Rex is actually pretty awful

I don't want to get too much into this discussion as I'm going to review the game, although realistically probably not for a month or two yet.

But as regards the hidden information thing. Firstly, yes, it's Dune, point taken that it's entirely in keeping with the games' superb interpretation of the theme of the books. Doesn't mean I have to like it though. And yes, you can have too much hidden information - I didn't think so until I played Dune. But the level of paranoia just did my head in - I had nothing to work with, nothing, just scraps and teases here and there and I found it more frustrating than enjoyable. Even in games with more backstabbing - like Diplomacy - you know you can trust no-one. You can't even be sure of that in Dune.

It's possible that Rex may actually be a better game for me, in spite of other comparative shortcomings.

MattDP wrote: Even in games with more backstabbing - like Diplomacy - you know you can trust no-one. You can't even be sure of that in Dune.

Confused about what that means on so many levels. On the Diplomacy level, despite how anyone may have played as a teenager thinking how awesome it is to just lie to everyone, being honest the majority of the time is by *far* the best strategy.

But I'm looking forward to your Rex review, and I've read your Dune review, so I know about your "too much hidden information" complaint, it just always struck me as nonsense, really meaning "this game's combat is NOTHING like any other game's combat, and is therefore bad". Those EON guys knew their way around pure player interaction, psychology, and bluff like no one else. Play a few rounds of Hoax and it'll seem like Dune is abundant in open information.

I have a friend who is a MASTER Diplomacy player. He's pretty much the best I've ever seen in ANY negotiation game- this guy is about as slick-tongued as the devil himself. But he NEVER lies in any game, and he NEVER does anything underhanded or unannounced. It's RIDICULOUS. This man wins every negotiation game he plays simply by being honest.

As for Dune, the hidden information is ALWAYS revealed over the course of the game though. That's part of the risk in playing weapons or defenses- you show that you have them. So you might win a fight with the lasgun, but then you've shown that you have it. Then the next guy decides to defend against you with a shield...*pop*

Same with traitors, predictions, etc...it all comes out in the wash, and part of the game is knowing when to pull your "reveal".

This is another reason why the useless cards are important. Judging by the card backs, everyone has the same relative card strength. But a player may be sitting on a Jubba Cloak, a Baliset, and a Trip to Gaumont. And if you're the Atreides player, you've know this because you've watched the cards get bid on and you've tried to manupulate the auction in favor of getting your allies the good cards.

But somebody in playtesting likely whined "Waaah! I spent all my money on a useless card, this game is buh-buh-buh-broken". And FFG listened. So now, no whammies. All cards do something good.

The whole point of the traitor thing is that they're hidden anyway- it's a HUGE surprise because it represents a massive betrayal (see: Doctor Yueh). There's not much else more awesome than a major battle ending with a traitor reveal. That's hidden information at its finest. Then there's the Harkonnen, that upend all of this with more traitors and sharing them. But that's a one-shot thing that doesn't even always happen.

Even things like the Wormsign are hardly unknowns...if you go to the spice blow, you might stir up a worm. Duh.

I'm not really seeing how there is much really hidden that isn't a)discoverable b) revealed or c) completely occuring in the metagame.

God damn it, I want to play Dune right now. Who wants to make me a set?

Oh it's just me. I find it hard to express. Put it this way: in Dune, when I've lost a battle by a margin I could have dialled originally, I find it so frustrating that the game ceases to be fun. Paying through the nose for worthless treachery cards are a part of that. Yes, I know, lighten up, just a game and so on but Dune is really, truly the only title that does that to me. It's got something to do with the way you can often pinpoint specifically when you've fucked up, and to a numeric margin of error, too: in Diplomacy you can't say to yourself that if you'd applied X points more persuasion you might have been saved from a backstabbing. The long play time doesn't help either - I'd find it easier to bite those bullets on a 2-3 hour game than a 4-6 hour one. This is why I'm initially hopefully Rex may prove a better game for me.

The thing that I think a lot of folks miss about the combat is that playing conservatively doesn't really pay off except in very specific strategic situations. If you've got 10 guys in a spot, don't dial two or three. Dial seven or eight. They're fairly easy to retrieve from the tanks (or "recruit" their dead bodies as Rex would have you do), and it's easy to mistake the game for an outright DoaM game...which it really isn't. Guys are VERY expendable in it, provided you can afford to ship them in. Or have friends in high places, so to speak.

