Dune: Imperium

Welcome to Replayable, where we go into depth on our favorite tabletop games that keep us coming back again and again. I'm your host Todd, and today I'm joined again by David and Paul. For our second episode, we'll be talking about Dune Imperium, designed by Paul Denon and released in 2020. How are you doing today? Are you guys ready to talk about this game? I am so excited. I'm pumped. I'm excited. All right. What is it about this game that we like so much?

I mean, this is currently one of our favorites. We've played this one a ton. Paul, what do you like so much about Dune Imperium? I love that the decisions are very difficult. They're far reaching, and the game can be played in less than 90 minutes. Also, I think one of the things that really draws me in is I've been a fan of the Dune universe and the first book since I read it as a teenager. And this new movie is wonderful.

And this game, the art and the tie-ins to the movie, I would say the theme is seamlessly integrated. So it hits everything I'm looking for in a board game. Dave, what do you think? Yeah, that makes it surprising because when you've been gaming for a long time, one of the turnoffs is a licensed game. When I see the game and it's got a picture of Timothee Chalamet, I think there's no way this is a good game. It's a product sold on the heels of a movie. And in this case, boy, am I wrong.

And we are starting to see, I mean, not just this game, there are a handful of other games that are IP games that are actually legitimate strategy board games that board gamers enjoy playing and not just something to be sold by Target on the heels of the popularity of the movie. So this one, it was surprising to me, especially seeing how popular it got on Board Game Geek.

Then that was also an indicator that like, well, maybe it's not that good if it's that popular that people are just eating it up just because it's part of the zeitgeist, but to actually sit down and play and think, wow, there's really some meat on the bones here. I agree. So if we look at how this game has been put together, it has a ton of mechanisms that have been attributed to it all the way from deck building to open drafting.

There's a progressive turn order, which basically means you keep going around until everyone has had a chance, but some folks are going to drop out, right? If you don't have your sword master yet, you're going to get one less turn. Or if you buy the Mentat, you're going to get an extra turn that round. Do we think that this is a streamlined design? Do we feel it's just a mixed bag of things that have been jumbled together? Well, if you ask me, it depends on what you're comparing it to.

I think given what the game accomplishes, it is streamlined. If you do the numbers, there's a total of three decks of cards. There's three different types of resources. There's four types of locations. And then you've got the eight leaders you draft at the beginning to mix it all up. And I believe that removing any one of those or making it any less than what it is would be not much of a game. I think it has been fine tuned to perfection. Wow, that's pretty high praise. What do you think, Dave?

I agree with that. There's no mechanism that we haven't seen before in another game. There's nothing brand new here, but it's put together in such a clean new way. We'll get into it when we talk about similar games or other games. And I would like to talk about the games that lead up to this when it comes to deck builders and worker placement. And how do we get to this point of doing Imperium? Yeah, let's do it. Well, yeah. So let me pose a question to you guys then.

Is this a worker placement game? And equally, is it a deck builder? It depends what turn it is. I like that answer. Yeah, seriously. So the first three or four turns, this is a deck builder game. But the final four turns, you don't want to add any more cards to your deck. At that point, it is basically a worker placement game. Except for Spice Must Flow. Yes, Spice Must Flow, you always want to add to your deck. That's true. Right?

I think that's interesting because I may add cards to my deck late if I've been able to lean my deck enough that I'm going to see them. So if I'm going to get a use, even a single use out of it, if it's the right card, right time, that might be beneficial. But I don't want to dilute my hand so that it's worthless. And on the worker placement side, I don't recall too many times having the same mechanic where I've got these dual use cards.

I can either play them and based on the icons revealed on the card, I have spaces that my workers can go, but I'm limited to the icons that are available in my hand. There have been times where my God, I need to get some spice, but I didn't draw that yellow triangle that the spice trade icon on any of my agent locations. So it's not even available to me that round. And I thought that was a really great creative use of the cards. Definitely.

I have to say that that used to happen to me often where my hand wouldn't let me go to the locations I wanted. But when I took a step back and analyzed the plays I was making, I realized that making better deck building decisions in the early game largely prevents that problem later on. I like it as looking at in the big picture of the evolution of worker placement games, because it used to be worker placement was, you know, there's X number of spaces on the board.

If I go there, you can't go there. And that's it, like a greek or something. It's that interplay of taking those spaces. And then designers start coming up with ways to limit where you can go. At first we saw if you go to a place, then I can go to a place and I just pay more or something like that. And it starts to take some of the tension out of it. And this one, it creates so much great tension because I'm limited by what's in my hand, which as Paul says, you learn to mitigate.

But I'm also competing with you like I need to get there before you get there. So I'm constantly looking around the table and saying, well, who's holding water? Because you know, you have to have water to go to the Fremont place to get into the conflict there or who's holding spice? Is Highliner available?

And be constantly aware that having those restrictions on where you can play and being aware of restrictions on other people, it makes that back and forth of eating up these locations as whereas Agricola is just one for one. It makes that decision much more interesting when I notice you can't go there or I'm worried that you can go there. So I'd better hurry to go there. And it just makes that so much more rich, those decisions. Yeah, it also factors into the cards that you buy.

So we go back to the deck builder. Early on, I would think looking at a card, it allows me to do this cool thing. I'm going to be really excited about it. Maybe like Sardaukar troops, right, which gives me a couple of troops, but it's only playable in one location on the board. So suddenly it's more than just, oh, I'm going to add this card to my deck and it allows me to do something cool when it's played or when it's revealed.

But within the context of worker placement, am I going to realistically be able to play this card at a useful time? And if we start getting into leaning the deck and I start getting rid of my desert planet cards, which gives me access to spice, I better have bought a card that allows me to go to those spaces somewhere along the way. Otherwise I'm going to find myself never able to compete in that arena. Right. There's a lot of cards that seem not good.

And most of the time you want to avoid buying those cards at the end of turn. However, I believe there's a strategy where you can buy those cards and that strategy is a heavy card draw strategy. So if you tune your deck to be able to draw a lot of cards, then you can take advantage of some of the weak and unwanted cards that everybody else is leaving in the card row. I don't really see what does that do for you though, because you're patting, you're fluffing up your deck really.

You're taking cards that other people don't really want. I don't quite see that. Because one is easy to do since other people don't want the cards and two, it can allow you to take on a secondary strategy. So not only are you drawing a lot of cards, you can also turn that into a combat strategy if you start buying cards that have swords on them or a spice must flow strategy. If you decide to just buy any card that has two or more persuasion on it. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So you're talking about cobbling together littler strategies as opposed to going to some of the known major combos. If you can't get those, try to cobble other things together that you can always make something happen. Is that what you're saying? Yes. And it comes down to drawing extra cards. On the other hand, you don't have a good ability to draw extra cards. Then you really need a lean, mean fighting machine of a deck to just constantly hit on what your strength is. I see.

It sounds like what you're saying is that the beginning of the game is very much a strong deck builder. And because of that, though, how is it not the most frustrating game in the world? Because so often that card row can just be full of junk. And there's people who I don't know what percentage of people, but a ton of people looks like they house rule it to be able to wipe cards off that card row because it feels like turn two and that's stuck.

There's nothing but junk up there that nobody wants. How come that doesn't destroy this game because that can happen? How is this still a good game even though that can happen? Yeah, I used to feel that way in my first few plays. The Imperium row gets stale and clogged with unwanted cards. Nobody's going to buy them. Nothing's going to open up. But now after we've played so many times, I appreciate that design choice because everyone needs to buy cards in the beginning of the game.

