Dune Imperium: Rise of Ix

0:09 some viewers may find the following video disturbing viewer discretion is advised hey everyone welcome back to board games unlocked and we are doing a no run through review for rise of x is it x okay i'm like i i don't know uh the newest expansion for dune imperium uh if you want to know our thoughts and see the run through for dune imperium you can definitely go check that out um i'm going to sit a majority of this uh review out long and short of it for me didn't change anything it has cool elements in the expansion but didn't fix the my overall problems with with dune um so i will leave it to the two people who do like this game and uh have a go from there so what do you guys think of rise of x um i love it you're right it is trash all right no this is a good expansion for dune imperium yeah like yeah i i can very much agree with that but specifics go on um it adds more i'm sorry no i'm kidding i'm not i'm really kidding go it adds more complexity um adds more cards overall yeah this has moved it uh i think i gave it eight whenever we reviewed it before which probably i think so this is a nine definitely with the expansion for me i understand why tom vassell says that he would only play with this expansion the game would be weaker without it um to me it's more interesting you have more things that you can purchase more things that you can do the uh spacing guild track seems i never focus on it but it is very good nobody i think you cashed out on it at one point

1:40 um oh the interstellar shipping spaces right if you don't have an abundance of spice and you get up all the way to the top it's it's super useful right yeah you can basically outright buy a four before token oh yeah it's true because you'll get you can get the two and then yeah the discount right but overall it's it's just more content and more complexity um yeah this is one of my favorite games of all time these uh these techs uh are by far the best part of the whole game yeah i think right these are these are really cool because they're they're a variety of different things either they're stuff you get at the reveal turn their stuff that you can get like end game victory points um there's just abilities you get that could be really good um once again though for me it's another set of randomness that it's like you have randomness of the market of not the spaces but the and then it's like oh man that's really good oh i'm going last hopefully no one goes there and uh but if you are able to go there then yeah cause i had some cool stuff like the first one i got was i mean three influence or more on all four influence tracks which is actually way harder than i initially thought um but i was like oh that's perfect because it synergizes with her ability like her final delivery because i get to go up on tracks um but it was only for one point and i gave up after i realized that but the other two i had were on the reveal turn if you get four combat if you have a seat on the high council

3:11 which i was the first to do and then a reveal turn plus one for each revealed card that provides one or more this turn really i was only buying these because i needed three tacks to trash these and actually had a intrigue that gave me if i had three texts uh so i got three points just for buying those and they were super cheap yeah but right like if you get these then it's like oh now i'm going to go combat to bounce off of that i find that like having one of them is like yeah it's a little new thing but like towards the end of the game whenever especially if you focused on them and you have two or three or four then you're like and i can do this and i can do this and i can do this and i can do this and you forget about it but it's it becomes very quickly overpowered you have to sink a lot of spikes into it well what's neat about these and then we'll have zach chime in real quick uh this is pretty much the only the only best part of of this is this is kind of like the free actions that arnak has i know not a lot of them have that but most of them tend to either they're giving you resources which is good uh through just having them or you can tap them or flip them for an ability yeah without having to spend a person like this one just gives you a warrior um and if you can buy those yeah there's the kind of your engine where you don't have to spend a card so there's times where you might be like i don't know do you have a card draw one yeah this one yeah the the holo projectors where it's like i really need a [ __ ] you know green location one all right i'll flip this and i'll drop it like i mean because this one let you you had to discard the person right yeah so it's like if you have those cards

4:42 that i can't find right now or even like a spice being a point that's pretty solid yeah right and it does other things yeah it wasn't just even the flagship which i really wanted just for the point but still because she's never used that ability but the point was uh you and i were building solar um basically engines that flagship would have been great that's exactly what i was looking at because i'm like okay she's all about solara right i need that and that was a term behind actually no i could have gotten it but i didn't have green so i couldn't go there and so i just had to suck my own [ __ ] it was the only part of the game i didn't focus on like i was on combat i was on my card engine you were playing the base game i was playing the bass game yeah and realistically like we were neck and neck like if you would have had a card that gave you a victory point we would have tied and then i would have still won but yeah well why would you have one oh you're the one that breaks ties right yeah i did see that one um yeah so these these are the the really cool ones you still these are just randomly shuffled right yeah and then they're just spread out there's no particular 18 of them okay um but i mean like [ __ ] there's so many in here like this one the shuttle fleet go choose two to go on each track right or you choose two and you go up on two tracks but then round star you get two solaris so if it's if it's her who gets it she gets three yeah because it's her turn so these are really cool um they fit well with certain faction abilities right and this is probably the more enginey part of the game that you

