When comparing Dominion vs Arimaa, the Slant community recommends Arimaa for most people. In the question“What are the best games you have played?” Arimaa is ranked 19th while Dominion is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Arimaa is:
Arimaa is a game suitable for both young and old, it was made to be intuitively simple but with a lot of depth. Even the setup follows this premise - you set up the figures in two rows like in chess, but you can place them in any way you like. The rules are simple – in your turn you have four actions. You can either move a figure four times, move four figures one time, or do any combination in between. All figures can move forwards, backwards, and sideways apart from rabbits who can’t go backwards. You can use two actions on a stronger piece to push or pull your opponents’ weaker figures. These stronger figures also “freeze” adjacent weaker pieces, preventing them from moving unless there’s a friendly piece next to them. If a figure happens to walk into one of the four trap squares or get pushed/pulled into one without a friendly piece next to it, then it is removed from the game. The first player to get a rabbit to reach the opposing side wins. The game can also be won by removing or immobilizing all your opponent’s rabbits.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Focus is more on having fun, and less on scoring
The victory point cards are part of your deck itself, so you won't really know exactly how many points you or your opponents have until the game ends and all the points are tallied up. This lets you focus on the game and have a great experience playing your cards, rather than doing math equations and constantly comparing your points to everyone around you. It allows the fun and thrill of the deck building aspect to take front and center.
Pro Games are fairly quick
A standard game can be played in about 30 minutes, even with 4 players.
Pro Starts very simple and grows in complexity over time
At the start of the game, each player is given 10 identical cards to begin their deck. Within these starter cards are some properties which are worth victory points (the player with the most of these at the end of the game wins) and some currency cards (used to buy new cards).
Your options will be pretty limited at first, however, as the game progresses you'll be spending your currency cards every turn to buy new cards and add to your deck. These new cards can include more property cards, action cards that let you earn additional currency, curses to slow down your opponents, and more.
As your deck slowly starts to become more expansive, the trick is juggling your limited currency and trying to buy cards that have synergy with the ones in your hand. Deciding whether to buy properties worth victory points or action cards that give you the opportunity to earn more currency leaves a ton of room open for strategy and deck management.
Pro Easy to learn
Arimaa is a game suitable for both young and old, it was made to be intuitively simple but with a lot of depth. Even the setup follows this premise - you set up the figures in two rows like in chess, but you can place them in any way you like.
The rules are simple – in your turn you have four actions. You can either move a figure four times, move four figures one time, or do any combination in between. All figures can move forwards, backwards, and sideways apart from rabbits who can’t go backwards.
You can use two actions on a stronger piece to push or pull your opponents’ weaker figures. These stronger figures also “freeze” adjacent weaker pieces, preventing them from moving unless there’s a friendly piece next to them. If a figure happens to walk into one of the four trap squares or get pushed/pulled into one without a friendly piece next to it, then it is removed from the game. The first player to get a rabbit to reach the opposing side wins. The game can also be won by removing or immobilizing all your opponent’s rabbits.
Pro Active online community
The official site of Arimaa is quite lively and features reviews, downloads, the latest news, an active public forum, and much more. There’s even an online gameroom, so you can play Arimaa against computers or other people in either turn-based or real-time games. There are many people online, so it shouldn’t be a problem to find a game.
Pro Can be played with a chess set
In case you don't want to purchase the gameboard made by Z-Man Games, you can use the components of a regular chess set. It also helps if you have four coins to mark the trap squares. You probably already have the equipment you need.
Pro Fluid gameplay
The 4 moves per turn gives Arimaa's tree of possible moves a very high branching factor. (It was invented for AI programmers as a game more difficult to program for than chess, but easier than Go). You can't think several turns ahead like chess (the space of possibilities is too big), instead you have to think in terms of distances and capabilities, giving Arimaa a very fluid feel.
Cons
Con Expansion overload for newcomers
Since the game's release, it has put out over 12 expansion packs. This might be intimidating to some players who feel like they are getting into the game too late, or overwhelming for collectors who feel like they need to buy every single expansion.
Con Takes a while to setup
In the base game alone and not including any expansions you might be playing with, there are 500 cards that need to be organized into specific piles and arranged by card type. This includes currency cards, estates, provinces, curses, and more.
Con Player interaction is very limited
While you are in direct competition with your opponents to gather the most properties (victory points), you'll most likely be more concerned with managing your own deck rather than what your opponents are doing. There are a few attack cards that allow you to force opponents to discard or unable to draw new cards, but other than those rare exceptions, there is very little actual interaction.
Con Requires constant engagement
Arimaa can get out of hand quickly because there’s pretty much no way of predicting how future turns will play out. This is because it’s significantly harder to pinpoint four actions that your opponent might do as opposed to one action in similar games to Arimaa. Due to this the game requires the players to continually pay close attention to what they’re doing, which isn’t inherently bad, but can be a bit problematic for people with shorter attention spans or for people who don't want to take the game too seriously and just play it for fun and socialize meanwhile.
Con Quite long to play
A game of Arimaa is very unpredictable and can often lead to a very long session. The time can vary between 15 minutes and 2 hours, so it’s not great if you’re looking for something that you can quickly grab and play through.