Even the worst card in the Imperium row is better than eight of the cards in your starting deck. So it is going to refresh itself no matter what in the beginning of the game. So which two cards are they not better than? Pussy and signet ring are really the only good cards in your starting deck. You don't like convincing argument, which is too persuasion, but it can't be played anywhere. I think every card you can buy is better than convincing argument.

My point is that the designer's choice to not have some kind of Imperium row refresh mechanism helps people, in my opinion, understand that nobody's going to get a game breaking card later on in the game unless somebody opens it up for them. And that's really the worker placement game where everybody's really done all that deck building and they're done with it. Why are you going to purchase a card if there's just a chance you'll see it once and maybe you won't even see it at all?

It's definitely a design choice because in other games we would see maybe the two on the end kind of slough off and get refilled or maybe they get sweetened in between turns. And those are common elements that people put in the games, but the designers decided to not put it in there. So it's a conscious decision to keep that Imperium row exactly as it is. Either you buy cards or it's going to sit there. And I do agree.

I do think it's interesting, but I do find it in your first few plays of the game potentially very frustrating. It's something that they've added in the immortality expansion. And we can talk about this when we get to discussing expansions. Immortality includes four counters. Each player gets what are called house atomics and you can basically play your atomics token and clear the Imperial row and then get it refilled.

So as an expansion now they've added the ability to do a wipe once per game per player. So you're saying that there's an expansion that takes some of the tension out of the game, which is really every expansion ever made for any game ever. Right. How surprising we said sarcastically. And we'll get there.

One of the themes that I've heard is when I first started playing this game, I thought it was X and then I realized it was Y. And I think that's a good topic for us to discuss is how has our learning curve progressed with this game? And originally we started out thinking it was just a race to the end of the game and whoever got Highliner won.

But I would say that our understanding of the game has changed to the point where that understanding which is very expected when you see that, you know, Highliner is going to give me plus five troops. All I need is six spice and I got to get to the spacing guild to be able to implement it and the first person to Highliner wins. How has your understanding of the game progressed and evolved since those early days? I think a big part of it is understanding that every influence step is half a point.

So when you're looking at the board and you can send your worker to influence the emperor for two Solari or you can send your worker to what's the space called in the upper right hand corner that gives you three Solari. Go on. Yeah. So, you know, three Solari is better than two Solari at the beginning of the game. Sure. But going to the emperor track is half a point and 10 points is all you need to win.

So a big part of my change in understanding is trying to influence as much as possible because that's points. The other thing is you can actually win without winning any combats or maybe maybe you need to win one combat, but that's it because otherwise you can collect four to five points off of the influence tracks by some spice must flow and hopefully be lucky enough to draw an entry card or one of the Imperium cards that gives you points as well.

That part's a little surprising to me because the conflict points are zero sum. Is that correct to say in a three or four player game? What I'm saying is that there are so many conflict points up for grabs. If I don't go and get any of those conflict points, one of you two, or they're going to be split between you two, or if I'm not pulling my fair share, somebody else is going to get that. So that's eight points probably going to come available in the conflict.

And if I don't go out and get two of them, or I'm not sure what it is, you guys know the conflict deck better. It depends how many turns there are. If you think about averaging eight turns in a game, then you should see about six or seven points in conflict awards. Yeah, it also depends on the cards that you draw as you're building the conflict stack. I think there's one card. Actually, I don't know if there's any level one conflict card that awards a point right off the bat. There is.

Okay, so there's one out of the four, but you're only going to pick one. And then there's a certain number out of level two that are going to give you a point. But then all four level three cards are there and three of them have two points. So you could probably figure out the range is whatever, nine to 12, let's say points that could be available in conflicts with only needing 10 to win.

So you're right, Dave. If you allow one person to gather every conflict, then that's probably not a winning strategy. For example, Monday night, I'd only won one conflict. Oh, actually, I'm sorry, I won two. But I won one level two conflict that gave me a victory point and it gave me control of Imperial Basin. And then the next one I won was a level three one in round seven that was just worth two influence, which is a point, but it's not worth an ostensible point.

It definitely wasn't the double header. Yeah. And did you win that game, Todd? Yeah, I did win that game. Did he? Did he? Yeah, the Imperial Basin bonus turned out to be the difference in the game is Paul and I both cleared the 10 point bar in the same round, round eight, and he had two spice and I had gone with my last agent to Imperial Basin and picked up two spice that gave me a total of three. So on the tiebreaker, I managed to win that one, even though Paul absolutely slammed conflicts.

But I don't think Paul got a ton of points from conflicts. I think I got one early on. I don't remember how many points Paul got. I had three or four in conflict points. Yeah. Right. So I think there may be six conflict points available. I think in an average game, that's all you're going to see. Okay. You would have had 10 if he had played all 10 rounds, right? Because the next two rounds would have both had two point conflicts.

Well, it seems like we're ending the game quicker than when we first started playing the game. So we're seeing fewer of those conflict three points. Right. When everybody goes after influence and spice must flow, I think most games are going to end on round eight. And that's where I think I started understanding the game a little bit better, even though I don't win very much. I've been the maid of honor quite a bit in the game.

I give my share of second place in the game, even though I don't actually win the game much. But yeah, helping to understand that it was after a few plays when I sat back and thought, we only need 10 points. It's like Settlers of Catan, right? You just need 10 points. Well, where are these 10 points going to come from? And there's four for the taking on the influence track and nobody can stop you. You can take four of those.

And then there's another four that are up for grabs on the influence track. So there's a total of four to eight points on the influence track. Then there's the conflict points like we're just talking about. You could probably get in and get anywhere from two to three to four points out of there. But being able to sit back and think, where am I going to get my 10 points from?

And that's where I didn't believe that you won the game, Todd, because we were getting points from areas I wasn't looking at, where I saw you were sitting at eight and you're not in the conflict, which was up for two points. Seven. He was at seven. Oh, at seven. I didn't see how you were going to get from seven to 10, let alone 11 or whatever it was going to take to win. But you made it there and won in the tiebreaker. Yeah. So it was placing something. I think it was on the Emperor.

So I picked up an Alliance there, which gave me my sixth point in influence during the game. I bought a Spice Must Flow. And then I had Opulence, which is one of the cards that you can buy, which when revealed, if you have six Solari, you can buy a victory point. So that was how I got to three. And Paul was also sitting at seven, but you had two for the conflict. And then you played an Intrigue card that either gave you influence in one of the things that you didn't have.

You didn't give you an Alliance, but it gave you that unstoppable second step with a faction that gave you a point. Exactly. I top decked the right Intrigue card to get my last influence point. Well, that's another thing. How is this such a good game? When you can top deck, although you didn't get the victory there, but we've definitely seen it where I drew the right card and now I win this conflict. I got the right Intrigue card and now I win the conflict and I take two points from you.

How can that happen? I guess it can happen in this game because it's only 75 to 90 minutes. That happens in a three hour game. I might be a little more upset. I don't know. To me, top decking the exact card I need, either from the Intrigue deck or from my own deck because I've been planning for it, is my favorite part of the game. The reason that is, is because it would not win me the game if I wasn't playing well.

