It's addictive...

0:13 Hello everyone. Welcome. I'm Robert, and today I want to discuss Dune Imperium. And this is a game that I've brought up multiple times in my top solo board games list, but I've never made a dedicated video for it. So now, crazy thing is that I played it a bunch when it first came out. I pre-ordered it, and it's had a pretty permanent spot in my top 10, but that was back in 2021. That was pretty much the last time I played it. And you know, it's been like 5 years. You know, hundreds of games later, but now finally this hit the table again. And also crazy thing is that of course in all of that time I acquired the expansions, which I mentioned in some of my lists, but I never got to try them until now. So now I basically want to discuss my thoughts on the expansions and whether the game holds up and still remains in my top solo board games of all times spot. So first I got the game back on the table just with the base game just to refamiliarize myself with it, and here was just a thing of beauty. It was just amazing. All of the awesome memories of when I played it back then came back, and it reminded me why I loved it so much. I love how tense the game is and how challenging the bots can be.

1:30 I love the light deck building and also the worker placement and also the tension of combat and building up your forces and trying to gain all of the victory points and also how thematic it is as well with how you gain favor with the houses and also the backstabbing element of maybe gaining more favor with one house at the expense of another, the intrigue cards and how they are twists and have interesting effects, uh the different spaces and all of their cool effects. Uh it's just great. It's incredible how the designer managed to weave all of the elements of Dune from the lore and books and movies into the game. Crazy how he pulled that off. And even at the base game level, I adored the game. Uh but once I beat the bots a bunch of times, which I didn't play on the absolute highest difficulty. There is a difficulty setting where you don't have access to your third worker, also known as the Swordmaster, and also the bot plays its units and deploys its units a bit more intelligently. I didn't play with those modifiers.

2:47 I basically played at the Mentat level throughout all of my games with the expansions. But as I'll discuss later, I think I probably should have added the Kwisatz Haderach modifier so that I don't gain the Swordmaster and also the expert troop deployment, but I'll get to that in a second. But anyway, once I had my fun reliving the experience of playing the game just using the base game, progressively making it more difficult, I finally tried the Rise of Ix expansion. And my thoughts on it is that it is an amazing expansion that really shakes up the formula and I had an amazing time playing it. Again, I started on low and played at more difficult levels as I went on and I quite enjoyed how it shook up the formula, especially with the Dreadnoughts as a attack unit. I love them. And I also love how it addressed one of the issues with the game, which are these spaces back here, right? These Chom spaces kind of felt underpowered or not as useful as other spaces on the board. and also solari as a resource kind of felt not as important as the others, but with the rise of x expansion, now solari feels more valuable without really taking away the importance of spice and water. And it also integrates with the bots very easily. And I haven't mentioned this yet, but just the way that the bots work here is just so straightforward. I love

4:20 how challenging they can be and how they can surprise you with gaining victory points later in the game when you don't expect it. And also I appreciate them being just so streamlined. And also keep in mind that I have played this multiplayer and I did enjoy it, but that didn't take away my appreciation of how this plays solo, but it's crazy how well this works as a multiplayer game and also a solo game. But yeah, the solo game it's kind of its own thing to some extent. And yeah, there are also a lot of other cool mechanics like the infiltrator mechanic and also the tech tiles. I love the tech tiles from rise of x and how they add all of these cool effects that you can use in different ways.

5:06 But one thing I'll say though, as much as I appreciate this rise of x expansion, I didn't find it as essential as some people mentioned. I think it's just almost its own game. Like I can take it or leave it. I could just play the base game by itself or rise of x if I want to shake up the formula, but I wouldn't consider it the way to play it. Like if I want to permanently play it moving forward, not really. So I see myself just separating this expansion and then adding the immortality one or just playing the base game by itself. And I'll get to immortality in a second, but yeah, no, I I enjoyed rise of x. And if you enjoy this system, you're going to want to buy every expansion for it, which I have and I don't regret it one bit. It's amazing, and I just love how it shakes up the formula and adds other thematic and also mechanically cool elements. So, definitely worth it, but not essential per se. Just a way to shake up the formula. That's kind of how I see it.

6:07 All right, and then we get to the immortality expansion. So, I played the expansions in order, and this is the last game I had a game going from a bit easier to more difficult bots to play against with the immortality expansion, and this is the last game I played in the Mentat difficulty level. And the first thing I want to mention about this expansion is just how easy it is to implement. It's very, very easy to internalize the rules of the expansion and very easy to integrate. You basically just add the board and shuffle a few new intrigue cards, replace a couple of your cards in your deck, and of course, add the new Imperium cards, as well as the Tleilaxu cards. But, I know that might have sounded like a handful, but not really. It really is super simple to integrate, just a few components and also just explaining it.

7:01 I was shocked how easy this was to integrate and how, again, it shakes up the formula in its own way. I loved the Graft mechanic. So, these are cards that you buy by putting your soldiers in these tanks, right? In these vat tanks. And there are various ways of you putting your soldiers there, which is a cool mechanic because sometimes you feel like you have a lot of soldiers, you know, just sitting there not doing anything, right? So, every time you get one of these green cubes from a card or from moving down the research track, you then gain a body for the vat, right? Which you can then use to purchase these cards, which have their own market, which is separate from the regular Imperium row.

