Dune: Imperium is one of the most popular and highly rated euro games from the past few years. My own rating on BGG is a 9. I’ve played it a few times multiplayer but never solo. One problem with solo games is that setting a game up and having to do housekeeping during the game often detracts from the gameplay. Dire Wolf has published an app to help with this for Dune: Imperium solo play. And the game has few enough pieces that I don’t think setting up would be too onerous. But Dire Wolf has also published a full video game version. No setup or housekeeping at all! So let’s see how the PC version compares to the physical version.
Dune: Imperium is first and foremost a worker placement game, with a significant deck building component. Two of my favorite mechanisms, so it is looking good so far. The game is played in rounds of three phases. Players each take an action before play passes to the next player.
The first round is the worker placement round. Each player starts with two workers - another permanent worker and one that only applies to the current turn can both be purchased - and a hand of cards. These cards either allow a player to place a worker or, in the next phase, purchase new cards. Standard deck building stuff. Some cards allow a player to do one or the other - not both. Some cards that can be purchased have additional effects when played.
The base game has four regions in which a player can place a worker. The planet Arrakis has spaces that provide resources, sometimes at the cost of another resource. Some of these spaces are the only locations which can provide spice. Arrakis also has most of the spaces a player can use to add troops to the combat that occurs in the third phase of a turn. The Choam spaces are the main way to get money, usually by trading spice. The Landsraad Council spaces offer a variety of benefits. One space gets a player their third worker. Another allows them to purchase the service of a Mentat worker for the rest of the turn. A player can secure an ongoing boost to their card purchase power or get more troops. The final worker placement area allows a player to gain influence with any of four factions - the Fremen, the Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild, and the Emperor. Using a worker to gain influence gets that player some immediate benefits, which are relevant to that faction. Increasing influence with a faction is also a good way to get victory points. It would be hard to win the game without significant, even dominant, influence in at least one faction.
The second phase is the Reveal phase. Cards not used to place workers provide benefits in this phase. The starting cards provide either currency to purchase other cards or combat power for the third phase. Purchased cards can provide other benefits.
The third phase is the Combat phase. The combat system differentiates Dune: Imperium from most other worker placement games. Whether someone likes the combat or not probably determines whether they like the game as a whole. For preparing for combat can drive everything a character does during the first two phases of a turn.
A player often decides whether to focus on combat right at the beginning of a turn. That is when the rewards for that turn’s combat are revealed. Rewards are offered for first place, second place, and - in four player games - third place. If a player really wants the first place reward, they would need to focus on developing combat power throughout the turn. If the player does not want that reward, they might focus on other things. No player will win every combat. Troops in a combat are lost, whether or not the player wins. Going hard to win a particular reward means that it would be hard to muster much power the next turn.
Dune: Imperium combat does not have a random element. The result is determined by the number of troops the players commit to combat, plus any combat power that they can marshal from cards. Keeping their plans secret for as long as possible definitely impacts a player’s chances of winning a combat. The Reveal phase can add a lot of combat power for a player. Revealing before another player can tell them what they need to do to win or that they might as well save their troops to stomp their opponent the next term. Even a player who is confident of winning after everyone has revealed can be defeated by a sneak attack from power added by an espionage card. Combat is a complex, tactical, and crucial part of the game.
Oh, espionage cards. These are hidden cards that can be played at any time. Usually, a player can get them from the Bene Gesserit. These cards are the only truly hidden knowledge in the game. Not only can they unexpectedly change the result of a combat, they can do so for the whole game. A player can get the victory points needed to end the game, only to lose to another player whose secret cards pull them ahead.
Dune: Imperium falls pretty close to the sweet spot of simple rules with complex gameplay. Yes, there are games with simpler rulesets. Dune: Imperium keeps pretty close to the established worker placement and deck building rules. Those familiar with those types of games will only have a few new concepts and rules to learn. The gameplay itself can be convoluted. For a particular turn, does a player focus on getting ready for combat, a different short-term goal, or their long-term strategy. Can they block another player from achieving their goal for the turn? Do they have to place their workers in a particular order? Certain types of players can easily fall into analysis paralysis. Fortunately, a player usually only has two or three workers to place. That limits the complexity for an individual turn. For me, the gameplay complexity is about right.
The game also seems well balanced between different approaches. A player can focus on combat, on gaining influence with the factions, or on collection of espionage cards. They cannot win by just doing one of those. They need to at least pay attention to all of them. That makes gameplay tight. It is rare for someone to run away with the game, unless it is someone much more familiar with it than the other players. That said, having a single misplayed or ineffectual turn could lose a player the game.
The balance also means that the game is replayable. There may be a meta discovered by power players. There are enough different play styles that more casual players are unlikely to fall into a mechanistic approach that reduces the challenge and fun of the game.
The game itself is good. What about the digital version?
The tutorial is pretty good. It goes through the gameplay incrementally, starting with the simplest concepts and advancing to more complicated ones. Since I had played the game before, I went through it as a reminder of the rules. I can’t say how effective it would be for someone new to worker placement or deck building games.
The UI is good. Many digital adaptations of board games suffer from the inability to present a large board and player status easily on a single screen. Dune: Imperium succeeds. The mechanics of moving stuff on the board works well. Instead of placing the worker figures themselves, dragging a card to the worker placement slot places the figure automatically. When a card provides a special capability, the prompt used to activate that capability is obvious but not overwhelming. I never had to go look for something on the screen.
I only have two very small problems with the UI. It isn’t always obvious where to drag a card to play it. Fortunately, those cards can also be played by double clicking them. Cards are enlarged for reading when a player hovers the cursor over them. Of course, clicking or selecting the card also requires placing the cursor over the card. Several times, I had to ignore the zoom in to click on the card itself, which was partially hidden by the zoom in.
Apart from the UI, the key to enjoying a digital adaptation of the board game is the quality of the AI. I cannot yet give a full report on this, as I have not sampled all of the AI options. In my experience so far, the AI did a good job. It wasn’t the smartest, but it was still the tutorial. They ambushed me a couple of times, winning combats I was sure I was going to win. I did not have a problem winning, but neither was it easy. The only obvious error they made was never getting their third worker, giving me a strong advantage in the action economy.
Overall, I rate the digital version of Dune: Imperium as highly as I rated the physical game. (I’m not alone - Dune: Imperium has an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam.)
Den of the Red Wolf 