The only reason it can win me the game is because I have spent the last hour setting myself up to make that a possibility. That's definitely true. Making your own luck there and constructing your deck in such a way where that card can be there. It's easy to look at somebody, even say they had the... Take away Quisatch Hatterack, came in and high-liner me and it was total luck. But really, that took you two, three turns to set up to do something like that.

I think sometimes what can look or feel like luck is actually careful planning. I agree with you. That's part of what makes this so fun. I think the luck in this game really appeals to me. Right. I mean, being able to play the Quisatch Hatterack, you still needed to have the six spice necessary to take advantage of high-liner. Then boy, is that just a shot in the gut for the person who may already have been on high-liner thinking that they were going to win that conflict.

Then you're just like, yeah, I'll go there too. That's great. I think that's another great element of the game is it's the threat of what you might be holding in your hand. When somebody buys that Quisatch Hatterack, they don't have to have it in their hand, but the fact that it could be in their hand, that's really influencing the way I'm approaching this turn. That's also true for intrigue cards, right? Yes, absolutely. That's what I was going to say.

I bought an intrigue card in our game and it was corner of the market where if you have two spice must flows, it's the victory point. If you have more SMS than anybody else in the game, you get another victory point. It was the only one I held in my hand, so I was glad to have it so that if I participated in a conflict, you guys would have to worry that maybe I'm going to be sending ambush or something and send a bunch of extra rifles to the conflict. I knew it was toothless in that respect.

It also turned out to be toothless because I had just scrapped one of my spice must flows the same round that I'd gained the Bennett Jezeroit Alliance, which drawing an intrigue card is the bonus for getting the Alliance. Here I am thinking, great, I'm going to get an intrigue card. I get to scrap one of my cards. I did that and then I drew the intrigue card. I was like, oh, I scrapped the wrong card. I would have had 11 points in that last turn if I had held on to it.

You know, usually spice must flow is a horrible card to have in your deck because you can't play an agent with it and all you get when you hold it until the end of the turn is one spice. But if you can trash it to do another effect, you're jumping for joy unless you draw a corner to the market. Right.

I think the other part that changed as our understanding of the game grew and I think one of the original complaints about the base game is you have the Landsraad spaces, which are the green spaces. And after you've purchased your seat at the council table and you've purchased your sword master, those green spaces, at least early on, seem to diminish. They're not as valuable and Solari seemed to lose their value.

But I felt like as we grew in our understanding of the game, those spaces and that currency still had a lot of value. What do you guys think about that? Is the game limited? Does it need the expansions or is it a function of just understanding what's there and learning how to use it? Well, we are all pretty reticent to get into expansions. Why ruin a perfect thing? Like we said earlier, expansions tend to dilute games.

And I would like a little more experience with the expansions here, but I love the base game as it is so much. And I think you're right. As we've been playing and growing and understanding, we're starting to see more value out of those green spaces. And I agree, after you buy your space on the high council and you buy your sword master, now I'm sitting on five Solari. What value is this to me? What do I do with this Solari?

But if you can start using the Mentat, which gives you tempo, which lets you go later in the round, which the conflict is an area control, going later and area control is always good or rallying troops, all of that costs Solari. And that's when we played early on, it was if you're going to highline or you're going to win the game until we started. How do we deflate that strategy? How do we get rid of that? Because the game can't be broken just on highliner. And so we start using rallying troops.

We haven't been using it as much lately, but it's there. It's a threat that's there. So I think that's just understanding the whole board and the value you can get out of those has really increased my play certainly. Paul used rally troops on Monday night. And I have to say it was disheartening because you normally you think, okay, I'm going to add troops to my garrison and then I'm going to be able to commit and win a conflict.

And Paul sitting here and he's dedicating five, six troops to a conflict. He's going to run away with it and he still has another four or five troops in his garrison. So it was like he's going to win the next one too. I didn't know where I was going to be able to compete, which is why I figured out other ways of generating points. I think one of the most important things in a worker placement game is having a variance in the value of each space.

You want to have as a designer, some spaces that are strong and some spaces that are weak. And the reason for that is you want to instill tension into your game of trying to race the other players to take one of the locations and having the other locations be the booby prizes. And so even this is kind of getting into what I dislike about the rise of X expansion, even if they are weaker spaces, I think that is ultimately better for the game.

So let's take a look at how this game stacked up against its peers back in 2020. It was actually nominated for the Kenner Spiel des Jahres. So for those who aren't aware, there is the Spiel des Jahres, which is the German game of the year award. It's nominated by a committee and it has taken some flack for being more family oriented, not a gamer's game. So they created the Kenner Spiel des Jahres, which is for more discerning gamers or the enthusiasts award.

And it was nominated along with Cryptid and Living Forest, which won. So that's, that's kind of interesting. It finished third place for the voting for the Deutscher Spiel der Priests. The game that won that year was Arc Nova. So this was just for 2022 that these awards were issued. So how do you think it stacks up? I mean, we know how we feel about it. If you compare it to an Arc Nova or to a Living Forest, if you had a chance to play it.

By the way, Dave, seventh in the DSP was Beyond the Sun. Yes. Solid game. So was this a good game in an exceptional year of standouts? I wouldn't say it's an exceptional year of standouts, but as you called out, Beyond the Sun, we love to play. Arc Nova, I love to play as a two player game. And Dune Imperium, I love to play as a four player game. Three player is also very good. So I am happy at one. I'm sad it only got third place.

But what other people think about games doesn't much affect how I think about games. I'm not mad that Arc Nova won. Arc Nova is a great game. If Cascadia beat it, I might be a little upset. I don't love Cascadia as much as other people do. It did beat it, Dave. Well, that's true. It came in second. So it came above it, but it didn't win. But yes. Yeah, DSP Cascadia was second. I haven't played Cryptid or Living Forest. So about the Kendershville Dajara, I'm not really sure.

But looking at the other games for the DSP, I didn't care for Ares expansion that much or Gollum. But there are some, you know, Arc Nova, Beyond the Sun and Dune Imperium, three solid games I think that makes for a solid year just having those three alone. Does this game make you feel any particular way when you're playing? Are you excited? Do you get disappointed? Is it a roller coaster? How do you feel when it's over? What's how this one hits you in the fields? I love it.

I'm excited before we play. I'm excited while we play. I get nervous because of the conflicts and the possibility of somebody taking a space I really want. And I'm also full of anticipation of what I'll be able to do on my next turn or what's going to happen in the conflict if I can win or not. At the end of every play session I've had of Dune Imperium, I just feel fulfilled and I want to discuss and rehash what happened. Yeah, I agree with that.

I come in with a lot of excitement and sometimes I get deflated as I go with my decks not coming together the way I wanted to come together and I just feel stagnating because what you do in the early game really affects how you're going to do in the later game that I can really fall off track in here. But going in is it feels like Clash of the Titans.

Even though I don't win very much, I feel like I can be somewhat competitive in the game and I feel like both of you guys are very good in the game. So I feel like it's going to be a hard fought pointy elbow, lots of pushing and shoving kind of game in a really fun way. So there's never just a boring game of Dune Imperium where we played a little bit and somebody won and then we went on and played somebody else.

It's always lots of groans and cheering and there's a lot of fun going on and you know, we don't always have fun when we play even really good games, but this one is good and fun. Hear, hear. I agree. It's been interesting to see what can happen and yet I am still competitive.

