Game Review: Dune: Imperium

5/31/24, 10:28 PM

Dune: Imperium captures Dune’s subtle dance of political intrigue and outright conflict in a game with a delightful mix of deck-building, combat, and worker placement.

Pieces and Packaging

Dune: Imperium has good quality pieces, with nothing to complain about. The wooden cubes, agent tokens, and resources are nice. The cards are standard, but have held up through more than a dozen games so far. I appreciate the inclusion of a nice cardboard insert in the box that prevents the game board from sliding around inside.

Instructions

Dune: Imperium’s instructions are modern and thorough. There’s a helpful “Clarifications” section near the end of the rules that nicely documents edge cases for confusing cards. Rules are explained with corresponding illustrated examples.

There’s a separate rules sheet for 2 player or solo games. I have only played the 2 player game once, and found it less ideal than 3 or 4 player games. The game is really designed for 3 or 4 players. However, it’s a nice inclusion regardless.

One improvement I might suggest is a larger end-of-game section. Due to the nature of the game, players often don’t understand endgame intrigue cards and want to secretly look up what they do. The rules for these cards are only briefly described in one sentence in the intrigue cards section and a small text box at the end of the rules. There is a nice dictionary section on the back of the rules that explains all of the symbols; something about endgame cards there would be a welcome addition.

Gameplay

I’m usually skeptical of games branded with major IPs; many rely on the popularity of the IP to carry sales, often to the detriment of good gameplay.

However, I’m happy to report that this is not the case for Dune: Imperium. The game is enjoyable and comprehensible even for someone with no Dune knowledge, but the connections between the Dune universe and the game are thoughtfully executed and enhance the experience for Dune fans. This is what games with popular IP should be.¹

Dune: Imperium’s gameplay centers around 3 core mechanics:

1. Worker Placement
2. Deck-Building
3. Conflict

Each turn, players play 2-3 cards and place 2-3 agents on board spaces to collect resources and cards that will help them gain victory points and rally troops to participate in a conflict.

The interesting twist in the game is that the cards that you play determine the board spaces your agents can go to. While everyone begins with an identical starting deck, as you acquire new cards, your strategy becomes dictated by what sections of the board you’re able to frequently visit.

In the later stages of the game, key squares might become entirely inaccessible or only accessible every few turns to players who poorly plan their deck construction. I’ve won multiple games against otherwise shoe-in winners who were locked out of the Heighliner space on the final turn.

Conflict is a key part of the strategy in the game. Dune Imperium allows players to build up their forces over multiple turns, so there are often complex decisions about how many troops to allocate to this turn and how many to save for next turn. Regular cards and Intrigue cards can both also impact the outcome of combat, so turn order and hidden information ensure the outcome is never certain until the end of the turn.

The interplay between the cards, worker placement, and allocating troops presents a unique puzzle for players. Should you try to draw more cards to purchase a better card at turn end? Should you accept a worse square to commit more troops to the conflict? What should you purchase - a card that helps in combat, or helps you place your agents more effectively? (Sometimes the correct choice is to purchase nothing at all!)

Because there are many unique cards in the Imperium deck, different strategies become possible depending on what cards are available throughout the game. The conflict rewards are also not fixed game-to-game, so players can’t rely on winning a particular conflict reward. Dune: Imperium has great replayability for these reasons.

Every turn offers myriad options, and how your opponents play the conflict can play a big role in your own turn. You may not have planned to fight this turn, but if nobody else is sending troops in, it might be worthwhile to adjust your plans. I love Eurogames, but Dune: Imperium is an American-style game done right. The competition between players for conflict rewards, cards, and faction alliances works well, and is the crux of the game.

Dune: Imperium is largely a game of strategy. While players can get lucky with conflicts or card availability, early successes do not lead to an insurmountable advantage. The randomness deepens the strategy, as players must stay flexible and take risks in combat and agent placement to stay competitive with others.

In terms of length, Dune: Imperium is fixed-length game. The game cannot go more than 10 turns, and usually ends on turn 7 or 8. Once you learn the rules, it plays in the same 2.5-3 hours every time. I like the length. It is long enough that strategic decisions make a difference, but short enough that the focus remains squarely on tactical play.

Design

Dune: Imperium is brought to us by designer Paul Dennen,² and is a case study in great game design.

Almost no cards or game spaces feel useless, and yet Dennen does a good job ensuring cards and spaces feel unique. Powerful effects are appropriately costed and limited. The most powerful cards and spaces in the game (Kwisatz Haderach, Heighliner) are good, but not unbeatable.

The playable character options are different enough to add some asymmetry to the game, while not dictating the strategy you have to play. The design of Paul Atreides is particularly brilliant: his ability to look into your future cards unless your deck is empty is perfectly representative of his inconsistent visions in the books.

The design of the different factions, especially the Bene Gesserit, is also excellent. The ability to trash cards through selective breeding is on-theme and a great lore-mechanic match. It’s not just the Bene Gesserit either; Dune: Imperium matches in-game effects of cards to the Dune lore in a way that fans will appreciate.

The game’s symbolic notation is intuitive and aids understanding of novel cards. Words are used sparingly to describe unique effects not easily encoded through the symbols. Designers should look to Dune: Imperium as an example of how to balance text against symbols.³

One criticism I have with the design is that it often feels like the Imperium row of cards available for purchase is stale. Sometimes, a card is replaced by a duplicate of a card already available. If players buy Arrakis Liaisons or The Spice Must Flow cards, the Imperium row remains the same. It’s not a huge problem, but I’ve seen other games add some amount of automated churn so a pile of undesirable cards can slowly be replaced.

Conclusion

Dune: Imperium is one of my favorite new⁴ games. The gameplay is excellent, and the Dune theme is well-executed. Games are kept fresh with different available cards and wildly different strategies can all be successful. I recommend Dune: Imperium even to non-Dune fans.

Footnotes

1. I’m hopeful that Dune: Imperium continues a trend for major brands paying for high-quality design in games with popular IP. Villainous is another recent game that is thoughtfully designed despite being from a popular IP. ↩

2. I recently played Dennen’s other major title, Clank!, for the first time. It’s worth a play if you haven’t tried it. It shares the partial deck-building mechanic but has a dungeon crawling theme. ↩

3. Though I enjoy a good game of BANG!, it’s an example of a game where symbolic notation tries to do too much. Sometimes words are just the more straightforward way to describe an effect. ↩

4. If one can consider a 4-year-old game “new”. ↩