Great video thanks! For future people coming here: 1) I believe solo means you’re the 3rd player in round 1 since it goes clockwise. 2) Rivals don’t start with anything in the garrison (normally).
3) Rivals don’t get the bonuses on the faction tracks (like the water that Mike mistakenly added to the Harkonnen rival) but they do still get victory points.
Yeah that really confused me at first. He said the first player marker goes to the player to your left and clearly placed it on the player to his right.
Nice playthrough. I just rec'd this game and will most likely playing it solo majority of the time. You're playthrough shows how relatively simple it is to manage.
This game seems ripe for expansion content, new cards, side boards extra leaders or variants of existing leaders. Seems like this game will find a lot of play time on my kitchen table despite not having any mates nearby to play alongside. Thanks for the play through, it gives me a good idea of the kind of experience i can look forward to.
So this is based on the (finally) upcoming Dune movie and that movie only covers the first half of the original Dune book so I am wondering if they would do either an expansion or second game when/if the next Dune movie comes out.
Hey, great play through. I just want to reiterate what I think couple other people have said already. I absolutely love the fact that you have such tight editing and use of close ups. Especially in this game because orientation on the board matters very little. Also you're very good at clearly explaining what's going on.
I didn't enjoy it in this particular game, because of how they did the deckbuilding, but in general I agree with you, and I thought it worked really well in Lost Ruins of Arnak.
I think he’s referring to recent hybrid deckbuilding games. Like both the ones referenced combine deckbuilding and worker placement in interesting ways.
I had no idea this existed and thought this was a playthrough of the 6 player area control game. This one seems quick to learn and play, but asymmetrical enough to have some staying power.
It's releasing pretty soon, but I do recommend watching my review, because while I really like some parts of it, others don't function well in my opinion.
Good run through! I played the two player game with the bot, now I'll try the solo one. Thanks. I think you undervalued the high council (+2 persuasion) and spaces that give more cards.
I’ve never had much success with high council, but maybe it’s group think leading me wrong. Just had a 3-player game where I was the only one not focusing on buying cards, only one who didn’t get high council, and I won the game, though of course that’s just one anecdote.
Hi MIke, nice playthrough! Really helpful for me as a solo player. I believe at 26:00 the automa also puts troops into conflict because of the conflict symbol on the Fremen tiles? Or am I wrong?
I think deckbuilding could definitely be viable...with the right cards. If you get lots of card draw abilities, combined with the research station and selective breeding, you can theoretically cycle through your deck pretty quick. But it’s certainly more of an advanced strategy.
Yeah, I tried that, and it technically functioned, but didn’t get me close to beating the AI. Doing that many drawing and culling actions means your agents aren’t getting troops and challenging conflicts enough. Might work better in multiplayer.
New player here. Thanks for the video and tight editing. Would suggest including a wide view of the board to see where you move your pieces after a move. For exemple you just got water but the next shot is another close-up. We didn't see where you put that water. Just my 2 cents as an inexperienced player.
A lot of people appreciate the close-ups to actually see what's going on with the board and with cards (as opposed to many channels that stick to a super far-away wide shot the whole time). But I get what you are saying too :)
Good catch. Personally I think they should get the bonus, cause it seems like such a minor thing to create a whole extra rule exception for, but oh well :)
i had a playtrough that when i was done i had 3 of my 10 original cards left in my deck,.i did some bene gesserit comos that made me draw alot of cards and is was rly fun, i ended up winning with 1 point on the other guy by having a intrigue card that gave me 1 point if i had a spice most flow card. I rly like it cuz of the player interaction part. In solo i see it more as a point race game. Deckbuilding dsnt matter asmutch against the AI, you just need to go for the points faster then the AI. arnak i havent tried. but i will, im getting dune for sure, i see it beeing a gateway+ game ,
That sounds like a great play. I've definitely had more success/fun with deckbuilding in multiplayer. I enjoy the game with 3+, but 1-2 just weren't doing it for me much.