So we were playing that game and I bought one of the scrap cards and I opened up Quizzet's Hotarack and Paul was going next, not knowing it was coming, but he was able to generate eight persuasion and buy the KH and I honestly thought right then this game is over. I can't believe this card came out. He was able to grab it.

Paul's an incredibly strong player as it is and now he's got this go anywhere for free pass and I thought that even after the game was over, I still couldn't believe he didn't win. I still think that honestly during the game it just ended up being a second diplomacy for me. Yeah. But as you said, that's half a point and that's an undeniable half a point that no one can block you from even the cheap spaces, right?

Because every faction is going to have one free space and then one space that requires anti to go. So if I go to the BG spot that allows me to draw an entry card, I can do that for free, but I can't go to the one that allows me to trash a card unless I pay two spice. I can't go to Artie Warriors unless I pay a water. Yeah. And I think it's important to note that I bought it on turn four and I only saw it twice. That is good to know.

Yeah. So again, the first three turns are about deck building and after that it loses its importance because you're not going to see the card that often. So I have a question for you guys. How much are you taking the opportunities to trim your deck? How actively are you pursuing the banish action or whatever it's called in the game? Is that just you take it when you can get it or are you actively tightening up that deck as you go?

Because you guys are buying a lot more Spice Must Flow than I am and part of that has to be tuning your deck and I'm sure part of that is picking draw spaces or cards that give you extra draws on your turn. Yeah. Research station letting you draw three cards. That's huge. Yeah. As is selective breeding. That was Todd's favorite space the other night. Is being able to trash and draw two.

That was only enabled because I had purchased Wyrm Riders, which is a great card normally when you're in the conflicts and you have at least two influence with the Fremen. But since I had control of Imperial Basin, I could play Wyrm Riders to take that spot even if it had no maker's bonus and I was taking down four Spice. So that enabled me to use selective breeding because it was easy for me to generate the Spice to trash cards.

I think I trashed four or five cards during the course of that game, which was huge. And that was primarily by use of selective breeding. Yeah. So Dave, to answer your question, selective breeding can be a hotly contested space, but thinning your deck oftentimes comes down to luck. Were you able to get a card in the first couple of turns that allows you to trash cards when you play it? And did you draw it at a time to take advantage of its location possibilities?

There have been times where I've had a card that had that. I forget which one of the guild cards it is, but I couldn't take advantage of its trash capability because it didn't factor into my plans for that round. Anything that you don't like about the game? We already talked about the Imperium Row getting clogged and I definitely disliked that in the beginning. I know some of our other friends we play with recommended doing something to get it flowing even in the late game.

But as I said, now I really appreciate that design choice. So no, there is nothing I dislike about this game. Dave? I agree. I don't think there's anything I dislike about the game. No, I just like when you surprise me with an Intrigue card and take a conflict I thought I was going to win. Any sort of area control game or conflict game where I commit to the conflict thinking I can win and end up only getting second place after really committing to it.

Those instances are deflating, but those are also mostly my fault when something like that happens. And part of that is learning the possibilities. Yes, exactly. So the threat of the Intrigue card, just getting an Intrigue card early, just the threat that that could be something, but when you're in those early conflicts and I'm not holding an Intrigue card, I'm not scaring you at all. Maybe I've got a dagger in my hand, but that's it.

But to have the Intrigue card or something like that, then maybe I got to make you overcommit to win that conflict or maybe I can win an outright or something like that. It makes the conflict much more dynamic. So the things that I say I don't like about it are the brilliant parts about the game. I don't like it when it doesn't go my way, but as objectively looking at it, it's a fantastic part of the game.

Yeah, I hate it when we go to resolve the conflicts and we have to go around and ask and I'm not holding one. And so like, OK, Intrigue cards, Todd, what are you going to do? And it's like, I got nothing. And then I've got to just clench while Paul, who is sitting on three Intrigue cards, sits there and decides if he's going to play one. And I'm like, oh, I declined to play one. I'm like, oh, OK, I got past this one. Mm hmm.

OK, so next time, are you going to go to Karthag or Secrets early, get those early Intrigue cards to bluff us? I should. Just get a card. Yeah, the opening start of going to the Emperor for wealth for those two Solari and then with my other agent going to Cho'am and getting three Solari, that was so strong in that game. Secure contract, actually, but yeah. OK, secure contract.

Because on the very next turn, I was able to get my council seat and I even griped that I was playing against my type because I normally don't like buying a lot of cards. And you're like, well, didn't just buy the right ones. And you were so right, because I was able to do that. You did it kicking and screaming. You were Paul Atreides as well. I was. I was getting an extra draw on my Signet ring.

Yeah. I was just going to bring up the strategy of early game money or Solari is extremely important, whereas late game, as we already discussed, you really don't care whether you have Solari or not. Depending on the cards you're carrying, I would say. Well, and then getting to five points, certainly to get that council seat, because then that really opens up your deck building, what you can get out of that Imperium row. And then obviously getting to eight.

Now, we've definitely seen games where somebody wins without buying that Swordmaster, which seems crazy. And that's just a crazy thing about this game. There are times in the early game where it feels against tempo, where you just take one action and then you reveal. You totally forego a second action so that you can reveal to pick up a certain card or something like that, which that just boggles my mind. If you're buying Liette or Lady Jessica, totally do it. That's right.

Yeah. And then the card you pick up, that card is more valuable than whatever action you were just going to take to have that card in your deck in the earlier game, which is amazing that you can disrupt your tempo like that. And same with getting that Swordmaster. You think I have to have that Swordmaster because once you get that, you're going to get three actions. And certainly that is very helpful. But if you don't get it by turn five, maybe let it go.

It's not going to happen and just deal with what you have. And certainly if you try to get it before you get your high council seat, you might find yourself not being able to finish building a good deck because you're taking those three actions. You're not leaving yourself enough cards to reveal. So it gets a little tricky navigating that. Well last night I never purchased a high council seat.

I rallied troops instead and definitely having the Swordmaster creates some tension in the desire to buy Spicema's Flow. Laying three cards out of your hand in a turn almost prevents you from ever having the ability to get nine persuasion. That's right. Okay. Let's get started on working our way through the prompts. So the first one is weight or complexity. So on a scale one to five, no decimals. What would you say the weight is of Dune Imperium?

For me, it's about the same as Tigress and Euphrates from last episode. So I think I said medium heavy. So that's a three. Or a four. Three or four. You wanted to say 3.5 last time, but I'm not letting you know. No decimals. Decimals are for cheaters. Did I say three or four last time? I don't remember. I think we made you settle in on four. Yeah. So four again. I think it's the same as Tigress and Euphrates. Okay. Dave?

For me, this is another one is similar to Tigress and Euphrates 2, whereas the rules overhead is not that heavy of a burden to bear. The rules are pretty easy to grasp. It's medium to grasp. I mean, just the rules themselves are probably about a three. And that's one of the reasons I'm so surprised that this game is so popular because actually playing the game, I find it very difficult. And probably that's because I'm playing against you guys.

So the game feels very heavy, but I think that's my competition. So I've probably put it at a four as long as you're playing with a group that's growing with you. Because it's not, I wouldn't call it a sandbox game, but really the competition with the other players is what makes it so difficult. But the game itself, it's not fiddly. The rules are pretty straightforward. Once you play a few turns, you'll understand how it's going to work, but I'm still going to put it at a four.

