mine reads:
Trash a Treasure card from your hand. Gain a Treasure card costing up ...
28
Short answer: yes, its possible and it has been officially acknowledged that the German rules are wrong.
Long answer: as you have already quoted from the base game rules (emphasis mine)
The cost of a card is in its lower left corner. The player may play some or all of the Treasure cards from his hand to his play area and add to their value the coins ...
28
You do exactly what the card says in order, how bold the type is doesn't matter. The +2 Actions isn't an instruction to play (up to) 2 action cards at that time, it means that later in the Action Phase you can play 2 additional actions. So the revealing cards would happen before you could play any other cards from your hand.
From the Dominion Rules:
...
27
Reveal means to show their hand to the table.
From the rules, page 7.
Reveal – when a player reveals a card, he shows a card to all players and
then returns it to wherever it came from (unless instructed specifically to
put it elsewhere). If the player is required to reveal cards from the top of
his Deck, and he does not have enough cards, he ...
26
I don't know about the biggest - you could buy curses instead - but yes, this is definitely a big mistake and one of the most common.
Buying only silver and gold (aka "big money") is actually a reasonably strong strategy. It's not amazing, it's pretty easy to beat, but it'll tend to win over beginner players and it's definitely way better than buying ...
24
"When...would" text is only applied when the event specified actually would occur; if it is impossible for any reason, then the conditional is ignored. The following is the relevant section in the FAQ:
19.2 "When would"
An ability that happens when an event would occur (such as when you would gain a card), happens before the event actually occurs (...
24
Reaction Cards:
No. It's not an inherent property of Reaction cards that they protect you from attacks. What makes a card a Reaction is that it's used outside of the normal game sequence when something happens; they don't have to interact with attacks at all.
Moat protects you from attacks because it says it does. Tunnel gives you Gold when discarded, ...
22
Statistically, the difference is in the variance of how much money will be in your hand. Assuming no other cards swaying you one way or another (and no Platinum), as other answers have pointed out, regardless of whether you upgrade Copper to Silver or Silver to Gold
the total money in your deck is increased by 1
the number of treasure cards in your deck is ...
21
The rule is always that you do as much as you can of the card, in order.
So, if you play a Smithy, you would draw those two cards.
A case that is more illustrative of how the process works is Lookout. Lookout reads: "+1 Action, Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash one of them. Discard one of them. Put the other one on top of your deck." If you only ...
21
No, you cannot do this. Your "hand" always refers to cards that you physically keep in your hand. Cards that you have played this turn are in a different place, the "in-play" area.
On page 6 of the rulebook:
To play an Action, the player takes an Action card from his hand
and lays it face-up in his play area.
Pages 9 and 10 also show picture examples ...
20
My favorite Dominion article, Building the "First Game" Engine, looks at this problem. The article works out some very good strategies, comparing them to a baseline of Big Money + Smithy. They run simulations to "prove" which one is best. A Village/Smithy/Province (V/S/P) strategy beats Big Money + Smithy a little more than half the time, and eventually the ...
20
As a general rule that applies to all of Dominion, you always must follow every instruction on the card you play as long as it is possible to do so. Whenever there is the option to not do something, the card will use the word "may". This means that if you play Moneylender, you are forced to trash a Copper (if you have one), and if you play Smithy, you are ...
20
No, you can't play it as a reaction card. Only cards labeled "Reaction" on the bottom can be played as reactions. Band of Misfits just says Action, so it may only be played during your turn.
When you do play it during your turn, if Moat is in the supply, you can certainly play it as a Moat, to get +2 Cards. But it doesn't copy another card until you ...
19
Thief is a specialty card. It improves a lot with the number of players. That and opponent treasure-density are the big factors in deciding if you want a Thief. Almost never buy a Thief in a 2-player game, but there is potential in a 4-player game. (Though honestly, even then it's still rare to be useful.)
There are 2 major drawbacks and one minor drawback ...
