Review of Dominant Species: Marine

Blurb from the publisher: 'Like Dominant Species; only wetter.

· Acquiring special pawns through domination gives a player great flexibility in planning and executing a strategy. Special pawns can 'bump' an opponent's basic pawn in order to take an action that would otherwise be blocked. They can be placed anywhere on the action display (where basic pawns must be placed in top-to-bottom order only). There are powerful action spaces where only a special pawn can be placed. And at the end of the game, each special pawn awards its owner VPs according to its highest achieved dominance value.'

What you get: Your USD 78 or equivalent will buy you Dominant Species: Marine, the brand-new reimplementation of Dominant Species, one of the most celebrated worker placement and area control board games out there, and a permanent resident of BGG's top 100. Marine accommodates from two to four players and can be played from one to three hours, compared to the two to six players and the four to five hour maximum length of the original. Dominant Species: Marine is also a creation of Chad Jensen, who unfortunately passed away before seeing this game hit the market.

In addition to the 24-page English rulebook that can also be found on the publisher's website free of charge, the game contains the following: one mounted game board, 4 animal displays, 54 cards (18 Traits, 35 Evolutions, one Survival tie), 36 large and 12 mall hexagonal tiles used to recreate primordial Earth, 140 wooden cubes in four colours representing the Species belonging to the four animal groups, 32 wood cylinders in four player colours, 6 white wood cylinders (Control markers), 2 cloth bags, an assortment of cardboard element discs / victory point track markers / 16 Terrain markers, and one sheet of die-cut stickers.

Gameplay: To a certain extent, the mechanics behind Dominant Species: Marine are similar to those of the initial game.

Each player takes a different animal (Cephalopods, Crustaceans, Fishes, and Reptiles). Their traits are not fixed. Players take three random Traits, secretly choose one, reveal them simultaneously, and return the other two. Traits allow your animal to behave outside of the rules, e.g. by having additional element spaces, by taking an extra turn under certain preconditions, by gaining VPs outside of the usual cycle etc.

Depending on the number of players a player also takes a number of cylinders (action pawns), as well as a fixed number of cubes (the species' gene pool). The goal is to collect Victory Points (VPs) through Evolution in different terrain tiles. These points will declare the winner when the asteroid falls and the game ends after 20 to 25 Evolution cards have been claimed.

The board is comprised of terrain tiles belonging to eight different types of ground: hydrothermal vent, open ocean, sand plain, seagrass meadow, sea-mount, coral reef, kelp forest and land. These tiles are populated by different elements, the feeding grounds of the different species. These are algae, gastropods, plankton, sponges, worms, and sun. Different animals eat different elements: Cephalopods initially need two gastropods and one sponge while reptiles need two suns and one sponge for their sustenance. Players act one after another. In his turn, a player can do one thing out of two.

If he opts for Placement, he can place one of his available pawns (basic or special) into an action space. He can then immediately execute that action. Most actions are offered on a 'first come first served' basis, others have a prerequisite as to whether they can be implemented through a basic or a special cylinder, while others still allow for a player to supplant the basic pawn of an opponent in order to place his own. There are rules regulating the placement of basic pawns both within an action as well as in the action display overall. A player can choose to either implement an, or simply place his pawn without going through with it.

The game offers twelve different actions: Abundance, Autotrophs, Depletion, Adaptation, Regression, Speciation, Wanderlust, Tectonics, Migration, Competition, Evolution, and Domination.

In Abundance (3 spots) a player can place additional feeding elements on the vacant corners of tiles of earth. This increases the survivability for everybody, provided that their species can eat what is on offer.

Autotrophs (2 spots) allows a player to either remove feeding elements from the board, or swap them for different ones. Prerequisite: the existence of Hydrothermal Vents on the board, as well as a semi-random draw element.

Depletion (1 spot) removes a feeding element fro the board irrespective of where it is. Again, prerequisites apply.

Adaptation (3 spots) allows the player to increase his chances of survival by adding semi-random elements in his diet. Reptiles can eat algae, or plankton! Cephalopods can eat sun!