I added down as a three. Dominion is rated a two on BGG. I think the idea of limiting your action selections to the symbols that are on the cards is a nice complication. For that, I'll give it a bump, but I think it's a three. It just, again, from the complexity of the game, how that complexity expresses itself, let's call that strategy. Do we want to talk about how much opportunity there is for strategy? And again, same scale, one to five. What would you say? I think it's highly strategic.

The strategy is certainly limited by the five cards you draw each turn. So with that limitation, I would rate it a four out of five in strategy and being able to make long-term plans. Yeah, I agree with a four. Dave, what do you think? Yeah, I agree with that too. I've been thinking about strategy more and more lately along the terms of how much is my game front loaded.

And exactly what Paul was saying in the beginning is the beginning of this game, you're building your strategy, you're building your deck. And after that, it transitions into being tactical to execute that strategy. But there's a lot of front loading as to what kind of game am I going to be playing.

Starting with the leader that you choose and the first few cards you buy off that Imperium row, that's making some strategic decisions that you're going to try to follow through with through the end of the game. So I put it at a four as well. Yeah, I can't believe we haven't talked about the leaders yet. So let's talk about them. They definitely try to hold your hand through a specific strategy.

And a lot of people who play in tournaments draft the leaders based on what they see in the card row and what they think other people are going to do during their game, just based on where they're seated or if they've played with them before. Well, we started doing that too, right? Where we show the Imperial row and then we work backwards from the last player up to the starting player. Yeah, it goes to Dave's point about front loading the strategy. It's such an important choice.

I think it's worthwhile to give whoever's going last the benefit of first choice of leaders. Okay, so let's take a look at luck. How much do you think luck plays a factor in this game? Same scale one to five. I would put it at a two. You might think it has a lot of luck being a deck builder or a deck based game, but after enough plays, I realized I can control the contents of my deck and even more importantly, the size of my deck and then the size of my hand to really mitigate that luck.

That's why I rated a two. I definitely agree with that too. I think the more you play the game, the less it feels like luck. And I think over iterated plays, the better players are going to win. And if it were a luck heavy game, then we would see more distribution of wins and I don't have very many wins coming my way. So therefore it must be low luck. I would win more if it were based on luck. Yeah, I agree with a rating of two.

I mean, you can use your cards in different ways to mitigate the draw, but I mean, you're still going to have that event where you need a city icon, right? You need to go to one of the purple spaces. Maybe it is research station because you want to pay your two water and draw your three cards, but you're just not holding any of them. So that's going to happen. So I agree. I think two is a good score for luck. Okay. This should be an easy one. Theme.

How much do we think the theme has been integrated versus pasted on? I'll just go out and say five. Anyone want to say different? No. I think it is oozing with theme. The influence tracks, as well as the worker placement map, just tie in so well with the story of Dune, the original book and the movie. And something I would like to point out as well is the conflict part of the game is like an homage to the original Avalon Hill version of Dune, the board game.

The end of round combat is basically a microcosm of what that original Dune board game is. I like it so thematically it follows Dune, the book and the movies, but it also thematically follows the Dune board game that preceded it. That's right. I'm giving it a five as well. And for that reason, I didn't think that I would like the game when I first saw it. You know, again, it's IP game. How good could it be?

And it's just a theme game that people are enjoying because they enjoy the books and the movie so much. I doubt I'd enjoy it as a game. It's so amazing to see that it does both of them so well. Yeah, and the way that the narrative, Dave, you talked about this in our last podcast, some games leave you with a narrative and the way that the conflict that stacks, it gives you that narrative.

You feel like you're getting to that last battle at the Imperial Palace and you're, you got to the end of the movie and now whoever wins that conflict is going to end up with probably the victory points they need to win unless someone else has more spice. I think the theme is amazing. In fact, I would say that if I had room to go up to six, I would if you have the deluxe pack.

So maybe it was four with an asterisk and you have the deluxe pack and even it gets better and to what you were saying, they like normally you add a bunch of needless chrome onto a game and it becomes a bit of a turnoff. And for whatever reason, having all those little figures and I've painted mine up for the action selections and for the conflicts, it's just so much better than having cubes.

Yeah, I got to say, I really thought that I was going to hate using little miniatures for the conflict because cubes are so much easier to count. But after actually playing with them, I love it. I love using all the super Uber bits that you have in your version. Awesome. So best played hat, what's the best player account for this game? Depends on who you are. For me, it's definitely with four players.

I love the tension and the opportunity costs of all of the location spaces, the good ones disappearing as players take their turn with three players. I feel like it's a little too easy to accomplish what you want, but for your first few games, three player is probably better to learn the system. I think the game really shines at four. I agree four player is the best, but I'm not unhappy when we're at three and we're playing the game. I don't feel like anything's lost.

Although at four player, when I look at our scores, I was kind of perusing some of our plays and some of our scores. At four player, there's usually somebody that maybe only got four or five points. So somebody had a bad game and that's because like Paul said, those prime spots are getting eaten up early and it's really difficult to navigate at four player to be able to pull off what you want to pull off.

I mean, so much so the game starts you at, everybody starts at one point instead of zero points. So you only got to get nine points to win in the four player game because it's just so much harder to get those points. And when we play three player, usually all three of us are pretty tight up at the top, but in four player, somebody didn't have a fun time. Yeah, that was me two games ago. So even if that's you, Dave, you still prefer four player?

Yeah. I mean, I'll complain a lot and you guys will have to listen to it, but in the end, it's still a great game. It was just my fault. I definitely prefer it at four player. It's much more interesting. It takes the pressure off the conflict to where if I can't go into conflict and somebody else is going into the conflict, there's that pressure.

You constantly have to keep holding each other at bay and at four player, maybe I can kind of go off and do my own thing a little bit if I need to and let you guys fight it out a little bit. It's just a different dynamic. Interesting. For me, it's close. I do like the added competition of four player a lot. I dislike the running start. I would almost be willing to play a four player game and let's just start at zero and let's see how that works out.

I like having to get the full 10 points that you have to get in three player. That way there's less opportunity for someone to pull off an unexpected maneuver when you have the full 10 points right. You got to satisfy. I think the expectation with that starting at one is the conflict points will be distributed. And the faction alliance points as well. It's harder to get more than one faction alliance with four players, I think. Right. There's a fixed number of points in the game.

So I guess it makes sense to me that a four player game you start at one or you only need to gain nine because there's the same number of points to go around, but there's more players to take them up. I mean, there is a game ending decision, most victory points and tiebreaker on Spice if you don't get to 10 and you get to the end of the 10th round. That's true. And there's also an epic version of the game, right? Oh, is there? Where you play to 12 points? Maybe that's only in the expansion.

Okay. Have we ever ended on rounds and nobody got to 10? Have we ever done that? I don't recall. Not yet. I think maybe our original like first two plays, one of them might have been when we're just kind of bumbling around a little bit more. Right. Nobody's taking influence steps. Right. We're all buying cards. Everybody ends with a 30 card deck. Yeah. No one can buy Spice was flow because they're too saddled with other things. All right.

So if four is the best, what's your least favorite player account? And by the way, the game can still be good at this. I don't want to say that, man, don't ever play it at fill in the blank. I think it's worst at two. I actually like playing solo better than at two players because whether you're playing at one or two, there's automation to fill out the rest of the game.

