Dune: Imperium – Bloodlines Design Diary 3: Ixian Technology

November 21, 2024

Dune: Imperium – Bloodlines is the latest expansion for both Dune: Imperium and Dune: Imperium – Uprising. It’s available for pre-order now, and will hit your Friendly Local Game Store in early 2025.

It’s time to talk Tech tiles, and you can’t talk Tech tiles without talking about Dune: Imperium’s first expansion Rise of Ix, where they were first introduced. Bloodlines provides a new Tech Module to serve them up again. If you’re ready to upgrade your arsenal, let’s dive in!

Let’s Get Technical

Tech tiles can be purchased for spice, lending even more in-game importance to the most valuable substance in the known universe. Each tile has a unique ability; they can provide resources, combat power, or even precious victory points. Many also come with immediate benefits (shown below the cost) that can help you set up your next move. They’re big investments, but they’re powerful and reliable, and the right Tech tile at the right time can turn a game.

Welcome to the Embassy

In Bloodlines, Tech tiles cost spice, but you can’t just snap them up whenever you want. You can only acquire a tile when you take an action that allows it. In Rise of Ix, that usually comes from the Tech Negotiation and Dreadnought board spaces, or from the Shipping track — and if you’re playing with that expansion, the new Bloodlines Tech tiles can just be mixed directly into your existing pool for more variety. After all, there are always new inventions to be discovered!

However, if you use the Bloodlines Tech Module, you’ll be taking advantage of the Ixian Embassy, a new board kept to the side of the main board. Just like in Rise of Ix, the Embassy will offer three stacks of Techs, with the top tile of each available for purchase. However, instead of being tied to specific board spaces, the Embassy is open to anyone who sends an Agent to a Landsraad space during their turn. In addition to the normal effects of the board space, you may purchase one Tech tile for its cost in spice.

And for those seeking deals, there’s even a chance to get a discount on your purchases. Any player with a seat on the High Council pays 1 less spice for any Tech tile they acquire from the Embassy. Unlike Negotiators from Rise of Ix, this is a permanent discount that applies to every Tech you acquire, so your connections at the Embassy can set up a long-term strategic advantage.

With all that groundwork out of the way, we can finally get to the hardware. Let’s see some new tiles!

Inventions Abound

Designing new Tech tiles is both exciting and daunting. The possibility space is wider than for Imperium cards and even Intrigue cards, because you have access to your Tech tiles for the rest of the game, even at unusual times like between rounds or during the endgame. Finding the right Tech abilities can be a real puzzle; we want each tile to add something new for players to experience.

Sometimes, we get to create new ways to use familiar pieces. For instance, the Signet Ring card is iconic, but it has its limitations. And stealing an intrigue card at Secrets can be a huge move, but it comes at the cost of not being able to enter the Conflict… unless you’ve developed the right Tech to circumvent that problem.

Other times, we want to turn the play experience on its head and give players a completely new angle to pursue. Take Forbidden Weapons for example – this Tech provides a lot of combat power for only a couple of spice, but it comes with steep political consequences: you lose one influence every round! But that’s obviously not so bad if you weren’t bothering with politics in the first place, and don’t have influence to lose. So if you commit early, you can dominate early Conflicts extremely hard and stockpile a ton of rewards (and battle icons).

On the other hand, if Forbidden Weapons appears in the late game when the Conflict stakes are at their highest, a leftover influence from an Alliance race may suddenly be a small price to pay. And some leaders may find that losing influence can actually be a benefit…

When is a drawback not a drawback?

Another new angle can be seen on Advanced Data Analysis. Acquiring this Tech tile costs not only spice, but you must also trash one of your deployed Spies, returning it to the game box in exchange for a steady flow of Intrigue cards. Giving up a Spy permanently is a significant cost, and one that we haven’t had a chance to use before — but Tech tiles give us the room to challenge players with such a choice.

Each round, you can “flip” this Tech tile to draw an Intrigue card. It flips back at the start of the next round.

You’ve probably noticed that both Forbidden Weapons and Advanced Data Analysis use mechanics from Dune: Imperium – Uprising. In all, six of the techs in Bloodlines use Uprising-specific mechanics; the other 12 are fully compatible with the base game, like these:

Gene-Locked Vault was a particular favorite of mine during testing (especially when playing the new leader Piter De Vries). Its acquire effect was originally only an Intrigue card, but it got a quality-of-life buff after playtesters kept stumbling on an awkward situation: a player already holding four Intrigue cards would see the Tech, want its protection, and buy it — only to find themselves now holding five cards and still at risk! The Tech wasn’t properly helping in the situation where you needed it most, and that was a real drawback. We considered raising the protection to five cards, but that came very close to total immunity, and having to manage a stockpile that big can really slow the game down. We decided to allow players to draw a card from their deck instead, giving them an opportunity to get out from between the crosshairs.

Let the Games Begin

Whether this is your first time with Dune: Imperium Tech tiles or you’re expanding on your Ix experience (Ix-perience?), we hope you’ll find some new and exciting stuff to play with in Bloodlines. We’re thrilled that you’ll be getting your hands on it soon!

-Andy Clautice

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