Dune Imperium: How to Play and Tips

hi welcome to games made easy my name is davinia and this is Peter today I'm very happy to teach you and give you tips on how to play Dune Imperium designed by Paul Denon and published by Dire Wolf I love the Dune books by Frank Herbert and more recently didn't even knows gorgeous film for me Dune Imperium brings this Vision together into a really cool game I love how it's not that hard to learn but complex to master and there's this crazy tension and competition with other players from start to finish if you enjoyed this video consider subscribing clicking the like button and the bell to get notified when I post new videos it helps a lot [Applause] Indian Imperium you play a leader of one of the four Great houses of the landsrad vying for control of arakis also known as dune the desert Planet you start with the same deck of cards as all other players and build it up throughout the game to optimize the placement of your agents defeat your rivals in combat and build up your relationship with the four leading factions of the Imperium the emperor the spacing Guild the benad jaserat and the fremin all along you're acquiring more powerful cards to keep the spice flowing the end of the game is triggered when a player reaches 10 points during the recall phase or at the end of the 10th round the player with the most points at the end of the end game wins the game I'll explain the main components as I set up the game start by placing the board in the middle of the table and each player picks a color and all the components that come with it I have the deluxe edition but I'll also show you how they look in the standard game let's have a look at how to build up the board you start by placing the four Alliance tokens on their respective space one for each of the four factions Freeman benedjet spacing golden emperor place the mentor mini on its space in the land's rad Council place a spice Solarium water tokens near the board these are all used as currency in the game you need spies to get to these four spaces and you can game Spice in these three spaces and this bonus you need Solari to get to these four lands ride Council spaces and you earn Solari in these four spaces and three bonuses and it's the same for the water you need it to access these four spaces and you gain water in these three spaces now let's set up all the card decks Shuffle the Imperium deck and place it face down here and reveal the top five cards to make the Imperium row each card has a cost indicated here and an effect shown here and here it also shows the location it allows access like this one here gives access to all the spaces on Dune and in Tome near here place the reserve cards in three decks one for Erica CSO one for the spies must flow and one for the full space cards finally create the conflict deck separate the one two and three cards shuffle all the conflict three cards and place them face down here Shuffle the 10 conflict two cards and randomly pick five and place them face down on top of the conflict three cards randomly pick one of the four conflict one cards place it face down on top of the deck return the unused conflict one and two cards to the box now I'll explain all the players components I'll start with troops in the standard game they are cubed but here we have these beautiful 12 minis you will use to battle other houses for now Place three of them near the conflict area in the Garrison closest to you keep the others in your supply place one score marker here or here if you play four players Place one Cube at the bottom of each of the faction influence tracks every time you see the symbol in the game it represents a victory point so when you reach the second level of any faction track you gain one Victory point when you reach this level collect a bonus shown on the left water here and entry card there three Solari here and on the emperor's track these two cubes represent two troops you can add to your Garrison in addition if you're the first to reach this level you take the alliance token and also gain one point you keep it as long as you're at the same level all the highest on this Alliance track if another player goes higher he takes the alliance token you lose the point and he gains it place your battle marker face up on the zero here finally keep these three control markers on the High Council marker in your supply in my house we use the agent token from the standard game as the height Council token now let me show you the agents in our game they are these cool Minis that look like these we've painted them and in the standard game they look like this there are three of them but at the start of the game you only need two you use the agents to activate spaces on the board the green spaces are the lands ride Council on swordmaster you can recruit your third agent you can hire a mentor till the end of the Round Here and here you get a permanent seat at the High Council and get two more persuasion permanently which is great to buy better cards in rally troops you can send four troops to your Garrison and in the Hall of oratory you gain both one troop and one persuasion the yellow spaces are mostly about getting resources these three provide spice the more spice you can collect the more water you need to pay in chome you can secure a contract for three Solari and in cell melange you can sell spice for Solari the more you sell the better the deal the blue spaces usually help get cards and troops these two give one troop and arrow key and you also add one card from your deck and in karthak you add one entry card here in the research station you need to pay two water but you get to pick up three cards from your deck Siege tomorrow is very rewarding but you can only access it if you have at least two from an influence to get the influence you must play one of these two from in spaces here for free to get one water and here for one water to get two troops in the battle each time you play one of these move your Cube One Step the bend adjuster at spaces let you get more cards from your deck or more entry cards here you also get to pick a random card from any opponent who has four or more entry cards in their hand space and Guild highliner lets you bring a lot of troops money and water on Dune or give you access to any space through the full space card finally