And with two players, I've experienced many times when the automaton feels like it's singularly helping one of the players and it's just not a fun experience for the other person. The Kingmaker automaton. Yeah. I agree for all those reasons. I've only played it at three and four. What Paul says sounds right to me. It seems like it would be fun solo, but I never liked two player plus a machine. And I imagine do one of the expansions take it to five player? No, not yet. Because that's oh, okay.

Because usually an expansion does have a five player option. Plant the seeds, Dave. Well, when that happens, that's going to be my, that's going to be my answer. I don't want to play this at five player. So what's the actual playing time? Boxes can lie. What does the box say? 60, 120 minutes. What the box say? I know. I was just thinking the same thing. I didn't want to torture everybody with me trying to sing that song. Ring, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. 60 to 120. Yeah, I think that's accurate.

My experience that I've played this game about 20 times now is it's 30 minutes per player. Yeah. Well, we've got hard data, right? Todd, we track the time when we play this game. The last time we played, we were at what, an hour 23? For the three of us. Correct. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. You're measuring bang for buck. I mean, we got a handful of games that deliver what this can deliver in an hour 23. Agreed.

The next prompt, a new one for us, but it's also not one that we can really answer because there is only one answer. So which edition is the best? So far we only have one. However, let's talk about expansions. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't you have a different edition, Todd, with all the miniatures? Yeah. What do you call what you have? Let's talk about that. On BGG, it's called an accessory. It's not even an expansion. So it's called the deluxe upgrade pack. Well, that's just semantics.

This is a different edition. I guess it is the same board and the same cards. Yeah. Well, it's the same board and same cards because those came out of my base game. All it gives you are the cool like game trays, forms, and they give you the miniatures, but they don't give you the cards and they don't give you the board and they don't give you the resources. I see. You still have to get all of that out of the base game.

Now I consolidated it all into the big box and you'll be surprised to learn that actually threw the old one away. So I couldn't, I couldn't put it back if I wanted to. Gasp. Wow. You've come so far. Right? Even with the semantics, I think the accessory deluxe upgrade is the best version of the game. If you are able to acquire that and you put the new Dune movie soundtrack on in the background as you're playing, you are completely immersed in the universe.

Hey, don't forget painting all the figures. This is the first game I've ever painted. Yes, that's important as well. I look forward to you finishing painting all of the figures. I know, right? Well, but how many other games can you say that about is that I like the deluxe version of it because I don't like metal coins. I don't like Anna Meeple's. I'd usually rather have cubes than Anna Meeple's.

There are very few deluxe versions of games that I would prefer to play than just my base game that I originally bought. This is one of two or three that I can think of that, you know, if Paul shows up with his base edition and Todd shows up with his dolly rolling in his deluxe edition, I'm going to say, let's play Todd's copy. You know, I want to play that deluxe copy. Yeah, I totally agree. I vastly prefer functionality and readability almost in all cases.

Yes. Funny thing, Age of Steam, there is a deluxe version of Age of Steam where they basically downgraded all the components to be more easily seeable and usable instead of the fancy direction that it had taken in the previous version. So it surprised me as well that I really enjoy the deluxe-ified, miniaturized version of this game.

Okay, so the expansions, there was Rise of Ix and what Rise of Ix brings to the table is it introduces tech tiles, which are unique powers, and they can also create combos. There is a shipping track, which is a stacking benefit. So the higher you move your freighter up the shipping track before you recall it, you're going to get the benefits of the space you reached plus all of the spaces that you've surpassed below it. And it's basically another way of getting resources.

And then there are Dreadnoughts. And Dreadnoughts are worth three strength and conflicts. After the conflict, they return to your garrison. They don't go back to supply and they can control board spaces. So one of the three spaces on the board that have control flags, so those would be Imperial Basin, Arachine, and Karathag.

Even if there's already a control marker there, if you win a conflict with a Dreadnought, your Dreadnought takes over, basically parks over that space until the next combat and you get the benefit for anybody that selects that space. I'm not a real fan of this one and we've been talking about it as we go along, but this feels like it is diluting the action selection and reducing the conflict in the competition. What do you guys think about Rise of X?

Yeah, so about that, it takes the two worst spaces on the game board, which are the Selmalange and Secure Contract, and it makes them some of the best spaces on the board. And in doing so, it takes the most underused influence spots, the Spacing Guild, and makes it just as good or better than say the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor influence spots. So basically what it's done is an affront to, in my opinion, what good worker placements should do. It has replaced the not good spots with good spots.

And so now every option you have on your turn is good and it's way easier to accomplish what you want. So it makes the four player game feel like the vanilla three player game. And personally, I prefer a lot more conflict in my worker placement games. Yeah, that's something we're always talking about that with expansions, but the things that add things to game without adding anything to the game. And in this case, like Paul's saying, it actually detracts from the essence of the game.

And if you take the spot I really needed to go to, and now the game opens up and gives me something just as good, that starts to hinge on point salad where it doesn't matter where I go or what I do. At the end of the day, we add up our points and then we hold hands and ride a worm off into the sunset. It takes the tension out of the game and that's not what we're here for. Ride a worm off into the sunset. That's right.

Because it just makes, you know, you took the spot I wanted, no problem, friend. I'll just go over here and get something just as good. That's not fun. Right. It's about how efficient everybody is at gaining points. Whereas the base game is kind of about drinking other people's milkshake. Yeah. I think one of the things I do like about Rise of Vixx is that it added leaders.

I think that leaders really set the tone for the strategy you're going to choose in your game and having more choices and the leaders you can start with doesn't detract from the game. I think it adds to it. Okay. Yeah, there's definitely room to add content by adding cards, by adding leaders. That would be welcome. But for the leaders that it did add, those special abilities and signet card abilities or signet ring abilities are tied to the X expansion.

So you have to take the good with the bad with those, I think, or the bad with the good, I should say. That's true. Some of them are. You mentioned cards, adding cards. So Rise of Vixx adds cards. There are also several promo cards. I think Todd has some of those. And I honestly don't know how I feel about them.

I mean, it's interesting to throw a new card into the Imperium deck, but on the flip side, you're making that deck bigger and the deck has a wide variance of good cards and bad cards and so adding more to the deck could just make it more chaotic and random as to what comes out every turn. And I don't know if that's a good thing. Totally agree. More isn't always more. There's a Duncan Idaho promo card. There's one called Boundless Ambition.

And then there's a much sought after I don't have it card. That's Jessica of Arrakis, which is actually pretty darn cool. It can only be played in what's called a spice trade space, but those are the yellow triangles. But when you play it, you get to draw two cards and it has a lesser cost. I think it's cost six as opposed to Lady Jessica, which is seven. But none of them are game breaking and none of them are essential as far as the promo cards go.

The other expansion official one, this one was recently released, is Immortality. And on Immortality, you gain additional tracks. There's one that looks like a genetics track moving from right to left and it has a branching storyline of benefits that you can receive. And then it has one across the top that is upgrading research until you get to adding victory points. I've got to say, I'm not a real fan of adding ways to score victory points outside of the core mechanics of the game.

So they feel like that's where the competition is. And when you start adding new ways to get victory points, you're providing ways for people to compete without having to compete. But it also has a graft mechanic. So if I get one of the graft cards, I can tie it to one of the Imperium cards and then I get both benefits when I play them. And offers new Intrigue cards and some of those are tied to the tracks that are unique to Immortality.

