Folks may not realize it, but in an average competitive game of Dune you actually will have somewhere between 18-22 agent placements in an average round 8 end. If we assume you can play an agent to a faction access location for every agent placement this means (unrealistic, but useful as a theoretical thought expirement) a player could acquire up to 8 points from 16 agent placements. The remaining 2-6 agent placements must be capable of acquiring 2 other points to trigger the end game. In general, what this thought experiment shows, is that players should strive for an efficiency rate of better than .5 victory points scored per agent placement (theoretical baseline efficiency rate) if they desire a realistic chance of winning the game. This is very doable, but it will require a player to think ahead about when they will have access to critical point scoring locations and opportunities and how that dictates what choices must be made in order to achieve an efficient play sequence. A good learning exercise for beginners is to examine what order and combination of agent placements can achieve a better than .5 VP per placement efficiency rate in uncontested settings (play out some rounds but without using any opposing pieces, placements or effects). This can teach beginners some of the more optimal placement patterns and expose which patterns are weakest to disruptive factors like intrigue cards or being blocked from access to critical locations by clever opponents moving earlier in turn order priority.
Swordmaster does sap your hand for an extra card though, leaving you with that much less available for purchasing quality cards, rather than cards that just clog up your deck; all for a left over spot that no one wanted anyway. Speaking of clogging up your deck, trimming out the junk cards makes those good cards that you purchased that much more potent. Just be sure to check that you are still going to be able to go to where you want to go. Also, cards/actions that draw more cards are easy to overlook, but can be the difference between deciding that you don't want anything in the market anyway, and buying a victory point. (2 water draw 3 cards, and trash a card draw 2 are great for this). Timing is big too, if you are the only person with water and you are about to trade it for some spice, do the math and see if you want to hold off for a round to get an extra spice. Pro move would be to exacerbate the "no one else has water" situation by clogging up a source of water, you will certainly use it anyway.
These are good points. I'll make some comments. Just because you have a Swordmaster, doesn't mean you have to take 3 agent turns. So if you have the influence to buy The Spice Must Flow, you might go ahead and buy it after 2 (or fewer) agent turns regardless of whether you have the Swordmaster. Sometimes, you need to take an agent turn (Research Station, for example) to get enough influence to buy an expensive card anyway, so the Swordmater may actually help. No one will get Swordmaster until the 3rd round in most games. So it won't affect your ability to buy quality cards in the first 2-3 rounds. By round 5 or 6, buying cards that don't score points has less value anyway, because you won't draw them very many times. A card purchased in the last two rounds isn't ever played (unless... there are always exceptions). As you say, thinning down your deck and buying very few cards in the first place can help you draw that great card more often. But, this isn't Dominion or Clank. It's expensive (maybe too expensive) to hone your deck in Dune, and you won't be shuffling dozens of times. Inherently, one or, at most, two players will have Swordmater at the end of the 3rd round. They will have an advantage in combats, and they can often use the extra action to get extra cards, nullifying their one disadvantage. It's a big enough prize that it's worth thinking about. That's not to say that all hope is lost for the other players. They will build up their decks and try to grab advantage elsewhere. In a 4 player game, at least 1 player will be denied Swordmaster for so long that they might just skip it. If you see everyone diving for Swordmaster, you might volunteer to be that player, as I described in the video. Get some water/spice and win the first/second combat while others use their agent turns to seek Solari. Who knows, maybe you get Solari in a combat, and then you can have your cake and eat it too. If no one else is showing interest in Swordmaster, though, I would (almost always) dive for it.
Thanks Jarred. I put one out on Ark Nova yesterday. I have an idea for one more on Ark Nova and I've had request to revisit Lost Ruins of Arnak in this format. Basically, I'm taking requests, but it will take some time.
Came across this while looking for rise of ix strategy and watched the whole thing. You have an interesting style and I think your videos will keep improving if you keep making them. I thought this was a really good watch!
I'd say a key thing to do is to only acquire cards with Unload abilities if you have ways to discard/trash them. I feel like, to balance out the advantage you get from Unloading, the quality of the rest of the card on average is lower than the persuasion cost. It just seems to be more action efficient to only invest in them if you can pull that off.
I played this at a convention, took a dive down the rabbit hole and ended up going all in and buying it all. I really like the deck building aspect, but it's tricky to weed out some of the less useful cards; getting the genetic manipulation card is a must because the Bene Gesserit space costs two spice.
Smugling is Good place but Shipping is mutch better if you get shipping for your self for like 4 round un interupted In early game you are miles ahead. So there should be a race to get 2 points with spacing guild. also you did not mentioned any leaders whitch impact starting moves very mutch. For example Lord harkonen whants to go to Hardy wariors Baron is insetivised to go for early 2 cost tech ......
Nice video, thanks. I’m behind the curve on Dune, just moved on from the base game to adding rise of ix. Saving immortality and uprising for the future. The dreadnought seems so useful I’d say it’s worth getting for 3 solari as early as possible even if you can’t buy a tech tile. Makes it more difficult to chose what to spend solari on in the early game. Swordmaster vs council seat vs dreadnoughts. I think i prefer a council seat plus a dreadnought for 8 solari than a swordmaster then get a swordmaster after that if possible
I haven't played Uprising yet. I'm still decided whether to buy it or hope someone else will bring a copy over to play. I'd say Immortality gives you more options, but it doesn't improve the game as much as the Rise of IX. There are lots of different ways to play, of course. I wouldn't get a Swordmaster too late, though, because you'll need to use it several times to justify its cost in agent turns. Also, if you prefer a Council Seat, you might be looking toward TSMF. In that case, you might not want Swordmaster at all. I can understand the no-Swordmaster strategy, but I'm not sure about the get-Swordmaster-after strategy. But if you're winning... that's the real test. Best.
This isn't the way I pay the bills, I'm afraid. I gotta do it in a way that entertains me and my friends. Some people seem to like it, and others don't. I get it. Have a great life.
A BURNING QUESTION: There's an intrigue card that lets you send my agent to a place already occupied by opponent's agent, does that mean we can both end up with swordmasters?
If you play Infiltration, you can get your swordmaster on the same round as another player, assuming you have the solari. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until the next round.
It does. But i found that card to be decimating for my opponent when he had taken the heighliner and was sure nobody could commit enough trooos without that space. I will be saving that intrigue card solely for that from nowon