the emperor always gives money five from conspirant to from wealth conspire also lets you send two troops in your Garrison and collect one entry card now it's time for players to pick one of the eight leaders you can do this randomly or you can pick any drafting variation you want for your first game it's probably best you pick Leaders with only one dot here they are the easiest to play Leaders with two or three dots are progressively more complex all leaders have two unique abilities on the left is their permanent ability like being able to look at the top card of your deck if you're poorer traded or adding a card to your hand every time you pay Solari to use a board space on the right the leaders have a ring ability activated when you play your Signet ring card during an agent turn like collecting one spice or adding additional troops put your two agents on your leader all players also take one water add one spice and one solar if you play the Beast take your 10 starting cards place them in a deck face down on the left of your leader put the unused leaders back in the box you can now draw for first place and start playing each round comes in five phases but you'll spend most of your time in phases two and three the first phase is the round start phase you will draw the top card of the conflict deck and you will prepare your playing hand the conflict cards will show you the rewards you will fight for this round all conflict cards have three levels of rewards these give resources entry cards location markers or faction influences but most importantly they give victory points and three of the four level three conflict cards even give two victory points the first phase is also the phase where you draw the top five cards of your deck into your playing hand let's have a look at these 10 starting cards there are only seven different cards as these three are duplicates during the agent phase you use your cards to send agents to blue yellow or green locations as shown here in addition your Signet ring activates your Leader's ring power and these two cards let you send your agent to the faction tracks this one is a one-off and you trash it after you play it these two can't be used during the agent phase but you use them during your reveal turn where they give persuasion points you used to buy new cards and this sword symbol here will add combat strength to your troops now you have five cards in your hand and you can start the second phase which is the player turns starting with the agent turns this is where each player in their turn will send one agent at a time to the board you play one card from your hand face up in front of you to send one of your agents to an unoccupied space on the board you can only send one agent at a time so you need to match only one icon with one space even if the card shows more spaces you must pay the cost of the space immediately if you place your agent on the mentat space you take the mini and place it on your leader you can use it like any other agent this round and no one can take it from you the first time you use the height console place your marker on the track it will stay until the end of the game and adds two persuasion points at the end of the round pretty good for only five Solari here you pay eight to place your agent on swordmaster and place a third agent mini on your leader unlike the mentat you keep this agent until the end of the game you can play mentat many times during the game but High Council and swordmaster once per game also remember that you can resolve in any order the effects of a card or a space later in the game you get cards that bring more powers like gaining water Solari or spice adding troops to your Garrison picking up a new entry card or adding a card from your deck to your hand with these you can trade water or spice and with all these you can go up influence tracks you can use these to trash cards from your hand your discard pile or your play area never from your deck you can Trash those to gain an Intrigue card and finally all these give special advantages clearly explained if any of these is not clear refer to the last page of the rule book one last thing to remember is that you are never forced to take the full effect of a board space or from the agent box of a card now let's have a look at what happens when you send an agent to combat spaces these are locations marked with a cross sword that's all the locations on Dune the two fremin locations and the High Liner spacing Guild location here from these you may deploy up to two troops from your Garrison to the conflict area note that if you have no troops in your Garrison at that time then you cannot deploy any troops to the conflict area if the combat space you activate or the card you are playing has cubes you take these troops from your supply and you may either recruit them to your Garrison or deploy them directly to the conflict area or both and since it's a combat space you may also bring up to two more troops from your Garrison and if you recruit troops in one of these three locations which are not combat spaces the troops go from your supply to your Garrison you cannot deploy them to the conflict this turn unless mentioned otherwise you can only assign One agent per space board and assign agents cannot move during the round once you've played your agent it's the turn of the player to your left to take their agent turn when you have no more agents to place on the board or you don't want to place anymore you're going to take your reveal turn this is when you reveal the rest of your cards in your hand these cards will give you persuasion to buy more cards swords to help with combat strength and sometimes even resources reveal all the cards left in your hand you have not used during the agent turns add up all the points shown in the blue area at the bottom of the cards here we have three persuasion to buy cards from the Imperium row Eric is liaison or the spice must flow cards there is no limit to the number of cards you buy as long as you can afford the cost shown on the top right corner also as soon as you buy a card from the Imperium row you replace it immediately it means you could buy the one you've just revealed also the spice must flow and these four cards give an immediate bonus like a VP water or gaining an influence collect this bonus now resolve it