And lastly, it has that family Atomics token we talked about earlier that gives you a one shot to blow out the Imperium row and restock it. I think Immortality has more potential than Rise of X for me personally, but I'm not racing to play games with it. Yeah, it doesn't destroy the imbalance of the worker placement locations, which as I said, I think is key. So I like it more in that respect. The Intrigue deck cards, there's a lot of them.

I think there's 15 in the expansion where there's only about 45 in the base game. So that is a big dilution of the Intrigue deck that I find concerning. And the graft mechanic is really interesting and it gives you some meat to chew on when you're thinking through your turn. But it really hinders your ability to have a good reveal since you have to play two cards with a single agent. So I don't know how I feel about Immortality yet, to be honest. I wish it had had leaders.

I'm very sad that there's no leaders in Immortality. Okay. And leaders that work with just the core game. Oh yeah, absolutely. That would be welcome. Yeah, we could print and play some. Maybe we should. We can make our own. I want to play as a worm. That would be the Immortality leader, right? That's God Emperor of Dune, I think. Okay. The most recognizable comparison. What's a game that is the most like this one?

And I'll let one of you answer first because I think there is an obvious answer if either one of you want to claim it. Yeah, go ahead, Dave. We all have the same answer, which it's fascinating to me that obviously it's Lost Ruins of Arnak because that has blended worker placement and deck building. And it's fascinating to me that those mechanics are so similar in these two games, but those two games do not feel anything alike to me at all.

And the conflict is the biggest difference, but Dune uses those two mechanisms, puts them together and you use them for area control and conflict. And then Lost Ruins of Arnak uses it and you use those same mechanics in a cube exchange, which are a more euro kind of game. And they don't feel alike at all to me, but you're building a deck, you're placing your workers based on the cards that you have. That at the core is exactly the same, but they don't even feel like they're for the same crowds.

Lost Ruins of Arnak, I don't belittle it because I love the game, but it's closer to a family game to me than Dune Imperium, which feels a little more of a strategy game to me. Though there's a lot of strategy in Lost Ruins. I don't want to talk too little on it, like I said. Well, what did you have? The same. I considered some other games. I think one of the precursors to this game was Lewis and Clark, the expedition. There's a lot of similarities there.

But like Dave said, I couldn't think of a game that feels anywhere similar to Dune Imperium. So I zagged on this one. Knowing Lost Ruins of Arnak was the easy choice. I forced myself to look at something else. I went with Mage Knight because that was the first game I remember playing that had deck building as an auxiliary mechanic as opposed to the primary one. As you go and you're adventuring, you're adding one card at a time.

I mean, it took effort to add cards to that deck and build out that character. That to me had a similar feel from that respect as Dune Imperium does. Yeah, I think that's a great choice. I agree. So that's not your obscure comparison? No, Mage Knight's like ranked 30 or something like that. Are you kidding? I mean, it's a loose fit, but I think it is a fit. Okay. Now overall, it's ranked number 33. I was misremembering what you mean by obscure comparison.

So okay, then I may not have a proper answer to obscure comparison. So obscure comparison, you know, for the listening audience, we're trying to find games that aren't immediately recognizable. So if you said look outside of the top 750 or whatever, not just because we're trying to find bad games, that's not the point, but games you may have forgotten. An obscure comparison for Dune Imperium. It can be loose. It doesn't have to be exact.

But what did you have for a not so popular game that reminds you of this one? I already mentioned mine. I think of Dune by Avalon Hill. It was obscure until recently when they did a big reprint based on the print and play art design. And I don't know if it's having a resurgence or a revival, but that game of Dune was just all about the conflict. You had Solari and Spice that you would use to try and win conflicts. It was more area control than anything else.

And then it also had the intrigue cards. So this game, Dune Imperium, to me really pays homage to that Avalon Hills Dune with how the conflict works and the use of intrigue cards. Yeah, I totally agree. Dave, so what's your may not qualify recommendation? It's maybe not as obscure as I thought it was. And only just a little part of it. But I thought of Champions of Midgard in the sense that you're playing that game, there is a threat coming.

The mountain giants are coming down and you have to in the round decide if you're going to go send your people to go fight the mountain giants. So you have to make that decision on am I going to participate in the conflict or am I going to keep just building my little thing that I'm trying to build my engines and those kinds of things. And if you participate in the conflict, you get good things. If you don't, you get shame points, which I think is a pretty fun mechanism in that game.

But only in that decision point that you have as to each round, how much, if at all, am I going to participate in conflict and how much am I going to be doing housekeeping? And then you have to kind of cycle through that through the game on going back and forth doing a little bit of both. Okay. For my answer, I went with a study in Emerald, which is a Martin Wallace game that is focused on the Cthulhu universe. It has deck building as its central mechanism.

Players have different identities, their secret identities, and there are different action selections you can take on the board. So there are many things that feel like Dune Imperium from that perspective. They release a second edition that then streamline things and reduce the action selection spaces to a minimum. So I actually prefer the first one, but if you have a chance to play either one, I would recommend it. And it has a similar feel to Dune Imperium.

Yeah. The original study in Emerald is dripping with theme as well. I enjoyed it. All right. House rules. Are there any house rules that should be applied to this game besides print and play leaders? Yeah. So my answer is printing more leaders. My answer is the same as, you know, anytime we talk about house rules, house rules are for cowards. Play the game as it's written.

I mean, unless the game has something that's clearly broken, play the game as written and don't try to tailor the game to, you know, meet your play style or find ways to beat the game as it's written. And so the Imperial Row is a perfect example because that just, it asks you to house rule it. And as Paul said, we've had people in our group suggest that we house rule that because it can be so frustrating, but that's not the game. I'm going to leave this one in here.

I'm going to keep asking this question of games. I would say I'm fine playing it as is. If I were to house rule anything, it would be the Imperium Row, but it wouldn't be the option to scrap it or have stuff leave. It would be allow me to buy a card and not add it to my deck. So if I want to see the next card and I have the reserves to see it and potentially buy something that comes out, maybe I should be allowed to do that. Now, we haven't played that way.

I'm not saying I want to play that way, but I think it could be an interesting compromise of let's just find ways to get rid of cards to make space for new cards without me bloating my deck unnecessarily trying to see new cards. What do you think about sweetening the cards that don't get purchased? They're there for one round. You put a Solari on them. If they're still there, you put a water on them. It probably breaks the game, but it would make for a much more dynamic row.

It would make the game less strategic. I think I like your suggestion, Todd. Being able to purchase cards with your persuasion, but instead of adding them to your discard, just trashing them immediately. That's a really interesting house rule. Well then when you purchase Spice Must Glow, you can just get the point and trash it. True. There's a house rule and a house rule. You got to eat Spice Must Flow if you're going to take that point. All right. All right.

If you like fill in the blank, then you're going to like Dune Imperium. How would you answer that one? I would say if you like the Dune universe, you will like Dune Imperium. Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. The theme like we've talked about is so strong. If you like Dune, especially the new or Dineve Illinois movie, you're going to like it. Knowing that somebody else was going to say that, I said if you like pointy elbow games, you're going to like it.

I mean, where you're just elbowing each other and pushing each other, shoving matches and things like that. If you're the kind of group that enjoys that sort of conflict, then you're going to like this game. You know, this could certainly be the kind of game you'd like. Okay. And if you don't like fill in the blank, maybe I can extrapolate from your previous answer. If you don't like what, then you won't like this game. Well, conflict, obviously.