7:47 So, they have cool effects, but one of my favorite ones is Graft. So, basically this allows you to play two cards at the same time, right? And you basically makes the effects as if you have played both and you can also choose both cards when it comes to choosing which space you want to send your worker to. So, great, easy to understand mechanic and I also enjoyed the research track, very easy to integrate and as you go down the track, you get more powerful effects from cards that have that symbol right there, this research symbol, right? So, for this intrigue card, the more you're down the research track, the more powerful it becomes. You also have this Bene Tleilax track, which you gain bonuses from as you progress down it, including up to two victory points. And you progress through it by using those immortality symbols. And yeah, I quite enjoyed the expansion. I love that it revolves around the Tleilaxu. It's a pretty cool and scary faction in the Dune universe and the mechanics tie in thematically very well and it's consistent in that regard compared to other materials from the base game or the Rise of Ix expansion. Also, one cool mechanic which maybe in multiplayer it's a bit more appreciated. I don't know that I cared as much about this mechanic in solo, it's this Family Atomics token,

9:18 which lets you you know, just nuke the entire Imperium row. And you know, it doesn't hurt, it's situational, but I can take it or leave it personally. Now, one thing I haven't done and I honestly don't see myself doing is playing with both expansions at the same time. I think that might be a bit much. I kind of appreciate each expansion just adding a bit of a twist to the base game and then just, you know, removing the components from each expansion and then just kind of going back to the base game and I just pick what expansion I want to play with. But yeah, in regards to the difficulty, I noticed that at the Mentat level, I just kept consistently beating the boss. 5 years ago when I played this game, I saw a few posts of people saying that they could consistently beat the boss without the Sword Master at the highest difficulty settings and I thought that that was crazy with my experience level at the time.

10:12 But this time around, I was able to grok the game a bit better and internalize the strategies a bit better and trying to plan out having a plan A and plan B for what spots I want to take and when to take them, right? So I consistently beat the bots by a one or two point margin at the Mentat level. Like I said, I never tried the Kwisatz Haderach difficulty modifier or the expert troop deployment, but I think moving forward when I retable this game after one or two games to refresh myself, I'll just crank the difficulty to a maximum. The thing is not having my Sword Master sounds a bit awful cuz the bots having their three workers and me only having my two, man, that sounds almost un-fun.

11:01 But at the same time, I just keep beating the bosses consistently. So yeah, I think those extra modifiers are a bit necessary if I want a true challenge. And again, I'm not saying that it's not challenging at that high level. You still have to really pay attention and try to do the best move that you can on whatever board state. And sometimes even then the bots can screw you. But ultimately, I do win pretty consistently, but again, you can't just sleepwalk through the game. You have to really pay attention, and I just love the board states that this creates. It's always such an engaging experience, and when I sit down and start playing it, I just kind of have to force myself to like to pull myself out of the table if I need to leave, right? Like I just glue myself to the table when I play this. I adore it. And I haven't mentioned this, right? But like I love the Dune IP. I played the video games growing up.

11:56 That's how I got introduced to it, those old Dune strategy games. And I've read the first three books. I've never finished it. But I've read the first three books and watched that awful David Lynch movie and the new movies. So I just enjoy the IP. I'm not like ultra versed in it, but I just enjoy the IP. It has a special place in my heart, and uh it blows me away that there's such a good solo board game with this IP attached to it. This game is just a marvel. I don't know what the designer smokes for him to come up with such an amazing system and the fact that it works so well solo, but I just adore it. It's just so good, and it firmly remains in my top 10. I haven't done a re-organizing of my top games of all time recently, but I know that this would be in the top 10 easily. Okay, so it hasn't left the top 10 in all these years. I don't think it will. It's just fantastic. And you might have noticed I haven't mentioned Dune Uprising, but I do have it, and it's sitting on my shelf, and it's all sleeved and ready.

12:57 So now that I've made this video, which I wanted to just focus on the original and the expansions, now I'm going to table Uprising, which I've never played. So it would be very interesting to see how it compares to the original from a solo perspective. I've heard some mixed things, to be honest with you. So it will be very interesting to see how I feel about it after I've played it, just with the base game, and then with the Bloodlines expansion. And there's also another expansion already coming out with the conspiracy expansion. So, I'm looking forward to that. By the way, I also want to comment how I handle the Imperium churn because, as I found out recently, this has been a bit of a debate because there's various ways of which people handle Imperium churn in this game. Uh but, what I did was years ago, I made this file. This is basically just the card that shows up in the Direwolf app when you want to control the bots with the app. And I just offered this as a print and play file. I'll leave a link. And basically, when this comes up, I just roll two dice, okay?

14:05 And um Uh first, I check the D10. Uh so, that's 1 2 3 4 5 6. There you go. So, that's one. And then um then the then there's the the four. So, that's one and two. There you go. And that's it. Then that's simple. That's how I handle the Imperium churn here. And uh people have other methods, but this I've done it from the beginning. And I mean, that's as close as it gets to an an official way of doing it. There's also a variant using two D6s. Haven't tried that one, but I felt that this works pretty well. So, uh I didn't feel like changing it. But if you have any opinions on that, you can also let me know in the comment section. How do you handle the Imperium churn when playing solo, if at all? But yeah, folks, tell me what you think of Dune Imperium. Do you still play it? Or maybe you never have for some reason.

14:55 So, let me know in the comment section what you think about this game. And yeah, I want to thank you all so much for watching. If you have any other comments, questions, feedback, go ahead and put them in the comment section. And enjoy your Discontent. Make sure to like and subscribe. And I'll see you in the next one.