Weekly Trash - Dune

If you haven't done so already check out One Fat Pug's strategy guides on the Geek boardgamegeek.com/thread/332288 .

I've never played Dune, (but desperately want... no NEED to.) but these seem like great guides for novice players.

His session reports are excellent reads as well.

Those are excellent guides, especially as starting points. I wish I'd had them when I got back into Dune two summers ago.

Pug has actually joined our online Dune group. We play via messageboards, with one player (on a rotating basis) serving as a non-playing moderator. We're on our 10th game, and pretty close to starting a new one. It's worked out much better than I thought it would.

What program are using to play?

We just use regular old phpBB forums. The moderator is expected to provide updated maps for the group, so he needs to know either Photoshop or some other "paint" program, but that's about it. For non-moderators, the only expertise needed is the ability to add posts to a messageboard.

We started out with live bidding, and we used IM programs for that (AIM, Gabbly, Meebo, that sort of thing). Lately, we've just sent in written bidding orders, but some players would like to try the live thing again.

And that's about it. Nothing too fancy, but we've got it refined to where all the players get the information they need and the game keeps moving forward without too many stalls.

Okay, so I got to play for the first time tonight and I'm vexed as to what to think. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure how much.

I played 6-players and was the Harkonnen. On turn 5, I allied with the Emperor who "donated" money to my cause. This cause being the invasion of the guild sietch with 8 units. In combat I came out just on top with one unit remaining in the space, and since no one else had pursued any other combat, the Emperor and the Harkonnen win with a totaled three sietches, yes? Seems a bit anticlimactic... one combat to end the game very quickly. How should the other players have prevented this? Isn't this going to be easy in the early game, to have two players gang up on one other non-aligned player, grab their sietch and win?

A few details are missing, but I've played enough times to probably guess what happened: the Harkonnen still controlled Carthag, right? And the Emperor had, at some point, performed his classic I'll-land-at-Habannya Ridge-because-no-one-else-is-there move, I'm assuming? That way, winning one battle gave you guys three strongholds and the win, if my assumptions are correct.

If that's the case, there's a few things that could be done differently for your next game, two of which are fairly common:

1. Use rule XVIII to increase the victory condition from three strongholds to four;

2. Tell your opponents to pay better attention.

I'm not trying to be too much of a penis with that last one; it's a valid point. Dune is a game that requires all players, allied or not, to pay attention and anticipate what might happen in the next turn or two, especially if one faction or alliance is within one stronghold of victory. For instance, depending on the turn order, anyone else at your table could have stopped you from even shipping to your winning sietch simply by dropping a single token there as a blocking move (Rule IX-C-1-C). It's arguably the most common move there is in Dune.

On the other hand, maybe it was just a short game. Dune, for all its built-in crunchy goodness, is an odd beast, and short games can and will happen. I played two over the summer that ended on Turn 3 or before.

Okay finally picked up a copy and i have a couple of questions.

1) Where do I find the rule about the storm NOT effecting Carthag and Arrakis 2) When a storm moves does it always remove tokens and spice from EVERY sector it passes over?

drmabuse00 wrote:

Okay finally picked up a copy and i have a couple of questions.

1) Where do I find the rule about the storm NOT effecting Carthag and Arrakis 2) When a storm moves does it always remove tokens and spice from EVERY sector it passes over?

The storm is not affecting Carthag and Arrakeen because they are Strongholds and the storm affects only sand terriories (except Imperial Basin). These territories are affected only after the blowing of Shield Wall by Family Atomics (as the other other strongholds are Sieches - underground complexes - while Carthag and Arrakeen are just cities). And the storm removes tokens and spice from every sand territory in every sector it passes over.

sydo wrote:

drmabuse00 wrote:

Okay finally picked up a copy and i have a couple of questions.

1) Where do I find the rule about the storm NOT effecting Carthag and Arrakis 2) When a storm moves does it always remove tokens and spice from EVERY sector it passes over?

The storm is not affecting Carthag and Arrakeen because they are Strongholds and the storm affects only sand terriories (except Imperial Basin). These territories are affected only after the blowing of Shield Wall by Family Atomics (as the other other strongholds are Sieches - underground complexes - while Carthag and Arrakeen are just cities).

that makes sense thematically but where in the rulebook does it make the distinction between Strongholds and Sietches?

And the storm removes tokens and spice from every sand territory in every sector it passes over.

Cool. thanks sydo

drmabuse00 wrote:

that makes sense thematically but where in the rulebook does it make the distinction between Strongholds and Sietches?

I don't see that the rules make that distinction anywhere, and it isn't needed anyway. The sietches and cities are all strongholds by virtue of being red territories on the board.

I got this sucker off ebay but haven't dragged it to game night yet because I'm waiting for a saturday session.

Questions:

Does it play well with 3? If we start it with 5 or 6, that practically guarantees a 7th person will show up. I'd rather start it with 3 or 4 and leave the other folks to play something less complex/less trashy if they wish.

How long will a 3 player game take? Can we finish in 3-4 hours?

Anybody got a suggested player aid? TOS is down

With no BGG Files section available, you can use: www.starbasejeff.com/dune_rules.asp

This guy is a Dune fanatic, he has a nice cleaned-up version of the rules and Player Aid pads. He's pretty uncompromising about which rules he plays with, so his stuff might only help to the degree that you agree with him about how the game should be played.

I got a copy of Dune off Ebay a year ago. I've only played twice, 2 2-player games. When I tried to pimp it at our monthly games marathon some people (who might have been playing Balloon Cup) said "I don't know if I want to play a heavy game". I guess 8 pages of rules translates to heavy game. I'll try to pimp it again soon, I know the group better and there's always around 4-6 people that are cool to game with wandering around after their main event game is over the second night. Maybe I'll get to play Dune as it was meant to be played.

JoelCFC25 wrote:

drmabuse00 wrote:

that makes sense thematically but where in the rulebook does it make the distinction between Strongholds and Sietches?

I don't see that the rules make that distinction anywhere, and it isn't needed anyway. The sietches and cities are all strongholds by virtue of being red territories on the board.

Yes, the rules don't make a difference between a sietch and a stronghold but it fits well thematically: Family atomics states that after using it, Imperial Basin and both Arrakeen and Carthag are vulnerable to storm (because it was the Shield wall that protected them from its deadly effects).

Tom, I tried to play Dune with 3 or 4 but it just isn't Dune. I believe you need all factions in play for the game to be balanced as every faction has its own duties to perform (for example, the Guild is excellent in preventing others from an early win with its ability to launch a massive force anywhere). We tried it with 5 and it was playable but there was definitely something missing.
www.starbasejeff.com is awesome! And I really recommend the way he is playing - max 2 player alliances, no advanced rules, all optional rules. And just the basic treachery cards with maybe Residual Poison thrown in for some bluffing.

That website does kick ass. I will wait until we can get exactly 6 players for it.