Dune Imperium: Uprising - It’s crazy how much better it is than the base game.
Acquire - Its nuts that this game was made in 1964. The game is so elegant it feels like a modern design.
Radlands - Outside of lifestyle games like MTG or Netrunner this is hands down my favorite card dueler. Slick and clever AF. Really pumped about the recently announced cult of the chrome camp expansion to the game!
Interesting that you think Uprising is so much better than the base game. I’ve combined the base game with Rise of Ix and Uprising with Immortality and I find the two games equally good, and surprisingly different in terms of strategic options.
There were two things in the original game that needed tweaking, in my opinion. The first was the over-powered “big money” strategy, which became almost a standard opening with which the starting player could open up an early lead. However, that was largely fixed by Rise of Ix. The second problem, in my opinion, was the original Imperium deck. It had too many weak cards, not enough opportunities to trash cards (or at least cycle the deck more frequently), and a relatively low frequency of combos. The relative weakness of the card deck compared to the huge point-generating strength of the phase 3 conflict cards made combat pretty much mandatory in the original game. These two issues led to some strategically-repetitive game play, which was only partially mitigated by Rise of Ix. (Side note: this weak, low-combo, low-cycling, low-trashing deck style is also characteristic of Paul Dennan’s other big game, Clank. He could learn something about interesting deck-building from Dominion, in my opinion. Then again, Dune Imperium is a more mechanistically complex game than Dominion, and it is harder to create a good deck that is also well-balanced with the other game mechanics.)
In Uprising, there are more steps involved in becoming a dominant combat-based player and there are fewer points to be had directly from conflict cards. This means that it takes more specialization and commitment to pursue a successful combat-heavy strategy. Also, especially with the Immortality expansion, there are better cards and more combo possibilities, which creates additional viable non-combat strategies. On top of that, they made the Spacing Guild more powerful in Uprising, putting it more on par with the other factions. All of this is great, but having more viable choices also makes the game more complex and can sometimes lead to less interaction and direct competition for key worker placement spaces if people are pursuing quite different strategies.
So, overall, I think Uprising is a more strategically balanced game that is less “on rails” compared to the original game. However, the original game is, on average, probably a little more tense and directly competitive because there are fewer viable strategies.
Take everything I said above with a grain of salt because I play both games with expansions. So I’m not really comparing base Imperium with base Uprising.
Uprising encourages a lot more combat participation imo. The base game combat rewards were often heavily tilted towards the 1st place winner. There were a lot of combat rounds where if you didn’t have a shot at 1st you’d probably be better off with just a token participation or just to not show up at all.
The spy mechanic is pretty nifty and adds a way you can maneuver around turn order screwage.
The spaces/cards have overall more card draw so deck building choices have more of an impact and lessens the chance you’ll be handcuffed by what spaces you can take on a given turn.
The flow of resources feels a bit more balanced to me. The base game I always felt I was often flooded with too many resources by the end. With Uprising the resources are pretty tight throughout the game and spending them feels a lot more impactful even towards the end of the game.
Also what’s a Dune game without Shai-Hulud? :>
Again this is just my opinion but my play experience with Uprising felt overall less frustrating than with the base game.
Dune Imperium: Uprising - It’s crazy how much better it is than the base game.
Acquire - Its nuts that this game was made in 1964. The game is so elegant it feels like a modern design.
Radlands - Outside of lifestyle games like MTG or Netrunner this is hands down my favorite card dueler. Slick and clever AF. Really pumped about the recently announced cult of the chrome camp expansion to the game!
Interesting that you think Uprising is so much better than the base game. I’ve combined the base game with Rise of Ix and Uprising with Immortality and I find the two games equally good, and surprisingly different in terms of strategic options.
What do you find so much better about Uprising?
Also want to know, as a base game owner
There were two things in the original game that needed tweaking, in my opinion. The first was the over-powered “big money” strategy, which became almost a standard opening with which the starting player could open up an early lead. However, that was largely fixed by Rise of Ix. The second problem, in my opinion, was the original Imperium deck. It had too many weak cards, not enough opportunities to trash cards (or at least cycle the deck more frequently), and a relatively low frequency of combos. The relative weakness of the card deck compared to the huge point-generating strength of the phase 3 conflict cards made combat pretty much mandatory in the original game. These two issues led to some strategically-repetitive game play, which was only partially mitigated by Rise of Ix. (Side note: this weak, low-combo, low-cycling, low-trashing deck style is also characteristic of Paul Dennan’s other big game, Clank. He could learn something about interesting deck-building from Dominion, in my opinion. Then again, Dune Imperium is a more mechanistically complex game than Dominion, and it is harder to create a good deck that is also well-balanced with the other game mechanics.)
In Uprising, there are more steps involved in becoming a dominant combat-based player and there are fewer points to be had directly from conflict cards. This means that it takes more specialization and commitment to pursue a successful combat-heavy strategy. Also, especially with the Immortality expansion, there are better cards and more combo possibilities, which creates additional viable non-combat strategies. On top of that, they made the Spacing Guild more powerful in Uprising, putting it more on par with the other factions. All of this is great, but having more viable choices also makes the game more complex and can sometimes lead to less interaction and direct competition for key worker placement spaces if people are pursuing quite different strategies.
So, overall, I think Uprising is a more strategically balanced game that is less “on rails” compared to the original game. However, the original game is, on average, probably a little more tense and directly competitive because there are fewer viable strategies.
Take everything I said above with a grain of salt because I play both games with expansions. So I’m not really comparing base Imperium with base Uprising.
Uprising encourages a lot more combat participation imo. The base game combat rewards were often heavily tilted towards the 1st place winner. There were a lot of combat rounds where if you didn’t have a shot at 1st you’d probably be better off with just a token participation or just to not show up at all.
The spy mechanic is pretty nifty and adds a way you can maneuver around turn order screwage.
The spaces/cards have overall more card draw so deck building choices have more of an impact and lessens the chance you’ll be handcuffed by what spaces you can take on a given turn.
The flow of resources feels a bit more balanced to me. The base game I always felt I was often flooded with too many resources by the end. With Uprising the resources are pretty tight throughout the game and spending them feels a lot more impactful even towards the end of the game.
Also what’s a Dune game without Shai-Hulud? :>
Again this is just my opinion but my play experience with Uprising felt overall less frustrating than with the base game.