Regression (2 spots) is to Adaptation what Autotrophs is to Abundance: all unused elements from the former end in the latter. It also relates to animals losing a part of their diet. Once activated, only the animals that bothered to place a cube from their gene pool to the action will avoid losing an element disk of the same type. Just like in the original Dominant Species, the starting diet of a species is never affected by Regression.

Speciation (5 spots) is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. Each spot is connected to an element. A player who placed his action pawn in that particular sport with that particular element (e.g. sun), can pick a particular sun element that is already on the board, and populate its adjacent tiles according to a small table.

Wanderlust (3 spots) is about exploring the planet. A player selects one of the available face up tiles (not everything is available all the time) and places it on an empty space on the board, adjacent to at least one earth. He may also select one of the available elements in the Wanderlust section and place it onto any vacant corner of the newly placed tile. Bonus VPs are gained based on the number of existing tiles adjacent to the newly placed tile.

Tectonics (2 spots) is about the earth's volcanic activity which disrupts the evolution of life. A tile on the edge of the board will gain a Vent, be it a 'geyser' or a 'smoker'. The player gains VPs depending on how many other Vents are adjacent to the new one, while most of the existing life on that tile dies.

Migration (4 spots) allows the animals to move around the board. Depending on the chosen spot, a player can move from two to five animals, or even an infinite amount of animals if he uses a special control token.

In Competition (4 spots, each spots relates to a random terrain) a player chooses a type of tile where his species will clash with other existing species. He may then eliminate up to a number of opposing species, depending on the spot he chose. These are taken out of the game for real, and do not return to their opponent's hand.

Evolution (5 spots) is about scoring, what you ultimately want to do in order to win the game. Each of the 5 spots is randomly associated to a terrain type, and a player can score one tile matching that type. There are different provisions depending on the type of tile Evolution takes place at, to make a long story short however, the more species an animal has in a tile, the better. After scoring, the player can resolve one face-up Evolution card on the board (of which there are usually five) according to an algorithm which favours the cards that have stayed in the table for a while. Examples of Evolution cards include gaining VPs for species in Vents, moving species to adjacent tiles, changing your existing trait with a brand new one etc. In a more prominent example, the Asteroid is the Evolution card that, once chosen, brings forth the end of the game.

Domination (the number of spots depends on the number of players) is the last possible action that a player may choose. It should not be confused with Dominance, the product of that player's presence on the board times the board's matching feeding elements, irrespective of how many species of the animal are present in each occasion. Domination is about having more options, more special control cylinders to play with. Dominance is how well-fed and how well-matched to a tile a player is. A player executing Domination has to have Dominance in a particular tile in order to claim the special pawn associated to an element found on that tile. This gives them more options for future turns.

If a player does not want to do any of these actions, he may opt for Retrieval instead of Placement. This allows him to retrieve all the pawns (both basic and special) that he had already placed on the action display. Obviously enough, it is the only action available when you have exhausted all your pawns.

The game includes six variant rules. In a 2 player game players may control two animals each instead of one. For a less balanced game, the setup at the beginning might be done semi-randomly. Animals may also begin with three random feeding elements instead of the ones prescribed by the game, or start with two out of three Traits instead of only one. A final variant adjusts the game's length, depending on how much time you have available.

The strong points: I have been playing Dominant Species for many years now; it is a game that will never cease to amaze me. Dominant Species: Marine takes exactly that experience and adjusts it in only a handful of ways. First, it reduces the maximum number of players. Since the game is designed to top things up on a headcount of four, you can experience all the interaction, brain-burns and competition with a smaller group without feeling that you are missing out on the wow factor. With less players comes a reduced game time. Where you previously needed a student's evening for the game, you can now finish Marine within an adult's evening, if not less. That definitely increases the amount of airplay you will get out of it, and isn't that important for games which require that kind of engagement?