@@OneStopCoopShop ye same for me. The way the ai get points make it a race for the points first. Cards 2nd.you usualy need to get the conflicts to stop it from winning. And faction alliance. So je i cant wait to play this in a 4 player setup
I also noticed the Hagal cards tell you what the AI gets, but in the instance the AI say draws the Conspire card, do they also get the rewards on the space that aren’t shown on the card? Do they also get 5 solari and an intrigue card?
In all cases, they ignore the actual printed rewards of the space, and instead gain the rewards on their card. The rewards are usually similar, though not identical.
Nice playtrough! Really helped me get into the flow of the game! Just one small thing to clarify for myself. When the first player token goes to the player on your left and i Imagine the AI players sitting at the table, doesn't that mean the second round the other AI Will get the first player marker? Because you usually give it clockwise, wich is the player to your left.
Since there are more conflict cards would it be possible to make a longer game, say 12 or 14 rounds, make it so it does not end at 10 vp’s and then maybe the card deck building would be more important.
Oh, that's an interesting thought I hadn't considered. Certainly could work. Though the majority of the unused Conflict cards are level 1 cards, which have minor rewards, so it'd be interesting to see how much the player would care about them.
@@OneStopCoopShop you could always reshuffle the level 2 cards when done to add 5 more rounds, but I'm not sure the game would scale well to more turns.
I should watch the playthrough before your review! Ha... it sucks as a deckbuilder, but everything else is pretty cool... though the board is a bit drab... ill keep my eye on this in the sales/ebay! Thanks
I was talking about this on our discord, but I wish this had been preconstructed decks, with atreides having their unique effects, harkonnen having theirs, etc. would be way better than the tacked on deckbuilding .
@@OneStopCoopShopsorry discord was too hard to keep up for me, but yes, a bit more asymmetric, give each faction their own style, and maybe when you purchase cards they should go in your hand since you don't cycle through a deck much. Even Fort has better deckbuilding... lol. Anyway I'm looking forward to Lost Ruins of Arnak, that was another hotly anticipated multi mechanism game on my radar!
14:18 I think the AI would nevertheless have uses the Harvest Spice card. IIRC the rules state that if there isn't any stacked up spice (or there is a tie) it sends his worker to the field with the most overall spice, The Great Flat.
Hi there! I’m playing solo and one Faction has one Agent on Carthag and Arrakeen and he won the conflict. Which should I choose? Can’t find this particular rules 🤔 please and thank you
If you mean the control you gain from some conflicts, you only gain that from specific conflict cards that say so (and they are mostly in the final conflict cards, the #3 ones). It'll be obvious in the title, like "Battle for Arrakeen" or something like that. You never gain a control token just for winning a normal conflict.
I don't see anything about that in the rules. It says the AI gains victory points and faction influence as normal. Do you see something in the rules that says they don't benefit from the alliance? It would be a pretty odd exception. Why give players an extra rule to remember, AND make it less interesting to jockey for influence with the AI?
@@OneStopCoopShop Yes under the "Agents" section on the solo sheet by the influence markers (5th or so "paragraph" down). " The Rival advances on the indicated influence track. It earns no bonuses from an influence track, but it will take a Faction Alliance if able". Could be misinterpreting this but to me this means that they get no bonus VP when they reach the 2nd spot, nor do they get a resource when reaching the upper tiers but they would get the token if they made it there first. I see under "Combat" they gain VP and influence but to me that would be from them winning a conflict bonus that would grant them VP or advancing on faction track but again no bonus from advancing except for the alliance token from the upper tiers.
@@BlGMEX ah, looks like you are right that it doesn't receive a "bonus", but elsewhere in the rulebook "bonus" is only used to refer to the free resource they get on space 4 of the track (water, etc.). So my interpretation of the rules is that they still get the VP on space 2, and the VP from the alliance token. It could be clearer either way!
@@disneymaniac001 it's all basically tied to the Fremen. You have the bottom Fremen faction action (stillsuits) for one water, or Sietch Tabr (requiring 2 Fremen influence).