6:13 like roll over i was gonna say that but then you still don't because you still need to be able to go there and you still need to be able to like there are times where it's like oh this one's pretty good then one flips you're like well [ __ ] that's even better for me but unfortunately i can't get it right but there are ways like to make them cheaper which is nice or if you're like okay i don't have the solar right now i'll just go here and then i can bank it to then banking it seems weak but it actually does pay off a lot yeah later on yeah it can come in handy especially so then you can use this stuff for something else yeah right like if you have six and then you pull out the one that that like cost six like this one for example yeah then it's like uh wait a minute i have six banked here or i go to this spot yeah and i have four bank gear and then there's cards that give you that ability that you can provide stuff i saw a couple of those cars my segment ring ability right let's do it during the game yeah yeah so like this one it's like okay so now you're able to use those resources elsewhere right oh i have six i'm just gonna i mean actually hell there's cards that let you just buy outright buy them so then you can just buy them and still go to a different location and potentially be like oh well i have six of the spice great now i can still hold on to that six and then go get a bunch of people yeah the techs without a doubt are the best part of this expansion i think yeah um zach what are your thoughts on uh the expansion so i liked it with the expansion i probably would agree i don't know if i would want to play just bass anymore

7:45 probably mostly because the deck card seems to be more uh useful i felt like they added a lot of cars that helped you move up and down that track which me that was always the weakest part of the base game was a lot of your points came from backtrack and combat you could like there's like one guy who can probably focus exclusively on combat and maybe win the game yeah and then everybody else has to focus at least a little bit here but this always felt like the weakest part like do you have the resources you need and the card you needed at the right time but then with more cards to purchase to go up on that track i think i ended the game with like seven or eight of 20 cards to go up on that it's like okay yeah now i have the engine to actually make those work yeah and i want to choose when to do it instead of if not cards that physically let you go there there's cards that you just pay resources to be able to go up on the track right um which going up on the track isn't inherently good it just gets you a point but some of them uh you need a particular influence like with the new expansion the shipping to go to the top one you need yep you still need the front end um one to go there which that one to me is pretty solid yeah uh you know what i would have liked if those particular tracks going up on them gave you a a particular resource right would be nice like if you go up on like the fremen track you get the water which what you do because you

9:16 well no you have to go to those spots to get that yeah i'm talking about like just actively going up on the track and i guess they do but you have to go up what five four four spots yeah um and that that the faction that i mentioned she gets a bonus whenever she goes up to yeah when she hits the two spot she gets the bonus did she get the bonus and the two points or and the point yes okay so you get to do that twice during the game yeah yeah um i would just i i think the cards added are nice but for me i still think that the deck is too fluffed out that if you're trying to build an engine at least every single time i've played this game i just don't get it like it's either the engine i'm trying to go for is too slow um or if i need to speed it up i'm not getting the cards that let me kill them like or thin it out uh so it's like adding more cards to a deck builder is great only if you're taking stuff out like if you were to pl it's like hey if you're playing right like i want to say z the rise of x expansion remove power remove remove these cards yeah like and just and you know put those in so that it's synergizing better but just being like oh you have a deck of 100 cards here's 50 more it's like no no that's bad you don't want a thick deck and a deck builder right um but the cards that they do add are good right like and you said that they added more 80 70 to 80 of the cards are faction cards now right yeah that was part of it was a not a big issue but a slight issue with the base game is you had cards that would play off of each other if you haven't

10:46 been a jesuit card then you get this bonus but you'll never find a better desert card because it's based on randomness now a much larger portion because of those added cards are um faction cards which was our original whenever i played it with friends of mine their original like minor complaint um outside of that there's abilities that fall in with the new uh board spaces and there's some more interesting more complex stuff yeah that new card there's a whole mechanic where you can discard cards or completely get rid of cards so you can do that and get double bonuses from certain cards um yeah and i think i don't know if these are brand new they might be as the two dot the expansion yeah whenever you actually buy them you get a bonus right i saw i saw a few of those those were cool there's some in here and that's the thing is this game for me and like i can clearly see the engine like i i can see cards i'm like oh that's amazing especially if this person you can do this but it relies so much still with the expansion on on luck and that bums me out because like for example for her she was all about getting extra what is it solara yeah solari um there's this card this has it's not even new i thought it was it's opulence at the end you spend six to get a point right that's two turns for her just to draw this and be like oh here's here's a free point because now i don't have to rely on my final delivery i can now do this to start getting point generation right but then it becomes oh well does it

12:16 happen to come out do i happen to have the which i mean six if you have a high council is almost guaranteed to be able to do to be able to buy if you're buying a six cost card that's the main card that you're buying you're not going and turning around and buying a spice must flu flow car for sure yeah if you buy that and then it goes into your hand then it has to get reshuffled into your deck then you have to pull it out unless you have a special ability where you can put it on top i think there's an ability somewhere where you can do that but you you basically like you're not going to get that for at least a round you're not going to get the round you buy it or the following round which i will agree with most deck builders i dislike the fact that most go to your graveyard versus back to your yeah or any deck builder that gives you the card effect either immediately or the the guarantee you're gonna get the card um almost always it's like a point higher than like games that don't do it just because it's like it doesn't even make any thematic sense why i don't get that card it's like whether they do to write a letter and they're i mean i do have to do they have to fly to me to for me to be able to get this opulence card well and i mean the you're comparing that to arnac where you're where you're getting like items in our neck and these are like characters and stories which you know um being a deck builder wouldn't thematically connect with shadowrun crossfire you get cards immediately into your hand um there's others that do you see what i'm saying like cards a deck builder as it is wouldn't thematically feel at home with you know a lot of but what i think we're just saying is the fact that there are deck builders that