19
I think you missed something in the rules:
A player is allowed to count how many cards are left in his deck, but not in his discard pile. A player may not look through his deck or his discard pile. A player may look through the trash pile, and players may count the number of cards left in any pile in the supply.
(I typed this from my copy of the Intrigue ...
19
One great resource is Dominion Deck Builder, a website that allows users to design and save kingdoms. They can be voted on, discussed, etc.
This is also a frequently-discussed topic at the Dominion Strategy Forum. Here are a few threads that each list several Kingdom setups that people have suggested, and in the latter 2 threads, voted on:
http://forum....
19
One of the clearest examples of game theory in Dominion shows up quite frequently in 2 player endgames, and it's called the Penultimate Province Rule (PPR). Basically, you should avoid buying the second to last Province if buying the remaining Province would allow your opponent to win.
Imagine a game where my opponent and I each have 3 Provinces, with 2 ...
18
No. Technically, you play all treasure cards you want to use at the beginning of your buy phase, after which point you cannot play more cards. If you have played any copper, you cannot buy Grand Market, and if you have already bought Grand Market you are into your buy phase already and cannot play any coppers.
There are a few exceptions:
Cards that give ...
18
Almost never. A first turn Mint wrecks your economy, and being able to buy good cards on turns 3 and 4 is really important in order to not fall behind your opponent.
Mint/Fool's Gold is an elite opening because it allows you to get a massive density of Fool's Gold in your deck quickly.
Mint/Lighthouse is acceptable, especially if there are lots of attacks, ...
18
Chapel can be effectively used mid and late game, but that requires card draw or action branching or both.
The trick to chapel is to trash lots of cards with it early and not rely on it late game (turn 10 bad mid-late game cards into 1 dead card early). This means trashing your entire starting deck as soon as possible. Do not wait until you have plenty of ...
18
Spoils is played twice, but is returned to the Spoils pile and not trashed.
Spoils is a treasure providing three coins that reads:
When you play this, return it to the Spoils pile.
Counterfeit reads:
When you play this, you may play a Treasure from your hand twice. If you do, trash that Treasure.
According to the Dark Ages rulebook (PDF), page 11:
...
16
Rarely. The problem with having Copper in the deck is that it takes up space and only produces $1. In a Province game, you need to generate $8 and you only start each turn with 5 cards, which means that each card needs to result in an average of $1.6 in order to afford Provinces. Figuring out the value of action cards requires a lot of math dealing with what ...
16
Open with Militia and Silver.
Get a remodel on turn 2 to get rid of your bad cards and maybe throw in a smithy or another militia. Skip the mine, it's not really that great a card in this set as it gets pretty useless towards the endgame, whereas with remodel you can still turn gold into provinces.
If you have 3, buy a silver for the first few turns, then ...
16
To fully understand how to use Chapel, you have to examine its use with many different Kingdom setups. I will only detail some scenarios from the base game.
Standard Big Money Strategy
The standard Big Money Canonical strategy is to buy a Provence, else buy a Gold, else buy a Silver. To get a better understanding on how Chapel works effectively, it might ...
16
The key point is that you're not reacting to the reaction cards. Rather, you're reacting to what happens after those reactions resolve. Thus there is no "going back".
There actually isn't nesting in your examples. This is what should happen for your 2nd paragraph example. I've indented the reactions
Buy Ill-Gotten Gains.
Gain Ill-Gotten Gains.
Other ...
16
You do everything on the card in the order it says:
Draw one card.
Add one to the number of remaining actions you have for the turn.
Add one coin to the amount you have to spend this turn.
Discard a card.
And then you can move on to other Actions or your Buy phase. So you'll discard a card before you play any other actions. (But it's during your Action ...
15
Workshop/Gardens is usually a dominant strategy. There are a couple of exceptions:
Bishop can counter Gardens by buying Gardens and then trashing them for VP. This prevents the Gardens player from being able to get a favorable Gardens split and means that the Bishop player can focus on getting VP chips or Duchies while the Gardens player is buying out ...
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