Tips & Strategy

Advice for Dominant Species: how to teach it, a first game, the six animals, elements and cards, Glaciation and the Survival card, player counts and where videos and the rulebook differ.

Advice only — the rulebook always wins.

How to teach

• Start from the goal and the two counts per tile — cubes score, matching takes the card — then walk down the action display in order. BoardGameTeacher and Just Play both set up, explain the three phases, then go action by action; Just Play explains population versus dominance before any action.
• Let new players place their pawns first, then resolve the turn together action by action.
• Read the five face-up Dominance cards aloud at the start of every turn; Gaming Rules! stresses that they are known before you place pawns.

Host game

Before planning the first pawns, ask everyone to point to one tile where their animal can survive and one face-up Dominance card they might want. Check the element matches again when an action changes a display or the map: zero matches means endangered, even with many cubes.

Rehearse two counts on one tile

Use a tile with two animals present. Animal A has three cubes and matches two elements; Animal B has one cube and matches three. When this tile is scored, A takes first place for the tile’s victory points, while B is dominant and chooses a face-up Dominance card if one is available. More cubes do not change B’s element total.

Now give both animals the same highest element total: neither is dominant and no cone belongs there. Food Chain does not break a tie for dominance; it breaks ties in the number of species when awarding tile points. Check both counts separately throughout the first turn.

First game

• Four players is the usual recommendation for a first game; six is chaotic and long.
• Expect three to four hours the first time: Board Game Network quotes 2–4 hours, and Gaming Rules! reports around 4 hours with four players.
• Use the standard setup; try the random earth setup once you know the game.
• Agree before you start that everyone corrects wrong cones as soon as they see them.

The six animals

• Mammals win every tie and can park a lone species where it would die — ideal for holding tundra and the Survival card.
• Reptiles never need to protect one element type in Regression, so they can adapt more freely.
• Birds reach two tiles away in Migration: jump onto empty tundra, into a sea, or out of a glacier’s path.
• Amphibians start with three water and match strongly wherever water lies — which makes water the element opponents remove.
• Arachnids kill a cube every turn for free: thin rivals where a single cube decides dominance.
• Insects get a free cube every turn and start first on Initiative, but lose every tie: fight to keep initiative and the majority.

Elements, dominance and cards

• Adapt early: The Dice Tower’s review recommends adding elements to your display early to stay flexible as the earth changes.
• Watch Regression: an element nobody takes in Adaptation drops into the Regression box next turn (Board Game Network).
• Sea and wetland pay best (9 and 8 for first): BgBBQ suggests aiming at them.
• Don’t stack all your cubes on one tile when Catastrophe, Blight or Mass Exodus is face up (Gaming Rules!).
• A card can matter more than points: score a tile where someone else wins the majority if you hold the cone and want the card, or take a harmless card to keep a dangerous one from a rival.

Glaciation and Survival

• Glaciation cuts a crowded tile to one cube per animal and pays bonus VP — strong against a rival’s best tile, but it also creates the tundra others use for the Survival card.
• The Survival card pays every turn and grows with the number of tundra tiles occupied; a cube on each tundra beats many cubes on one.
• Queue a Glaciation pawn when the first space is taken: it waits and slides forward.

Player counts

• 4 is the most common favourite; Gaming Rules! says six plays “fantastically” but runs 4.5–5 hours in his group.
• 2–3: one animal each is the standard game; the multiple-animals rule fills the board but your score is your weakest animal.
• To shorten the game, many groups remove the pawn-adding cards (Shorter game); Gaming Rules! recommends it at 5–6 players.

Videos vs the rulebook

• Board Game Network miscounts one matching example (2 × 1 is 2, not 1); matching is simple multiplication and addition (Matching elements).
• BoardGameTeacher says Glaciation can happen only once per turn — correct, but the other pawns stay queued; they are not lost (Glaciation).
• Many first games forget the Ice Age bonus for dominated tiles (BGG thread): it is on the card and scores before final scoring (Ice Age).

Sources

• Learn to Play: Dominant Species — BoardGameTeacher
• Dominant Species: How to Play — Just Play
• How to play Dominant Species — Board Game Network
• Dominant Species (GMT) - How to Play — BgBBQ
• Dominant Species - Gaming Rules! Review — Gaming Rules!
• Dominant Species Review - with Tom Vasel — The Dice Tower
• BGG threads: shortening the game, dominance and fair play