13:47 when you buy the cars instead of going to your discard pile they go straight into your deck or in your hand so and we i agree i like those better because i'm spending these time and resources to get the car like so i spent and got probably the best car in the game right i got once and i was probably shuffling through my deck the fastest out of all three of us that's true yeah because you were drawn the most but there's a little bit of that that's a numbers game like if you're buying a lot of cards then you're not going to pull it right right i'm fine with that like like i understand the deck building portion of it that that can happen but i agree for me i do enjoy a deck builder where my cards go somewhere where i know i'm going to get them sooner because i paid that cost because typically and i mean it's fair we all it all goes to our discard pile so it's not right it's not like oh it's hidden knowledge but oh it just goes through a discard pile yeah um this is a preference and most deck builders that i've played and at this point i've actually played a lot like you're you're able to get your engine going like i can't think of a deck builder i've played unless shadow shadow on crossfire just sucks ass um but uh everything else it's like oh yep here's my deck because there's there's active ways for you to thin it out like the game is almost basically telling you just okay [ __ ] get rid of them and this one every time i've played it it's it's a struggle to thin your deck unless you happen to build too thin your deck but then you're not building your engine you're building a deck thinner and it's like okay but then

15:17 now i have to hope i get those cards not saying it's it's not possible i'm just saying that it's i can't [ __ ] do it apparently because i'll say there's only one spot to do it on right so it's right there yeah i thought there was another one but i think that is it to let you draw to there's a lot of new cards that allow you to thin your deck right i formulated one in a solo mode and i ended up getting like five of my base cards out i always keep the cards that give you like two money towards buying a card yeah even though you place them because it's like that's extra cash towards the new cards but that worked really well but you also have to get a couple cards that will help you do that like right those two cards are the ones that will yeah the ones that we're specifically talking about that are expansion cards like right um i don't know who any of these people are i did at this point and for this review i have seen the movie so i i'm like oh x characters are mostly focusing on the second and third books even the new character some of the new characters i think are things that they're going to put in the movie i don't know i can't recognize them but a lot of the characters are like things that happen in dune uh i forget what the [ __ ] sequel is called no i do it's been a few months until you read it but yeah yeah but yeah like these ones uh let you get give you a buying power and also let you go up on this track or apparently let you spend out and then this guy gives you one and two swords and plus one for every other revealed card that provides a sword um or gives you a person or lets you burn a card right so it's i think

16:47 what it comes down to if you're gonna have randomness with a market deck i think you should also balance it out with a faster way to like get your engine going yeah um so that if it is random then at least if you get a card you get or that you like that works for what you're trying to do then you can do it yeah um so yeah i mean everything about the expansion is definitely an improvement on the game um i just i i just have the worst luck like this game just [ __ ] me every time right like i was last i was like and i resigned myself to that and then i'm like okay maybe it won't be so bad i can go here and here that'll be those are good those are good nope he zack took it [ __ ] other zack took it okay okay so i was really hoping that the expansion would yeah it gives you more places to go well actually it only gives you two places yeah because everyone was taunting this as like oh it opens up the game so much and i'm like i thought i was going to give like four oh yeah where like if someone there there's one more water spot maybe like that's what i was hoping like for something like that where it's like oh if you need spice hey here's another spot to that that you don't need extra [ __ ] to get spiced right here's a you know there's a water faction the fremen spot that's like someone goes there maybe there's another spot to get water you just can't place warriors at the same time that's what i thought when people were saying it opens it up it doesn't do that no it's and actually solari is even tighter now because you

18:18 don't have that spot where you can transfer spice into yes and that which for me i love i think it's like very you love that that's what's not in here yeah i actually kind of agree because i felt like beyond turn probably three solari is almost pointless yeah no that's what i'm saying if you get one of these i mean those for me and i like that you you had like an engine going with this because i was playing the solo bearing the solo variant this costs five so it's just almost pointless to do yeah um but it still has some use right in an emergency if you don't have water but you do have an abundance of salary it's good wait so you guys are saying you you like the fact that that spot was taken out that turned solari into spice yeah no no it's spice turns into so you spend spice for salary oh you're right it is okay see i thought it was the other way no if it was the other way i would love that's what i thought that's because i'm like that's all [ __ ] but i see but my problem is that once you buy a extra the swordmaster or the high council in the base game slaughter is basically worthless and you have lots of spots that give you it yeah and so it's like okay yeah i don't care about anymore so why am i doing this it's only useful for yourself that dreadnought right now it's possible you can use three now six but to me like okay you have three spots to take spice on here which is fine and those abilities are really good and the abilities are really the salary spots are not that good except for of course making one of these spots solaric spot yeah yeah i mean they're really good for

