Dune: Imperium Uprising is a standalone spinoff to Dune: Imperium that expands on that game’s blend of deck-building and worker placement, while introducing a new six-player mode that pits two teams against one other in the biggest struggle yet.

The Dune: Imperium expansions Rise of Ix and Immortality work with Uprising, as do almost all of the cards from the base game, and elements of Uprising can be used with Dune: Imperium.

The choices are yours. The Imperium awaits!

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Pirates of Maracaibo is a standalone game in the same franchise as 2019’s Maracaibo, and players who are familiar with that game will recognize some beloved concepts from the original. However, new players can jump right in with no prior knowledge of the original game as Pirates of Maracaibo is an independent game with a more accessible rule set. The game plays over three rounds in which you sail the Caribbean, hire crew, ally with other ships, explore the shore, amass the most treasure, and (ideally) retire to a secluded island as the most revered pirate in history. Cast off sailors and swashbucklers, cast off!

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No two games of Twilight Imperium are ever identical. At the start of each galactic age, the game board is uniquely and strategically constructed using 51 galaxy tiles that feature everything from lush new planets and supernovas to asteroid fields and gravity rifts. Players are dealt a hand of these tiles and take turns creating the galaxy around Mecatol Rex, the capital planet seated in the center of the board. An ion storm may block your race from progressing through the galaxy while a fortuitously placed gravity rift may protect you from your closest foes. The galaxy is yours to both craft and dominate.

A round of Twilight Imperium begins with players selecting one of eight strategy cards that both determine player order and give their owner a unique strategic action for that round. These may do anything from providing additional command tokens to allowing a player to control trade throughout the galaxy. After these roles are selected, players take turns moving their fleets from system to system, claiming new planets for their empire, and engaging in warfare and trade with other factions. At the end of a turn, players gather in a grand council to pass new laws and agendas, shaking up the game in unpredictable ways.

After every player has passed their turn, players move up the victory track by checking to see whether they have completed any objectives throughout the turn and scoring them. Objectives are determined by setting up ten public objective cards at the start of each game, then gradually revealing them with every round. Every player also chooses between two random secret objectives at the start of the game, providing victory points achievable only by the holder of that objective. These objectives can be anything from researching new technologies to taking your neighbor’s home system. At the end of every turn, a player can claim one public objective and one secret objective. As play continues, more of these objectives are revealed and more secret objectives are dealt out, giving players dynamically changing goals throughout the game. Play continues until a player reaches ten victory points.

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As a leader of one of the Great Houses of the Landsraad, raise your banner and marshal your forces and spies. War is coming, and at the center of the conflict is Arrakis – Dune, the desert planet.

Dune: Imperium uses deck-building to add a hidden-information angle to traditional worker placement.

You start with a unique leader card, as well as deck identical to those of your opponents. As you acquire cards and build your deck, your choices will define your strengths and weaknesses. Cards allow you to send your Agents to certain spaces on the game board, so how your deck evolves affects your strategy. You might become more powerful militarily, able to deploy more troops than your opponents. Or you might acquire cards that give you an edge with the four political factions represented in the game: the Emperor, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the Fremen.

Unlike many deck-building games, you don’t play your entire hand in one turn. Instead, you draw a hand of cards at the start of every round and alternate with other players, taking one Agent turn at a time (playing one card to send one of your Agents to the game board). When it’s your turn and you have no more Agents to place, you’ll take a Reveal turn, revealing the rest of your cards, which will provide Persuasion and Swords. Persuasion is used to acquire more cards, and Swords help your troops fight for the current round’s rewards as shown on the revealed Conflict card.

Defeat your rivals in combat, shrewdly navigate the political factions, and acquire precious The Spice Must Flow cards to lead your House to victory!

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The rules are simple. Each turn, players have two options:

• play one of their chips to avoid picking up the current face-up card
• pick up the face-up card (along with any chips that have already been played on that card) and turn over the next card

However, the choices aren’t so easy as players compete to have the lowest score at the end of the game. The deck of cards is numbered from 3 to 35, with each card counting for a number of points equal to its face value. Runs of two or more cards only count as the lowest value in the run – but nine cards are removed from the deck before starting, so be careful looking for connectors. Each chip is worth -1 point, but they can be even more valuable by allowing you to avoid drawing that unwanted card.

The first versions of the game supported up to five players, but a 2011 edition supports up to seven.

This game was originally published in Germany by Amigo as Geschenkt …ist noch zu teuer!, meaning Even given as a gift, it is still too expensive!. Amigo’s international edition, titled No Merci! (a delightful multi-lingual pun), had rules in several languages, including English. The game has subsequently been released in other countries under an assortment of names.

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