@@OneStopCoopShop and do they (the automas) get water from sietch tabr in solo play? like they get spices? it wasn't clear in the rules and i gave them water/spice/solari/intrigue from any space that gave it as a reward (even the factions) and they beat my a$$ on the easiest level. 😂
A bit confused as Dice Tower also did a solo review, but in there review the solo and I believe two player mode, the game uses an app to control other houses. I believe he scored it 8.5. So how come you are playing without the app?
To my knowledge, the app has not been released to the general public (it's certainly not on Dire Wolf's app store section). But it's supposed to be the same as what I show here, just with an app instead of the deck of cards, so it wouldn't change how the game plays.
The solo game mode in Imperium will have automated opponents that will attempt to win the game. Players will have four different difficulty levels to choose from, with the option to choose two of the game’s rival houses to compete against. These houses can collect and convert resources in victory points, as well as collect victory points by winning conflicts, just as human players do. The Dire Wolf blog also confirmed that a companion app would be releasing for Dune: Imperium that will help players run the two-player and solo game modes. With the companion app, players will be able to control House Hagal’s deck through their tablet or mobile, with other features also being teased.
As discussed in the other thread, Mike Dilisio has confirmed that the app is identical to the physical game content. None of us can speak to whether they might add more solo content down the line.
A game board may display artwork, yes. However, mainly it has a job to do. This board is clear ti understand, direct, and user experience friendly. That's all I need... especially for game play such as this!
@Brother Horus “Totally in keeping with a planet made out of pretty endless dust...” *The cards are bland knock-offs of the art used in **_Last Unicorn Games_** Dune card game, too.* *So far all of the tie-in products with the new Dune movie, including the tie-in RPG look underwhelming, as well.*
I wanted to like this but I can see myself getting very bored after couple rounds. Have never been a huge fan of worker placement games. Think I own two or three in total.
0:00 - Introduction
1:01 - How to Play
10:12 - Playthrough
Great video thanks! For future people coming here: 1) I believe solo means you’re the 3rd player in round 1 since it goes clockwise. 2) Rivals don’t start with anything in the garrison (normally).
3) Rivals don’t get the bonuses on the faction tracks (like the water that Mike mistakenly added to the Harkonnen rival) but they do still get victory points.
Yeah that really confused me at first. He said the first player marker goes to the player to your left and clearly placed it on the player to his right.
Nice playthrough. I just rec'd this game and will most likely playing it solo majority of the time. You're playthrough shows how relatively simple it is to manage.
Awesome! Glad it was helpful, and hope you have fun :)
This game seems ripe for expansion content, new cards, side boards extra leaders or variants of existing leaders. Seems like this game will find a lot of play time on my kitchen table despite not having any mates nearby to play alongside. Thanks for the play through, it gives me a good idea of the kind of experience i can look forward to.
Definitely agree. Curious to see what they might add.
@@OneStopCoopShop Feyd Rutha for starters lol
@@pinchejuan93 only if it's Sting!
"I will kill him!"
So this is based on the (finally) upcoming Dune movie and that movie only covers the first half of the original Dune book so I am wondering if they would do either an expansion or second game when/if the next Dune movie comes out.
@@needsanameedit4982 oh, good question. Wouldn't surprise me, since clearly the game is doing really well!
This was such an informative playthrough. Well thought out and brilliantly edited. Many thanks.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it :)
Hey, great play through. I just want to reiterate what I think couple other people have said already. I absolutely love the fact that you have such tight editing and use of close ups.
Especially in this game because orientation on the board matters very little.
Also you're very good at clearly explaining what's going on.
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it :)
Loving the evolution of deckbuilding games this year. Deckbuilding and Worker Placement works really well.
I didn't enjoy it in this particular game, because of how they did the deckbuilding, but in general I agree with you, and I thought it worked really well in Lost Ruins of Arnak.
@@OneStopCoopShop yup totally agree that Arnak does the deckbuilding part better
Evolution of deck building? What are your referencing?
@@sacredscars5758 really want to know that too. Love deckbuilding games.