19:49 very specific this is a new character princess yuna moritani i'm surprised that it went with like a fantasy sci-fi name it because normally it's like princess jessica or something princess britney uh but like her ability her final her signet ring was seven solari to go up on the track get a worker and a spice i'm like that's really good right except it's not because like any time that i had solari i didn't have my ring so then i was holding onto these resources for nothing and then whenever i didn't have it like i was like you know what fine i think there was one time where i was like you know i'm just gonna finally spend this then i drew my signature ring and then i'm like great like so now that card's usually so i just kept getting [ __ ] over every time i tried to do something with her it would be interesting if they'd do another expansion if they had in the spot that i think a spot that just does your second ring would be weak i think having a spot that has a signet ring on it would be interesting like if it was like you spend spice to like go there to also use your ability yeah that would yeah i mean that would be that'd be good because at least at that point you're not relying on more often yeah and then like once again this game has so much uh for me so much potential for to have really cool engines right like i could look through this deck and that's why i'm saying i i've only ever played this at three and four and i think that might be my problem um because in a two player game yeah you're still at zero so it doesn't shorten the game any longer so then you probably have longer times to then get at least potentially streamline um your engine

21:21 surprisingly no oh really because you have in the two-player game there's a a third random player that you flip over cards they don't actually take these actions but they do go to those they still take those spots if you play the solo variant then they're they're doing things and you're competing against them but yeah right um i think you're you're moving the track is just based on that i'd be curious to just be like if you just didn't do that ghost player if you just play that too and you're like let's just see what happens because i i mean i think it would speed up significantly at least at least you would it would feel freer um another thing that they might think of resources you just have more resources honestly probably but what i was also hoping from this expansion when people were saying it opens it up was kind of like a grand sorry a grande worker that like you know how viticulture has it which where it's like oh i have one worker that lets me go somewhere um that someone's already been for me that would be huge just because because or or change it to where it's like okay who's last like you start everyone starts with the water your first player that's all you get you're second you get a solari and i'm third i get a solari and a spice i don't know how many times i don't know why they don't do that they did kind of because they gave cards that you could buy where you could go where that worker was i need guaranteed reactions not oh man there's one card out there that lets you do that i'm last player no one's letting me have that and then to get it to guarantee i get it i don't play i sit here and go pass just so i

22:53 can get it and in a game you that's so tight you have to be efficient so you have to use your workers which is fine but it's like uh it's like i would just i would love the guarantee to just be able to do something right and see for me like even starting out the game um there are like six i mean it depends on the cards that you get but there's anywhere from four to over six viable options as far as your first move goes right especially with this i don't see water as being so mandatory there was a very big going meta and a lot of people who play this with just feeding yourself cards which is a deck builder thing but you don't necessarily need to always go for that um especially with this expansion having the the ex cards and even moving up that right you could focus on that at the beginning of the game and then have a foothold on it before everyone else does and then be able to get a powerful ability yeah um well you'd have to hope that there was a powerful ability available taking that top option giving yourself one spice towards buying an ability and then giving yourself buying power towards it is a viable move in the first round oh yeah for sure um yeah i mean uh what would also be cool about these is i'm trying to thank you have you guys played uh i orally all want to okay so in that one there's textiles that are really good there's level one level two tactiles and um

24:24 you need specific actions but you get to search through them and you get to pick what you want so depending on how your you know your bag building depending on how the game's going you can be like oh i want this one and then that's your tech i think that would be really cool here because once again like with everything else at least well sorry not everything else but with the with the market deck the tech tree while still my favorite part of the expansion could still be very luck based where as if you were like oh i would like to buy one of these i okay i want to search through this deck maybe pick one of the three because for there's no reason why i mean except for the fact that there's three available like there's no reason why you don't just pile them up and then just put three out yeah i thought there was something unique about like how they were set up because you like evened it out uh because once that stack runs out they're gone you know oh i see you mix them out that that stack is empty then gotcha uh which would even be worse with the stack being empty right yeah no i agree um but it would be nice to be like because then you're i think i just i just want to be able to do [ __ ] do something in this game uh and i never can but it would be cool to be like okay this is kind of her build i'm going to go here oh let me look through here oh this one's really good and i think that's what throws it for me like i it just i can't because it's like oh she's really good about getting solari okay i have six spice okay i'll go here or i'll go here and buy it and you get to search through the deck i don't know if that would be broken or not probably not because then everyone would get to do it right and so it's

25:55 like if you just because going first or being getting first dibs at something is huge building up for that and then you go here and buy something and be like ah i have six gonna spin the six boom there's that yeah so once again just kind of more ways to kick start yeah uh like an engine and if everyone gets to do it it might not be broken um but who knows who knows that's just because there are times whenever like the cheaper ones aren't really that great and you have no way to cycle so if there's three here that no one wants then this is actually might as well not play with this you know except for the dreadnought um yeah but because there's no cap on these but it's still like i don't like any of those i guess i'll go here then i'll spend three solari get my dreadnought the only time i can see having any of those three tokens available and them not being um desired is if you're towards the end of the game and they don't have like an instant benefit right yeah um well do they all no not all of them give you an instant benefit i i haven't seen a bad token on that one it's not that they're bad it's just that they might not help what you've built for yeah you know so i think that's kind of because there were times where there were three available and i'm like this really helped me yeah well if it's turn five and we are