As importantly however, the design tones down two of the game's hardest to grasp aspects, without necessarily making it less complex. The first is the divide between planning and executing. The two are separate in the original game, and even though I personally love that style of play, it has put off many a gamer. In Marine you execute an action as soon as you choose it; that's it. This is similar to most worker placement games out there, this does not however mean that the implementation does not have its own twists and novelties. It now favours tactics versus strategies, and doing the best with the situation you have in front of you. The second is the calculation of Dominance which, in the original Dominant Species, was needed after every minor interaction. Marine does away with this, and makes the game feel substantially less mathy. Action selection is simultaneously free and restricted, depending on the pawns you have available.Don't struggle, and use retrievals wisely. Guess where other players will try to move, occupy their preferred spots, and allow them to hand you back your pawns without you lifting a finger. Go for the special control cylinders; the more you have them, the more your options and the more moves you will have, while you will also earn more points at the end of the game. Doing the most possible with the least retrievals possible opens up an obvious path to victory.

The game is still a living puzzle, where you need to plan moves ahead in order to maximize the points that you take out of it. The special pawns create very interesting dynamics during the game, and can tilt victory because they are worth a variable number of victory points at game's end. Do not neglect that aspect; if other players control the special cylinders, make them pay for it. You will need to balance your actions; spamming is not an option. The game is insanely interactive. At times you will play in ways that helps other players as well, while at others you will be a destructive force removing food elements and changing the lay of the land. You might have no control over what others are doing, with only a minimum amount of experience however you can project upon their optimal courses of action, and thus come out on top. Ah, it feels so nice to piggyback your opponents' moves. That having been said, the game is not a fully confrontational experience. You might eliminate some species here and there, this however is not the goal but a means to an end.

I had praised the original game's asymmetry, and Marine takes things to a whole new level. I like both the random Trait aspect, as well as the dual Trait aspect, even though I do not recommend that to newbies. The variants are strong; the only one I am unlikely to ever use is the random setup. This is a very engrossing game and I wouldn't want to mess with its fine-tuned machine. In any event, the game is infinitely replayable, and if you ever get bored, off you go to Dominant Species' increased challenge.

The production values reach perfection. The art is cool. The game is instantly recognizable as belonging to the Dominant Species family, while the pictographs facilitate play without being a distraction. The mapboard is lavish, the box is very sturdy, the cards are of a standard size and can be immediately sleeved, the two cloth bags are oversized, while the wooden components are a perennial favourite. I wrote this in the review of the original game and I will write it here again: for a game with so many components, the balance between materials (cardboard and wood), shapes (cylinders and cubes) and colours is so well done that the board never feels busy even when it is crawling with tokens. Excellent work throughout!

GMT Games' rulebooks are systematically brilliant, and this one is not an exception. Everything is immediately understood, even though I take into consideration my years of exposure to the original game. In any event, and even if there were issues in the rulebook, GMT is one of the companies that keeps on its website living, updated rulebooks and FAQs for all its games. Classy.

Just like Dominant Species, even though the game does not claim to emulate the science behind evolution, I think of it as a great, abstract tool to demonstrate through a gaming model how evolution (and the need for adaptation) works. I like games that are educational without even trying.

In other games I usually comment whether they are well supported and how one can improve upon the original with expansions. Marine's strong point is that it doesn't need expansions. You buy this, and you are done.

The weak points: The distinction between planning and execution is one of the hallmarks of the original Dominant Species. If you adore that and feel that this is what distinguishes it from other worker placement games, Marine might fall a bit flat. I approached Marine weary of that, almost expecting to be disappointed. I was not, even though it is clear that long-term planning takes more of a back seat. Frankly, both approaches are valid. A Laphroaig is as excellent as a Glenmorangie; you can enjoy them in different occasions with different crowds.

Marine might be sleeker, more streamlined, more straightforward than the original design, under no circumstances however should it be confused for a gateway game or a learn-as-you-play game. If it is a gateway to something, that something would be the original Dominant Species! Joking aside, the game is demanding. There is a fair amount of repetition, you must be on your toes, and can still lead to analysis-paralysis if players are not attentive. Treat it as an entry point to committed, hardcore gaming, and you will do fine. You will need time to explain it, even though its mechanics are not that difficult. It still needs a big gaming table, mind you.

Conclusion: Dominant Species is one of the best games in the world. Dominant Species: Marine is one of the best games in the world. If you don't have both in your library, and you should, start from the latter; the sleeker, shorter, tighter, more streamlined version of the former. Then buy the original game. The end.

To find out more about Dominant Species: Marine and GMT Games take a look at http://www.gmtgames.com.

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