The point of the combat system is that you commit however many guys you're willing to lose to win the fight over a spice blow (or an "unnamed miscellaneous resources" blow as Rex would have you do). You're saying "this is how much I want to win this fight, and this is what I'll effectively pay to do so". So yes, if you lose even though you had superior numbers, you can pinpoint where it happened. And it's either the result of cardplay, a traitor, or your own lack of commitment in that particular fight.

When I explain Dune to newbies, that's how I tell them the combat works. You dial up the number of people you're willing to lose. It gives the combat a sense of high stakes and also a gambling element. I think with the numbers people tend to think of it sometimes as more of a deterministic thing than it really is intended to be.

MattDP wrote: Oh it's just me. I find it hard to express. Put it this way: in Dune, when I've lost a battle by a margin I could have dialled originally, I find it so frustrating that the game ceases to be fun. Paying through the nose for worthless treachery cards are a part of that. Yes, I know, lighten up, just a game and so on but Dune is really, truly the only title that does that to me. It's got something to do with the way you can often pinpoint specifically when you've fucked up, and to a numeric margin of error, too: in Diplomacy you can't say to yourself that if you'd applied X points more persuasion you might have been saved from a backstabbing. The long play time doesn't help either - I'd find it easier to bite those bullets on a 2-3 hour game than a 4-6 hour one. This is why I'm initially hopefully Rex may prove a better game for me.

I know we just disagree, but you just keep listing all the most awesome things about Dune as drawbacks! In both of those cases, yes, when you screw up, it's because *you* screwed up, not because you rolled poorly or anything else: but simply because you didn't have a good enough read on your opponent. You couldn't tell that your Atreides player was fucking you over in the auction, that your battle opponent was going to go balls-out and dial everything, or that your opponent had that Lasgun-Shield gleam in their eye when they saw your big stack of dudes. Your opponents' eyes and nervous twitches are what you have to base your decisions on (well, and the advice of the Atreides if you're lucky).

I completely disagree with Barnes about the expendability of dudes in Dune, though; I found it one of the harshest games in that respect I've ever played. You blow 7-8 guys, it is literally impossible to get those guys back before three turns from now, and each turn is huge. Maybe that's our problem, maybe each turn shouldn't be so huge. And depending on your power, unless you're the Fremen blowing 7-8 guys is going to cost you 4-8 spice to get back, and your two remaining dudes can only harvest 4 spice total a turn. We're way more conservative with our dials unless we're going for the stronghold win, and even then we know that if you don't win the game on the spot, a big battle is going to take you out of the game for a few turns as you rebuild whether you win the battle or not.

dragonstout wrote: I completely disagree with Barnes about the expendability of dudes in Dune, though; I found it one of the harshest games in that respect I've ever played. You blow 7-8 guys, it is literally impossible to get those guys back before three turns from now, and each turn is huge.

I agree with you 100% on this. Losing a big stack is a crippling blow in Dune. You get a max of 3 revivals per turn (1 or more might be free depending on your faction), so recovery is slow and costly--spice is very limited, and you want to be winning treachery cards and be able to ship guys on to the planet, too.

JoelCFC25 wrote:

dragonstout wrote: I completely disagree with Barnes about the expendability of dudes in Dune, though; I found it one of the harshest games in that respect I've ever played. You blow 7-8 guys, it is literally impossible to get those guys back before three turns from now, and each turn is huge.

I agree with you 100% on this. Losing a big stack is a crippling blow in Dune. You get a max of 3 revivals per turn (1 or more might be free depending on your faction), so recovery is slow and costly--spice is very limited, and you want to be winning treachery cards and be able to ship guys on to the planet, too.

Those bore itself out in Rex as well. Our first game, everyone was deploying pretty much all their guys in the first turn. After a huge bulk to those were lost, the Hacan/Guild made out really well.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention the 7-8 spice MINIMUM to put 7-8 guys back on the board. So there is actually no spice blow in the game that is ever worth dialing 7-8 for, except purely to deny someone else of spice.

This discussion really bums me out. I was really hoping I'd have an opportunity for the "Dune experience" since I'm not willing to blow big $$ on a 30 year-old beat up game and I don't know anyone that has a copy. If the game had been better put together I probably could have forgiven the lame theme. The problem is I really love the Dune theme. I read most of the books when I was a kid. So the lame theme plus questionable changes pretty much have just taken this off my list until convinced otherwise.

At least the Nexus Ops reprint is solid if ugly. I can live without the dayglo minis.

One of you guys with too much time on your hands should make me an PnP copy of Dune. I'll pay and the Herbert folks will never need to know about it...