Dune: Imperium – Uprising Design Diary 3: Spies

September 13, 2023

The spy system in Uprising came about while I was brainstorming ways to expand upon the core Dune: Imperium mechanic of using cards to send Agents to board spaces. We’ve done infiltration mechanics since the earliest days of Dune: Imperium, with the classic examples being the Intrigue card called “Infiltrate” and a leader (Helena Richese) who can always infiltrate to City and Landsraad board spaces. Then we added more infiltration cards in Rise of Ix and Immortality because it’s a fun mechanic that resonates with the Dune universe’s DNA.

With Uprising, I wanted to integrate infiltration in a different way. You won’t find any cards in Uprising that explicitly write out that kind of game text; instead, that effect is tied to spies. And spies get another ability, too. Here’s how they work:

Spy Icon

Whenever you trigger the spy icon, you place one of three spies from your personal supply onto the board, to an unoccupied observation post.
Infiltrate: You may recall one of your spies to send an Agent to a board space connected to that spy’s observation post, even if it contains another player’s Agent.
Gather Intelligence: When sending an Agent to a board space, you may recall a spy connected to that board space to draw a card. You must do this before triggering any effects from the board space and/or the card you played to send the Agent.

Those are the basics. Spies are great at letting you secure the ability to visit certain board spaces, and they’re also good at boosting your hand of cards in a pinch. If you’re building up your Solari for a Swordmaster or High Council seat, placing a spy on the Landsraad observation post connected to those board spaces could give you some peace of mind, if you’re racing other players for it. Spying on a faction can give you an edge if you’re in an alliance fight there. Skillful players will also use spies to Gather Intelligence at just the right times to draw into important cards and maybe even reach enough persuasion for The Spies Spice Must Flow.

In Uprising, the cost of getting a Swordmaster is 8 Solari for the first player who goes there, and then 6 Solari for everyone else. Spying on Swordmaster can be a way to allow someone else to pay the premium price, while allowing you to sneak your way in quickly for the discounted price.

As for triggering spy icons to place your spies, there’s only one board space that can do it: the Bene Gesserit’s Espionage board space.

The other ways are all from cards and Leaders. Sometimes a spy from a card has a restriction on where it can be placed. Lady Margot, for example, excels at placing spies on the cities of Arrakis. Reliable Informant is a Spacing Guild card that can embed a spy on any faction other than the Spacing Guild.

A New Agent Icon!

There’s also a new Spy agent icon that lets you send an Agent to any board space that your spies are currently observing. For example, Dangerous Rhetoric can always send an Agent to the green spaces of the Landsraad, but you can also send your Agent anywhere that you’ve planted a spy, which can be quite scary when your spies are watching the influence tracks…

Some Imperium cards only have a spy agent icon with no other agent icons. This adds some need for additional foresight and strategy to the game because you’ll want to place your spies at board positions that will provide useful plays for these cards in the future. (If your spies aren’t in position yet, these cards tend to have good reveal boxes to help set you up for the future.)

Some of these cards also provide a bonus “if you recalled a spy this turn.” This bonus can be collected whether you recalled your spy to gather intelligence or to infiltrate. Even though you have infiltration capabilities, opponents may still try to slow down your intelligence gathering efforts by forcing you to infiltrate if you want to pull off these tricks. And to pull off these tricks repeatedly, you’ll want to find a way to plant additional spies throughout the game; that may mean prioritizing the Espionage board space.

Twists and Turns

The Dune book series is chock full of intrigue, spies, and traitors. Spies as a mechanic are a nice way to lean into that aspect of the universe. But to go even deeper, I wanted to give spies the potential to play a part in surprising, exciting, and perhaps even pivotal moments in games. To do that, spies needed to be able to be expended as a resource for certain Intrigue cards.

The recall spy icon means you must return one of your spies from the board to your supply. It’s always used as a cost for an effect.

Each of these cards provide above average strength for an Intrigue card, if you’ve got one or two spies ready to be recalled. In the last design diary, we discussed sandworms and how the shield wall is an impediment to those powerful units reaching the critical locations on Arrakis. Visiting Sietch Tabr for one water and removing the Shield Wall can come with significant opportunity costs. But beware any player with maker hooks holding onto Intrigue cards, because they might just have a card, such as Special Mission, that will let them detonate the Shield Wall as a surprising turn of events.

Spies have been a very fun mechanic for Uprising playtesters during development. Part of the fun is how different each game can be. Depending on your leader and the cards you acquire, you might not place any spies at all. While in other games, you’ll juggle so many intelligence reports and infiltrate so many enemy positions that you might start to feel like a real spymaster. Speaking of which, does the figure in the background of Imperial Spymaster look familiar?