I think he’s referring to recent hybrid deckbuilding games. Like both the ones referenced combine deckbuilding and worker placement in interesting ways.
Appreciate you demonstrating this. I’m about to set up my first game and I am hoping it will be as interesting and tight as this was
Good luck!!
I had no idea this existed and thought this was a playthrough of the 6 player area control game. This one seems quick to learn and play, but asymmetrical enough to have some staying power.
It's releasing pretty soon, but I do recommend watching my review, because while I really like some parts of it, others don't function well in my opinion.
Great playthrough and your review really nailed the pros and cons!
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for sharing. I'm a big Dune fan and the game has some unique mechanics. I like it.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Good run through! I played the two player game with the bot, now I'll try the solo one. Thanks.
I think you undervalued the high council (+2 persuasion) and spaces that give more cards.
I’ve never had much success with high council, but maybe it’s group think leading me wrong. Just had a 3-player game where I was the only one not focusing on buying cards, only one who didn’t get high council, and I won the game, though of course that’s just one anecdote.
Thank you... you made this game so much clearer to me :) Keep up the great work!
Glad it helped!
Read the rule book.... nope
Watched your video... think i got it lol
🤣 Thanks for the video 🤘😁
Yeah, they could have had a BIT more detail ;)
I want to combine Uprising solo with something else in Imperium. Not sure what is best for that.
The firs player should sit to your left as you said, but you put it to your right? Should you not go last in a solo game?
Ah good catch. I confused myself setting the boards up for the camera.
I really need this game!
Hope you find a copy and enjoy it!
Great playthrough, thanks for it!
Thanks for watching!
Hi MIke, nice playthrough! Really helpful for me as a solo player. I believe at 26:00 the automa also puts troops into conflict because of the conflict symbol on the Fremen tiles? Or am I wrong?
I haven’t played in more than a year so I’m not sure! Sorry!
Great editing!
Glad you think so!
I think deckbuilding could definitely be viable...with the right cards. If you get lots of card draw abilities, combined with the research station and selective breeding, you can theoretically cycle through your deck pretty quick. But it’s certainly more of an advanced strategy.
Yeah, I tried that, and it technically functioned, but didn’t get me close to beating the AI. Doing that many drawing and culling actions means your agents aren’t getting troops and challenging conflicts enough. Might work better in multiplayer.
Fun and smart play.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
New player here. Thanks for the video and tight editing. Would suggest including a wide view of the board to see where you move your pieces after a move. For exemple you just got water but the next shot is another close-up. We didn't see where you put that water. Just my 2 cents as an inexperienced player.
A lot of people appreciate the close-ups to actually see what's going on with the board and with cards (as opposed to many channels that stick to a super far-away wide shot the whole time). But I get what you are saying too :)
Great playthrough. It got very tight there at the end but well played to clinch the win!
Thanks! It was a tough one. The AI can be random, but tends to keep things challenging
Nobody caught this at 26:30. The AI does not get the bonus. You said it "gets +1 water" while it doesn't.
Good catch. Personally I think they should get the bonus, cause it seems like such a minor thing to create a whole extra rule exception for, but oh well :)
Yeah it’s pretty annoying to remember that rivals get the victory points but not the bonus!
Foes anyone know where to find solo play video with all of the expansions?
i had a playtrough that when i was done i had 3 of my 10 original cards left in my deck,.i did some bene gesserit comos that made me draw alot of cards and is was rly fun, i ended up winning with 1 point on the other guy by having a intrigue card that gave me 1 point if i had a spice most flow card.
I rly like it cuz of the player interaction part.
In solo i see it more as a point race game.
Deckbuilding dsnt matter asmutch against the AI, you just need to go for the points faster then the AI.
arnak i havent tried. but i will, im getting dune for sure, i see it beeing a gateway+ game ,
That sounds like a great play. I've definitely had more success/fun with deckbuilding in multiplayer. I enjoy the game with 3+, but 1-2 just weren't doing it for me much.