27:25 seven eight and six points away two solari for the next one to two rounds probably isn't going to benefit but that token also gives you two on this track it does that's a lot of what you're paying right uh that's just an aside benefit i bought that on a game a solo game that i played and that was the big part of it is getting too influenced oh yeah sorry i ended up with having like 17 solari at the end of the day i don't know i was like i don't know what the [ __ ] to do with this but yeah um yeah i mean and don't get me wrong these are definitely balanced like if they're if they're cheap then their ability is i mean none of these are bad but like spy satellites is four but you uh it's four spice then you spend three trash to get a point or at the end worth one point for each faction where you have have one or less influence which is insane which is what fought four points but so is the one where you have three uh three influence on each track like all of those i think are built to fit with a certain uh type of player yeah and type of strategy because you may flip one over and you're instantly like boom i get a victory point and that only cost me two but that's because that fits your strategy there's almost a token every token in there is it'll fit a certain strategy right but then it still relies on the fact that it has to come out at the right time right um and i actually had that one three influence or more on all four influence tracks um but that's a significant like that's really what you're working towards and i mean i guess you're getting four points for that i also get to move up a track you do get to move up a track

28:55 the one time yeah which is another point because if you're at three on all of them the fourth one moves you to the token point right so realistically that means that six of the ten points that you needed with one card by focusing on that right but once again to do this you have to rely on the cards that let you do that right and i guess i just didn't i just didn't have those so yeah it's uh i think what i was expecting from this expansion was not what it was yeah it was not for me and and i mean spoilers if you but i gave the original game a six and when people were spouting the expansion while i would agree always play with it just because i mean why not it doesn't over complicate the game anymore um it's not like and it doesn't like drastically change it towards like well what the [ __ ] is this you know uh just like my work replacements and deck builders to where i get to do what i want to do instead of rely on a bunch of other things that maybe i'll get to do what i want so the expansion didn't do that for me so if anyone is watching this and they're in the same boat then don't get the expansion but at that point i would also say you probably don't like the game anyway or you don't have don't do an imperium it's not that i hate doing in barium it's more just i would rather play any other deck that's not true that's not true there are a lot of shitty ass deck builders out there um and it's not even the lost ruins versus

30:27 this like i mean i'm [ __ ] tired of comparing them because that's what everyone does yeah but get ready to do arc nova and terraforming mars gonna god i know it's like can't just review the game for what it is but people will look at both because oh deck builder work replacement they both do that which one should i get and comparing them is of course useful but uh it's there's just there's other worker placements or there's other deck builders that are just better for me yeah and i mean others might love the tightness or things just go their way i i don't know i don't know but i've just had the worst luck every single time right um other than that this expansion didn't add a whole lot like yeah the two boards um this was still the same right seven new characters two boards oh yeah yeah the new characters what do you think of the new characters do you think they're better i think they're better you do i think all of them are better like would you like never play with the originals again i would play with the originals there are some i i haven't really played a lot of um yeah so i definitely did not play with my new one yeah what did he do so at the beginning of the game i got to look at two intrigue cards and keep one that was his entire uh thing and then it's been one spice to go up on that track oh yeah whenever i do interstellar shipping yeah and i was like um i don't think that's that great yeah the one it seems like

31:59 yeah his his innate ability is better yeah but his signet ring ability sucks ass well except it feeds into it it seems like the one complexity cards give you small benefits but you get them a lot over the course of the game maybe not necessarily not this one situation but you could if you i mean if you played the signet ring a line it just depends um because if you play or if you have a cool promo yeah no one else does if you play for spice over the course of the game like if you get the signet ring four times you're getting this track filled up and then dropping it back down you're getting your spice back and then you're getting the benefits for it but right not necessarily bad i don't know i'll say it's not necessarily good either but one of the things i did think about this game when we first played it's like just base just the very widespread power variance of different characters through me yeah like for a euro game because i mean it's a euro game just and i like individual power players in euro games like i want but then these were like oh wow that's kind of swinging like pretty major swinging like some are really good and some are yeah they're really traditional you almost got her again because we randomized it the one that uh lets you card draw like it looks like angelina jolie but it's not um i got the one that allows you to place the character on blue or green spaces if oh that's right if someone was already yeah which i played with before and i was like right you're like i want to try the new one but yeah there's there's definite like player powers in

33:29 this one that i'm just like i feel that feels way better than than anything i got i always got dave batista which we found out we were playing his signet ring ability wrong right um which one made him better for sure um and then this one you start the game with no water when you begin solari on your turn which for you that doesn't matter because you were like now never going at war anyways exactly and lo and behold i i didn't um ended with two but i mean even then even though i felt like i was doing just [ __ ] dog [ __ ] i ended up what four points behind everyone right which isn't like horrible like you can swing two i mean i swung three points right like in one turn it's not impossible it's not like i was at two for the longest time and then all of a sudden it's like boom boom boom i mean i think zach went up four points in that round um it's doable like and that's one thing i do like doing for that fact is you know i was leading i think i ate everybody was six or below um and you can usually see it coming if it's gonna swing up you can't see everything but you can see a lot of it right i knew that if you bought a spice card that we were gonna tie right um yeah and then there was a time where i was actually i was i was two points behind that final that final fight um and it's like okay maybe but i was really hoping that you were gonna win that fight i well i thought i had it because i didn't see one of his cubes um but i i didn't have actually no i i had

