Dune: Imperium

Here is how to play the game, structured step by step based on the available rules.

Setup

To set up the game, follow these steps:

• Each player takes a Leader, places it in front of them, and takes a 10-card starting deck, shuffling it and placing it face down in their supply to the left of their Leader (p. 5, 23).
• Place the game board in your play area, along with components like the Mentat, Alliance tokens, the Intrigue Deck, and the Imperium Deck with five face-up cards forming the Imperium Row (p. 4, 9).
• Place Reserve cards in three stacks (Arrakis Liaison, The Spice Must Flow, and Foldspace) next to the Imperium Row (p. 9).
• Each player chooses a color, places two Agents on their Leader (keeping their third Swordmaster Agent next to the board), places a disc on the Score track and Combat track, and places four cubes on the bottom of the four Faction Influence tracks (p. 16).
• Players take 1 water, place 3 troops in their circular garrison, and keep remaining components in their supply (p. 16).
• Determine a first player randomly to take the First Player marker (p. 16).

How a Round and Turns Work

The game is played in a series of rounds, and each round consists of five phases in order: Round Start, Player Turns, Combat, Makers, and Recall (p. 8).

During Phase 1: Round Start, a new Conflict card is revealed from the deck, and each player draws five cards from their deck to form their hand (p. 8).

During Phase 2: Player Turns, starting with the first player and going clockwise, players take one turn at a time (p. 8). On your turn, you take either an Agent turn or a Reveal turn:

• Agent Turn: Play one card from your hand face up to send an Agent from your Leader to an unoccupied board space matching one of the card's Agent icons (p. 9). You must pay any board space costs, and you receive the effects of both the board space and the card's Agent box (p. 9, 11). If you send an Agent to a Combat space, you may also deploy troops to the Conflict (p. 11).
• Reveal Turn: When you run out of Agents (or choose not to use remaining ones), you take a Reveal turn (p. 12). You reveal all remaining cards in your hand, resolve their Reveal box effects and use accumulated Persuasion to acquire new cards, total your strength for the Combat, and then clean up (p. 12).

After all players take their Reveal turns, the round proceeds through Combat, Makers (where bonus spice accumulates on unoccupied Maker spaces), and Recall (where players return Agents to their Leaders) (p. 13, 22).

How the Game Ends

The Endgame is triggered if any player reaches 10 or more Victory Points on the Score track, or if the Conflict Deck is empty (p. 22). When triggered, players may play and resolve any Endgame Intrigue cards, and whoever has the most Victory Points is declared the winner (p. 13).