@@OneStopCoopShop ye same for me. The way the ai get points make it a race for the points first. Cards 2nd.you usualy need to get the conflicts to stop it from winning. And faction alliance. So je i cant wait to play this in a 4 player setup
Thanks for the video, i'm looking for a copy... can't find anywhere
Yeah, this one sold out quickly. I imagine they have another print run already spooled up... at least if they are smart :)
the best thing about this game is the single player option
Worst way to play for me (I'll only play 3+ player at this point), but I'm glad you enjoy it!
I also noticed the Hagal cards tell you what the AI gets, but in the instance the AI say draws the Conspire card, do they also get the rewards on the space that aren’t shown on the card?
Do they also get 5 solari and an intrigue card?
In all cases, they ignore the actual printed rewards of the space, and instead gain the rewards on their card. The rewards are usually similar, though not identical.
Nice playtrough! Really helped me get into the flow of the game!
Just one small thing to clarify for myself.
When the first player token goes to the player on your left and i Imagine the AI players sitting at the table, doesn't that mean the second round the other AI Will get the first player marker? Because you usually give it clockwise, wich is the player to your left.
Yeah, it travels clockwise. I have to do odd things to film sometimes ;)
If the starting player goes to the AI on your left? Aren’t you supposed to take the last turn the first round? I believe you went 2nd.
Yeah, someone else noticed that too. Confused myself trying to get everything on camera smoothly :)
Technically left and right are subjective when it comes to a circle, which is why people say clockwise and counterclockwise.
Since there are more conflict cards would it be possible to make a longer game, say 12 or 14 rounds, make it so it does not end at 10 vp’s and then maybe the card deck building would be more important.
Oh, that's an interesting thought I hadn't considered. Certainly could work. Though the majority of the unused Conflict cards are level 1 cards, which have minor rewards, so it'd be interesting to see how much the player would care about them.
@@OneStopCoopShop you could always reshuffle the level 2 cards when done to add 5 more rounds, but I'm not sure the game would scale well to more turns.
So the ai harvests spice as well as the bonus spice?
Pretty sure, but I haven’t played in a while!
I should watch the playthrough before your review! Ha... it sucks as a deckbuilder, but everything else is pretty cool... though the board is a bit drab... ill keep my eye on this in the sales/ebay! Thanks
I was talking about this on our discord, but I wish this had been preconstructed decks, with atreides having their unique effects, harkonnen having theirs, etc. would be way better than the tacked on deckbuilding .
@@OneStopCoopShopsorry discord was too hard to keep up for me, but yes, a bit more asymmetric, give each faction their own style, and maybe when you purchase cards they should go in your hand since you don't cycle through a deck much. Even Fort has better deckbuilding... lol. Anyway I'm looking forward to Lost Ruins of Arnak, that was another hotly anticipated multi mechanism game on my radar!
14:18 I think the AI would nevertheless have uses the Harvest Spice card. IIRC the rules state that if there isn't any stacked up spice (or there is a tie) it sends his worker to the field with the most overall spice, The Great Flat.
The card itself says if no space has bonus spice, they reveal a replacement card.
@@OneStopCoopShop Correct, I missed that. Thanks!
Hi there!
I’m playing solo and one Faction has one Agent on Carthag and Arrakeen and he won the conflict. Which should I choose? Can’t find this particular rules 🤔 please and thank you
If you mean the control you gain from some conflicts, you only gain that from specific conflict cards that say so (and they are mostly in the final conflict cards, the #3 ones). It'll be obvious in the title, like "Battle for Arrakeen" or something like that.
You never gain a control token just for winning a normal conflict.
@@OneStopCoopShop thank u. It seems that I misread the rules. 😂 is my first game so I’m still processing the rules. Is clear now. 😁
I noticed every round you don’t reset the combat tracks.
I calculate them anew when each combat round starts.
I do not think that the AI gets any benefit from the influence track (aka VP on 2nd space). It will ONLY take the alliance token if it qualifies.
I don't see anything about that in the rules. It says the AI gains victory points and faction influence as normal. Do you see something in the rules that says they don't benefit from the alliance?