35:01 exactly what i needed i just didn't have the card to let me go there right um to get more people out and so it was like and that's kind of the thing where it's like well i would sure love to be able to fight in this combat but you guys have taken all the spots that i could potentially go to to include myself in this combat and the cards i have left in my hand because you were like oh you can go to the water spot because and i was like no i can't like it's physically like i don't have the cards right and it's like i know they're in my deck but i guess i'm just out of this combat but you could have went for are you talking about this last turn you could have went purple or orange right uh blue is open well um well the foreign way i was gonna do any good was i had to get my dread my dreadnought out um i will agree with zach if you you need to get swordmaster or you need to start buying or whatever the other one and i had the i to go get the swordmaster um but i was trying to use her finally like try and build her engine with her thing because i also at my very first tech was the um the one to get three up on the right on the tracks so i was trying to go go that route so i was like well i'd better save these because i can't remember because is this a one-time thing or you could do it okay so if i had 21 solari i could have just spent all three every time you do it you can only do it do it once okay but you can do it multiple times if you get that that card the card back yeah okay that's what i thought i never did that but i was like that'd be neat if it's seven costs all right 14 because i think i had

36:32 14 at one point but i was like right pretty sure i could only do this once because then that would make it the same for some signet rings a lot better if i if you take the time to save up and since you get your signet ring i mean a few times a game then it's like oh boom okay here's 14 because then that would make solari locations better you know because then because you can rack them up and there's nowhere to [ __ ] use them halfway through the game than if you could multi-use it because that'd be pretty neat be like okay 14 go up on the track twice or one on two tracks and then get two warriors and two like that'd be that'd be pretty neat they probably forgot to say that just like they messed dave batista's signet ring up i probably just got another one that they didn't specify but i i don't know and yes i could have gotten my third worker that might have helped me win that final fight because i was only two behind i had a [ __ ] ton of extra combat um and whenever i had this the solari i'm like well i don't have a green to go there you know i was hoping you're going to win that combat because i knew i wasn't going to get to 10 points this turn and i was like i have enough spice to take that you'd start first turn so i'm going to hit that spot before zach does yeah i'm saving all my soldiers zach has a poor soldiers into this fight to guarantee he wins this one yeah and like i think that i can win if it goes one more turn yeah um it'd be nice if there's also like a trading like um right i mean there is

38:03 the spice for solari but if there was just like a natural kind of thing that maybe the expansion added to open it up a little bit more right to where you don't just have a pile of nothing and and that's where you could build a different game and basically i felt like like solari after turn three i would just get it because you did stuff that just gave it to you and it was like well that's pointless because there's nothing i can use it for because i don't think there's any well actually i think the expansion added added cards that gave you solari to spend that could be which again could happen to me is fixing the problem that you've realized in the base game no no no i don't care about his stupid ass name this is uh josh brolin yeah there we go yeah that he lets you spend three solari um but that's that's from the that's from the original maybe there isn't like a whole lot of of cards from the expansion that actually let you let you do it so that one does well that just gives you three more right so yeah i guess they did a lot of stuff with fremen they made fremen really strong going freeman bond there were a lot like frerman bond oh four four swords they all focus on combat because that's that's uh oh yeah they're the yeah they're the rebels right yeah right hey the movie helped explain that because otherwise i'd have no idea um and there are some yeah three uh swords

39:34 for each of your dreadnoughts in the comic it does feel like a lot of the new expansion cards did want you i mean or this one six salary for right actually that's another card what's that full scale assault that's another eight cost card i haven't even seen that before huh oh um is it oh yeah this is expansion lets you go to the black and then so two warriors two three for each year dreadnoughts in the conflict get a free dreadnought i'd still rather have quit sets out of right but i would rather have yeah that one that one's pretty good though but i mean for this for your particular guy he was dreadnought for strength and then you just get a free dreadnought yeah um with this kind of weirdo whenever you spend a dreadnought it is they have dual purpose if you win you can actually make them become a flag but then all it takes is someone else to just block you and you're like okay i guess that's gone forever that's kind of stupid like i don't think that makes even any thematic sense it's like okay we would just why can't we just retreat what can i what it's like if at least not go back to your fleet at least come back to where you can buy it i think it's the thematically that you're occupying one of those spaces like you're occupying i mean that's what the flags are so the ships are occupying you have like a but the dreadnoughts are worth more than the flags are so yeah i can't imagine though that you would ever want to put a dreadnought on the spot because what is weird is like so if you take the spot right with the dreadnought you just don't put a flag down and your dread comes back right i mean i get thematically yeah um but the drain that's powerful yeah yeah they