and place the cards you've just bought in your discard pile now it's time to set your combat strength for each troop in your conflict area add two strength points here that's four points for the red also add one strength for each sword icon at the bottom of your reveal cards so one more for the red some reveal bonuses add strength depending on your influence or Alliance or the cards you've played this turn well some let you add troops directed from your Garrison or let you Retreat troops note that if you do not have troops in the conflict you cannot add strength from the swords as you do not participate in the conflict and if the strength goes above 20 flip the marker it's also a good time to check if you have any plot entry cards you'd like to play remember that you can play plot entry cards anytime during your age and turns or reveal face and you can play any number of them at the same time most entry cards are plot cards some of those plot to entry cards give free resources or cards a lot of them let you trade resources for points cards troops and more there's one each to go up each faction and two that give access to all four influence tracks and there's a whole bunch of others that are pretty well described when you've completed your reveal turn that's the end of your player turns all the cards that you've played and bought should be on the discard pile to the right of your leader that's the end of your play around when all players are completed their reveal turn it's time to resolve combat starting from the first player in clockwise order players announce if they want to play an Intrigue combat card you can play as many cards as you want each time a card is played you can add combat strength Retreat trade spies for swords or three troops for one point you can pass and play a card later until all players pass in consecutive order the player with the highest score collects the first reward if they tie they both collect the second reward and players tying for second place take the third reward for third place it's only in a four-player game that the third player collects the third reward and in a four-player game of players tie for the third reward they get nothing two entry combat cards are played at this stage by the winner either to gain three spies or gain influence in a four-player game if two players tie for second place they will both collect the third reward winish collect their rewards if there is a control marker icon on the conflict card then the winner will place a control marker on the location mentioned on the conflict card when another player or you send an agent to that space you collect the bonus if you own the marker also if that location comes up in another round the player who controls it starts the round by placing one troop from the supply to the conflict area if at the end of the combat another player wins the location replace the control marker with theirs when you resolve the combat phase it's time for the makers to bring more spice to June there are three board spaces with makers add one spice token on each icon where there's no agent during the next agent phase when you send your agent to the board space you collect the base value of spice plus all the spice accumulated in previous rounds now it's time to end the round and start the recall phase reset all combat markers to zero on the combat track return your troops involved in the conflict to your supply not your Garrison return the mentat back to its space and return your agents back to your leader reveal the top conflict card and draw five cards from your deck back to your hand if you're running out of cards shuffle your discard pile do this anytime in the game when you need to draw new cards into your hand and you don't have enough cards in your deck it's time for the new round unless a player is at 10 points during recall phase or there are no more conflict cards to draw for the next round it triggers the end game all players resolve their in-game entry card if any the player with the most points wins the game in case of a tie it will be the player with the most spice then Solari then water who wins the tie that's all the rules you need to play doing Imperium I prefer it at three or four players but there are options to play it at two players or solo games in these Solo or two player variants to use a third and neutral house the house Hegel with its own deck and its own rules check my other video how to play these variants my tips to win a dune Imperium are adapt to the circumstances and develop a strategy that matches Your Leader your cards and the new locations and new cards available to you water is both essential and scarce on Doom try to befriend the Forman if you're playing the baron it's a good idea to use Hardy Warriors to deploy the four troops and activate early on that one-off power of the baron well it seems obvious that getting a third agent is a sure way to win I have won many games with only two agents as it gives you more persuasion to buy more cards it probably possible but it's very hard to win a game without winning some points through conflict guide your time and try to win some it's not immediately obvious how powerful full space is it allows you to go anywhere on the board while giving you an extra card at the same time the extra point you gain from the spies must flow card can make a winner especially if combined with the corner of the market at the end game so that's how you play Doon Imperium it's a fantastic game balancing deck building and worker placement beautifully that will keep you playing over and over if you've enjoyed this video please like And subscribe and if you enjoy my content consider supporting me on patreon the link is right here we'll make more games easy soon bye now

Channel: Games Made Easy

Views: 5,918

Keywords: arrakis, board, board game, board game review, board games, board gaming, boardgame, boardgames, card game, card games, deckbuilder, dire wolf, dire wolf digital, dune, dune imperium, dune: imperium, dune-imperium, game rules, gaming, how to play, how to play dune imperium, how to win dune imperium, learn how to play, miniatures, paul atreides, spice must flow, tabletop games, tabletop gaming, tutorial, tutorials, learn to play

Id: UMYmqpcahXo

Length: 18min 9sec (1089 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2022