It would be a pretty odd exception. Why give players an extra rule to remember, AND make it less interesting to jockey for influence with the AI?
@@OneStopCoopShop Yes under the "Agents" section on the solo sheet by the influence markers (5th or so "paragraph" down). " The Rival advances on the indicated influence track. It earns no bonuses from an influence track, but it will take a Faction Alliance if able". Could be misinterpreting this but to me this means that they get no bonus VP when they reach the 2nd spot, nor do they get a resource when reaching the upper tiers but they would get the token if they made it there first. I see under "Combat" they gain VP and influence but to me that would be from them winning a conflict bonus that would grant them VP or advancing on faction track but again no bonus from advancing except for the alliance token from the upper tiers.
@@BlGMEX ah, looks like you are right that it doesn't receive a "bonus", but elsewhere in the rulebook "bonus" is only used to refer to the free resource they get on space 4 of the track (water, etc.). So my interpretation of the rules is that they still get the VP on space 2, and the VP from the alliance token.
It could be clearer either way!
@@OneStopCoopShop Interesting! I hadn't noticed the "bonus" word being relegated to resources only. Definitely could be made clearer haha
@@OneStopCoopShop you're right they get the VP on space 2, it's clarified in FAQ. Thanks for this great video.
i thought they get the water and spice from the factions. how do they get water besides winning the conflict?
There are action spaces that provide water.
@@OneStopCoopShop i only see sietch tabr giving water besides the factions. is that it + the combat winnings?
@@disneymaniac001 it's all basically tied to the Fremen. You have the bottom Fremen faction action (stillsuits) for one water, or Sietch Tabr (requiring 2 Fremen influence).
@@OneStopCoopShop and do they (the automas) get water from sietch tabr in solo play? like they get spices? it wasn't clear in the rules and i gave them water/spice/solari/intrigue from any space that gave it as a reward (even the factions) and they beat my a$$ on the easiest level. 😂
@@OneStopCoopShop or, is there no sietch tabr card for house hagal? i don't remember. but then they don't get water from anywhere than combat rewards.
A bit confused as Dice Tower also did a solo review, but in there review the solo and I believe two player mode, the game uses an app to control other houses. I believe he scored it 8.5. So how come you are playing without the app?
To my knowledge, the app has not been released to the general public (it's certainly not on Dire Wolf's app store section). But it's supposed to be the same as what I show here, just with an app instead of the deck of cards, so it wouldn't change how the game plays.
The solo game mode in Imperium will have automated opponents that will attempt to win the game. Players will have four different difficulty levels to choose from, with the option to choose two of the game’s rival houses to compete against. These houses can collect and convert resources in victory points, as well as collect victory points by winning conflicts, just as human players do.
The Dire Wolf blog also confirmed that a companion app would be releasing for Dune: Imperium that will help players run the two-player and solo game modes. With the companion app, players will be able to control House Hagal’s deck through their tablet or mobile, with other features also being teased.
As discussed in the other thread, Mike Dilisio has confirmed that the app is identical to the physical game content. None of us can speak to whether they might add more solo content down the line.
I know it's a desert planet but the art seems rather bland.
Totally in keeping with a planet made out of pretty endless dust...
I find the board highly functional, but yes, not very attractive or immersive :)
One of the reasons I have pre ordered the deluxe upgrade. Should make it pop more.
A game board may display artwork, yes. However, mainly it has a job to do. This board is clear ti understand, direct, and user experience friendly. That's all I need... especially for game play such as this!
@Brother Horus
“Totally in keeping with a planet made out of pretty endless dust...”
*The cards are bland knock-offs of the art used in **_Last Unicorn Games_** Dune card game, too.*
*So far all of the tie-in products with the new Dune movie, including the tie-in RPG look underwhelming, as well.*
I hope there is a replacement card to turn Liet Keynes back into a man.
Since these characters are all based on the new film, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
I wanted to like this but I can see myself getting very bored after couple rounds.
Have never been a huge fan of worker placement games. Think I own two or three in total.
I’m the same way. WP games usually fall flat.