41:04 it does seem like a lot of the expansion um cards almost wanted you to fight more they gave you a lot a lot more swords than the dreadnoughts came in so you should always be viable uh to participate in combat uh but it's like and so you don't have to you know always have a bunch of people in there right to actually kind of win which in the base game was definitely the case more people guaranteed basically guarantee the win unless you happen to be like oh i have these influence cards you lucky me and that was one of the things i did notice because they did take off the spot on the green track right there to spend was to buy more warriors you got more warriors you just couldn't deploy them you're right right they did take and so i thought that was kind of interesting it's because they did this i and the dreadnoughts the dreadnoughts basically one dreadnought almost nullifies that one position right um and it's actually cheaper so you get one less warrior but you spend one less salary and you can potentially get attack but your dreadnoughts are also one less you know strong you know so it's actually quite a bit less strong because the dragons are only three guys three power yeah but they die right your dreadnought doesn't right and so it does feel like it's a interesting balance it is and it i think i think i could have done i could have at least won maybe one or two more combats but there were times that i just didn't i i wanted to do her thing right it would be funny to see a game before people just that just had two

42:34 dreadnoughts and everybody put in like poker i don't know who's gonna do it well i was almost curious it's like can you even i mean can you win this game if no one goes combat because you're you tried to play arnac without the without like abandoning the research track and zach and i did that and then you lose because it's like it's either no one does research track or everyone does it i've seen and this one it's like no one does combat i've seen two wins from uh two different people never winning first place in combat okay um i think peter won really with never focusing that would be wrong um but you have to heavily focus on this right and then it's easy if you move up in all this then it's easy to get two more i'm also curious if in that particular case if people were trying to win in combat because that almost seems like oh i never trust combat it's like no one else did either or if like you won one i won one that person won one then it's like one person isn't winning and getting all the points i mean which is how it really should be going i mean i got at least three points and people didn't put up a strong fight oh yeah you like overkilled it you were like 14 and that's the thing is the ones the combats that came did it add any more conflict cards the expansion yes it did um that's good uh but with i i guess i just i tried i tried to make her thing work maybe you just can't make their abilities work at least not their signet ring abilities um because that's what i actually focus on because like there were times where

44:05 i'm like yeah i could go and get and probably win out uh at least on a few but then i was like well i actually just want second place because that gives me seven you know right things and i can i can aim to do that so i then actively try the fight and once i realized this isn't working it was already too late right and i'm like uh maybe i can win one more and then no no i got close to behind but right i was already just [ __ ] demoralized at that point yeah so i'm in the same boat like as i was with regular dune imperium um this didn't the expansion didn't lessen anything for me it didn't also blow my mind oh my god wow you know right but i can definitely see if you love doing imperium absolute yeah probably a must uh must expansion yeah uh maybe maybe this is just one because everyone has everyone having to see how it can't improve the game like the expansion you're right yes i think it's objectively even if slightly like depending on your point of view as far as the game goes i think it's a better game with the 100 percent agree yeah it's definitely a better game yeah without a doubt if they i don't think they ever will like everyone has their game that they it just doesn't work for them for one reason or another uh maybe this is it but they could always release an expansion and it's

45:35 like you'll have to tell me and be like seth no i promise they have a grande worker or they have something you get to do i think we all have a super popular game i i never liked the crew oh i don't understand why the crew's popular i tried it it's i don't i think it's fine yeah yeah i i don't like taking all that much yeah so it's the only thing i thought about the crew that was kind of cool was the fact that it's a cooperative trick-taking game because i never thought about it's like mantis falls it's two-player social deduction blew my mind with just the idea that that exists right so the crew being a trick-taking game where it was you know cooperative kind of blew my mind like because i played lots of trick picking games growing up they were never cooperative they were super cutthroat yeah i played them and i was family argument grandma can we just play poker please right and so to me that's where i won't say i was like oh i won't play that game all the time but it's like i can respect it for doing something i thought would never be able to be done yeah right uh to me it was it was funny because it it is the same company that made uh clank yeah dire wolf i don't know if it's saying designer it i know i i really don't think it is but this is the same company but i'm sitting there and i'm like because i played clank i played clink in space and i played clank legacy and i'm like i [ __ ] hate this game like clank makes me so mad because it's like it's just too random um and for me i want my euros to be super

47:06 tight like if we're playing if we're playing like a true blue euro like let's go let's go [ __ ] hard let's play a veto game you have it's your strategy it's your strategy versus everyone else's strategy and that's gonna edge out and be the winner in this it's like it's your strategy also you're hopefully it's you know turn order luck of the luck of the deck luck of the draw it's a little bit too much for me um to where it just kind of is more infuriating and in work replacements if you're gonna have a tightness even though the expansion does add more locations it still kind of came down to well i need this to be able to do this i can't now do that and so i just there's nothing else for me to do because my cards either didn't give me the location i need or someone took it so uh not a fix um but a really really good expansion uh with that being said on a scale of one to ten what would you guys give the expansion and if and then also if it improved um the base game for you we'll start with you um this for me is a nine close to a 9.5 honestly um the base game or the the expansion itself the the it with the expansion okay i think the base game is like an eight and this brings it up to a nine for me yeah it's funny this is i think i usually i don't think i've ever reviewed anything as a nine as far as how we've reviewed anything we played libertalia before this that's also a nine for me yeah um