Because it's very much like Paul said earlier, I drink your milkshake. And if that upsets you, you're not going to like this sort of game because it is direct conflict. Or area control in a sense that I make a significant investment and you surprise me with an intrigue card or something that I didn't see coming. If you don't like getting that sort of surprise and having to Charlie Brown walk your way back, then no, you're not going to like this. There you go. Surprises.

Yeah. Yeah. I have a friend who won't play the game with us because of being surprised one too many times in this game. But you said it earlier, Paul, it surprises the first few times you play. But as you know, what cards are out there, what possibilities are out there and just the threat of it being out there, you just play accordingly. But the first few plays when you get sideswiped by some intrigue card you've never seen before, it can be really deflating.

Right. Flippantly, I would say if you don't like having fun, you won't like this game. Well, more to the point, I think if you don't like thinking this, this is a strategic, thought heavy game. And at least the people I've played with that this has flopped on have only been those who say it feels like work or it's too much or what they want in a game. Yeah, that's fair.

I wrote if you don't like deck building, if you don't like the experience of managing a deck, adding cards to it, taking cards out of it, trashing them or perhaps having a hand where you aren't able to do the thing you wanted because you didn't get the cards that you needed that round, then you're not going to like Dune Empyrean because it definitely plays into it. Did this game replace a previous one? And Paul, you've mentioned it a couple of times.

I would say that theoretically it could replace the 1979 Avalon Hill Dune if that game was getting played, which in our group it wasn't. Yeah, the Avalon Hill version has a lot more politics, a lot more banter, table talk and a lot more backstabbing than is actually even possible in Dune Empyrean. So Dune Empyrean is very much a modern version of that game in that it puts the gloves on, whereas Avalon Hill's Dune is a very gloves off conflict game. Dave, did you have a different answer?

No, I would go with that because I could not come up with another answer because like we said this is such a strong meld of deck building and worker placement and kind of the evolution of those two mechanisms where they come together here. Other than Lost Ruins of Arnak, there aren't a lot of other games that fit this space and it feels like new territory. And I'm not familiar with the old Avalon Hill Dune, so I can't really speak to that.

To be fair, the old Avalon Hill Dune, you only play it with six players. Only with four players is going to be playing it anyway. Has this game since been replaced? I think the answer to that is a resounding no. It's too new for it to have been replaced by anything. Yeah, yeah, it's still hot, especially with our group when it's the three of us on our game night. It's an instant. This is what we're playing.

Okay. You know, a lot of people do like the expansions and would not consider playing the base game anymore. I totally disagree with them, but there are many out there. As long as you're enjoying it, right? That's the important thing. Rating on Board Game Geek's scale, one to ten, no decimals. How do you rate this game? I rate it a ten. It's outstanding and I will always enjoy playing it.

I have it at a nine right now, but as we play more and more, I would not be surprised at all if this becomes a ten. It's definitely, if it's all the hallmarks of a ten, I just feel like I want a few more plays and maybe a few more victories before I put it as a ten. I think I put it as a ten. It's everything I'm looking for in a game in a surprisingly short amount of time. That's an important factor for me is I'm getting this wonderful themed experience.

I'm getting the ups and downs and getting the conflict and then it's over and we can still play other games in the same night. I think it's fantastic. The last question, is this game replayable and how soon would you want to revisit it? I would say absolutely and tomorrow. How about you guys? I would happily play every week even more. Yeah, I agree with that.

This is a play frequently kind of game because some replayable games are, I'll play it once a year and it's a replayable game because once a year I still want to get it out and play it. But this one is there sometimes when we finish the game and I'm ready, if it's early enough in the night, I'm ready to wipe the table and start again.

In fact, I think that was our last experience before pandemic lockdown and the before times right we played a doubleheader of Dune and then we didn't play again for 9 to 12 months. Which is worth noting that you can play this on tabletop simulator if you want to play it online, but then you have to be familiar with the rules and how to manipulate the objects.

Well, I want to hear your answer to the replayability, Todd, though we all know what it's going to be, but then I have a follow up question on that. Sure. So, as I said, I think it's absolutely replayable. I would play it again tomorrow. Heck, I would play it tonight. It's giving me what I'm looking for out of a game as far as the quality of the play and also in a very reasonable timeframe. So my question for you guys is, is why is it replayable?

There's some games that the more I play them, the layers of the onion peel back and the more I understand them on a different level. Something like chess or Go or Tiger's New Phrase we talked about last week is the more I play or brass is a perfect example. My 10th play of brass was very different than my fifth play, which was very different than my 20th play. In some games, it's just because I want wash, rinse, repeat.

I just want to have the experience again and the board changes enough to where it feels like a new experience. But what is it about this game that you want to play it right away? Are you understanding it better on your 20th play than you did on your 15th play? Are you still growing in the game or is it just because it's like rewatching old movies and old TV shows that you love that it's just, I want to hang out with it some more? For me, it's both. I think I am still learning.

As we talked about, this is a strategic game with a lot of front loaded decision making that has far reaching effects. So it takes a lot of plays to get good at it. And even after that, you can still find new ways to do better. And I think largely because of the theme, it is also something I just want to hang out with and spend time with. I like that.

For me, it is not just understanding the mechanics and how they are interwoven, but it's also looking at how the play is different depending on the strategy you're pursuing. And here's an example. Our last game, I ended up with a very thin deck because I was focused on Bene Gesserit cards and I was focused on increasing my influence with that faction. And I hadn't done that before. I hadn't done a heavy BG deck and it turned out to be really effective.

And I'm sitting here, I've done it with Fremen. That's easy because you get the Liet card and she gives you plus two persuasion for every Fremen card that you've played. Makes it very easy to buy Spiceman's Flow. But like I haven't explored that yet with the Emperor or with the Space Guild. And there are just so many nooks and crannies to explore and they are changing the experience of the game each time you do. And that's why I want to keep coming back to it. Yeah, that makes sense.

It being a deck builder is that each time your deck is being built in a different way and your path is being carved in a certain way. So you're getting a unique experience in this same game and your opponents are having their unique experience. So even though most of it is the same, you're coming at it from a different perspective. There's different nooks and crannies you're getting into every time you play. So yeah, I definitely agree with both of what you guys said.

Okay, any parting comments or have we covered it all? I love this game and I hope other people do too. Yeah, what else can be said? It's to be this deep into the gaming hobby, years and years playing games to have a new game come and surprise me like this. I really enjoy that.

Thinking that I've got all the good games and now it's just a bunch of chrome junk coming out now and then to have a new game come out to say this all of a sudden is one of my favorite games that I really enjoy to be able to still have those experiences. I completely agree. Hey, I really appreciate you being here today and on all your opinions and well thought out arguments. Next week we'll be taking on a genre that got its own niche within our hobby where we can be taking on an 18xx game.

Wow. Wow. So thanks again, guys. We'll talk to you next week. Okay. Well, thank you very much. All right. See you. Thank you for listening to Replayable. Support for our podcast comes from listeners like you. Thank you for your support. You can find us online at replayable.fm, on Twitter as replayablefm, and on Instagram as replayablefm. We're all new to this. We're only going to get better with your help and your feedback. You can get in touch with us via email at todd at replayable.fm.