Dune: Imperium has been popular the last half year (or maybe longer? Covid distorts time) with the local crowd. Pre-covid it was Terraforming Mars, now this. When I went to a game night, I'd likely to see a copy of that in use. I finally got a chance to play it, and it's ... I don't know.
There are good ideas. You have a dominion deckbuilder with some worker placement. Everyone starts with the same deck of ten cards (with one kicker), and then goes around the table playing a single card to activate an agent (worker...) placing the agent on the spot allowed by the card, paying any costs and getting benefits. Or once you are out of agents (or decide to stop) you reveal the rest of your hand which gets you influence (which lets you buy cards) and combat bonuses.
The spots do a variety of things, get resources (spice, water, solarii, soldiers), increase influence with major NPC factions (Bene Gesseritt, Fremen, Guild, Emperor), get plot cards (which do a variety of things). You've seen it before.
I didn't hate it, there are some good parts:
- I liked the fact that each player had a "signet" card which triggers one of the players special abilities (on their faction card). So each player has an "always on" ability and then a "sometimes" ability. Nice flavor.
- Going early is obviously nice in a worker placement, but going later is beneficial in the combat (to figure out exactly what you need to win).
- Getting your third worker is expensive, but playing him usually made your purchase a little bit worse. I mean it was still always worth it grab, but it wasn't Agricola-level dominant (where the entire focus is just getting your house ready to jump on that spot), just "very obviously good." I'm told that this was one thing the expansion did .... make the 3rd worker more expensive.
- Also, the combat rewards 1st/2nd/3rd but all forces are lost, which seems thematically correct.
- In general the theme worked.
But .... man, I'm conflicted.
- Ascension-style deckbuilders where you have N cards you can buy and insta-replenish are a crap shoot. You spend your money on a $4 mediocre card and then the next player flips up a perfectly synergizing card and snaps it. Or he flips up a dog and has nothing to buy. Where's the strategy? I mean, its bad enough in Ascension -- a card game that is half the length -- but here, in a worker placement game? These two main mechanisms feel at odds with each other. There's a reason nobody has mashed up Go + Roulette. (I am now secretly hoping somebody has, or will).
- And because this is a deckbuilder, that one early good/bad card luck snowballs.
- But don't worry, there's plenty of other random crapshoots available. This turns battle feels like a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross ... Two VP for the winner (10 triggers the end) but second place is a set of steak knives. Next turn its Oprah -- you get some spice! And you get some spice! So when you get your "Big battle hand" of cards is not only random, sometimes its insanely valuable and sometimes its not.
- I haven't studied the plot cards, but they felt like they ranged at least as much as battle cards.
- As are the technologies (permanent powers that cost lots of spice, and three random ones are available).
- Which means, when it comes down to it, the design is "Hey, what if we took Caylus and Dominion and then added a bunch of decks of cards/tiles/etc to it? That's good design, right?"
- Even at four players the game felt a bit open, like there were too many spaces for workers. I don't think anyone every said "Eh, I'm not going to place my last worker so that I can get first purchase." Particularly after the first few turns (where players are a bit resource light to hit the high cost spaces).
For all that, it's still not bad. The game introduces VPs into play at a steady clip and they can't be lost (at least not that I've seen, but they can be transferred) so this isn't like Twilight Imperium ... the game will end. It was 90-120 minutes and I enjoyed it.
I'd likely have enjoyed it more if my expectations were "This is a medium-to-high luck game with some decisions you can control and some you just have to shrug" versus "This is a a high-strategy game." Come to think of it, that may be my real problem with Terraforming Mars, as well. You spend a lot of time on a game where someone gets dealt aces and someone else .... doesn't. But now that I have that expectation, I'd play this again (which I didn't for T.M. after two plays).
Rating -- Indifferent, but I'd certainly play again. If nothing else I'll have opportunities.
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