48:38 but yeah this is one of my favorite games i it's one of my favorite new games i don't know i probably heard my top game of 2020. yeah this uh i can tell you it didn't make uh the worst list that's whenever i did it right like i wasn't then they're like ooh cause i because it's not like it's not a bad game it's just not for me um like steam watchers and [ __ ] like that those are bad games right um for me doing imperium is a six which everyone thinks is like the worst rating ever mainly because dice towers like eights are okay games for them dude imperium is still that's a that's a slightly above average game um rise of rise of x uh i'd probably give it like as an expansion i'd probably give it an eight like i think it's a really good expansion i always love special power like tech trees um like i can see i could see it i could see what the cards do and i can see cool engines i just can't get them to [ __ ] work right so the fact that they are there and if you happen to if everything falls into place you can have a really cool you know boom boom boom game and so the rise of x definitely gives that especially with the look the ones that have more synergies with having factions yeah more of those are cool the dreadnoughts and the it feels like they want you to fight more or at least be a contender in fights because i i remember the first few times we played this combat was almost always a landslide someone always won by a [ __ ] this makes it more tight and it also gives you the ability to just put in a dreadnought and leave it at that and then see if people try to

50:09 edge you out or can they force you to lose that yeah if they force you potentially get a victory point or something and like or even just a dreadnought and a soldier because that's that's pretty beefy just five yeah i mean and it's not hard to get warriors out like it's very easy um it's hard to get a lot of them into one spot unless you have certain cards to let you do it because this one just gives you five warriors but you could still oh you can dump all those you can ride that's right yeah because i was looking at that spot and i was like oh that's how i'll win but i think you took it before me yeah and i was like damn it uh so the dreadnoughts are cool the fact that they do come back is nice because that would just be annoying as hell if you had to keep which i mean thematically it doesn't really make sense why you can't by that why they stick around but come here soldiers i guess right um especially soldiers like the one time i fought and nobody else joined in the fight i was like so why do mine die oh yeah that was like the first one it i guess they die and i'm like yeah i guess they do but even then it's like because what was kind of annoying and i this is obviously a base game rule but like the ones that give you sword how you still have to have someone in there right it's like why can't these just be arbitrary like warriors yeah and it's like okay i still passed like why can't i get the the combat strength yeah it's like well because no one's using it you mean there's if i put one guy in i get 15 [ __ ] combats to invest in a combat action yeah right

51:41 combat actions are kind of limiting so potentially if you did that i guess you could load up your deck which may be a possible thing i mean i'd have to like gear that back to potentially gear your decks so that you can i mean i swords i know there's i mean i know those cards like the the cards that i haven't have would have worked great with your pass where it's like you get to embarrassing someone out um and if you're going if you're going this track that lets you pop people like you just drop them so it's like once again the engines are there i just think they're very very slow or if they're not slow they require you to be able to go to a very specific spot to then pop it off and i just don't get that luxury i agree so that's why i would say this is a seven for me the expansion all of it combined expansion um i don't think it improved like i wouldn't play now dune without it but i don't think that just made dune imperium a significantly better game it made it more enjoyable for me but i don't think it fixed the problem that the base game had yeah and when i want expansions i want either new content or i want to solve a problem yeah um with a base game and i don't feel like this gave me either right right yeah so i mean i will say dune imperium by base game was a six the expansion does bump it up to a seven um but that is probably where it will forever lie and it's a seven mainly in me being generous because i don't really

53:13 want to play this again i've had three experiences where i just am miserable yeah and i have hundreds of other games hundreds of other work replacement deck builders where i'm not miserable while playing it right even if i'm doing ass i'm still like getting to do stuff it's like this game is like you're playing against a uh a water a water mage magic magic deck a control deck everyone else is getting to play except or he's getting to play but no one else is that's kind of how this is for me you guys are going to do what you want to do i don't happen with whenever it's s3 whenever it's the four player and if it was me uh you and carini it's like i'm just like yep are you guys playing control decks like what the [ __ ] why don't i get to do anything so it would probably be a nine if it was less random for me at least if you're gonna have random have guaranteed actions right like one or the other words like whoever solves the problem getting rid of randomness however you want to mitigate that um because like you know castles of burgundy i love the fact that you have the tokens that give you plus or minus your dice it mitigates randomness yeah it's wonderful it's still there but also in castles of burgundy you have multiple ways to get those tokens right there's lots of ways in this i'm i'm like ah no there's not really a way for me i may get randomness it's what do i have i can buy the cards to try and help it but there's at least one full term was like okay i have two symbol cards and that's

54:43 it yes oh that kind of sucks yeah right uh so i mean definitely to each their own um i think because there was a time the eight the a card i had exactly enough and i'm like that'll be a really good one okay card draw and zach passed okay like every single time just getting kicked in the dick so i guess you'll find after some fun play it solo because none of those persons there's people who like no they don't like you well we're gonna have to play it still all right so that's our thoughts on the expansion for rise of x uh let us know what you think of the expansion and the game in general in the comments below other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful with every time i've taken this for you hey everyone thank you for watching i really hope that you enjoyed the video if you would like to see more of my content go ahead and click that subscribe button and the bell to be notified whenever i upload any new content if you feel like supporting the channel you can go ahead and click that patreon link to be taken to my patreon and any help is truly appreciated other than that stick around for any any other run-throughs or reviews or cool top tens or whatever i feel like putting on other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you