Dune: Imperium – Uprising Design Diary 4: Contracts

In the last Design Diary, we snuck a peek at the power of the new Spy mechanic as a way to keep your agent placement options open. But even the most loyal agents need to get paid, so today, we’re taking a look at the valuable Contracts system in Dune: Imperium – Uprising and how the new CHOAM Module works.

Contracts was one of the first systems designed for Uprising. I wanted to push further into one of the central challenges that Dune: Imperium asks of its players: which cards do you want to use, and which board spaces do you want to visit? Contracts are very much tied to those core questions by allowing you to receive benefits for sending Agents to specific board spaces. Here’s how they work:

• At the start of the game, the contract tiles are shuffled, face down. Two are revealed and placed on the game board, the rest remain in the bank.

The contract icon

• When you trigger the contract icon, you’ll take one of the two face-up contracts, and then reveal a new one from the bank to replace it. Typically, you’ll trigger this icon from either the Emperor or CHOAM areas of the game board. Contracts you take are placed in front of you.

• When you complete a contract, you’ll turn it face down and receive the printed reward. For most contracts, completion requires simply visiting the board space indicated by the contract. For example, after you’ve taken this contract, the next time you visit Deliver Supplies, you’ll gain 3 Solari and turn the contract face down – each contract can only be completed once.
• Some contracts ask you to harvest a certain amount of spice. For these contracts, you must dispatch your harvesters into the spice-rich deserts of Arrakis (i.e., send an Agent to a Maker board space) and gain the indicated amount of spice to complete the Contract.

As an example, if you send your Agent to the Imperial Basin using the Smuggler’s Harvester card, you’ll complete the Harvest 3+ contract if the Imperial Basin has at least one bonus spice.

• A little over half of the contracts provide Solari rewards, but other rewards are on the table, too. Here are some other contracts:

• There are two “oddball” contracts in the game that don’t ask you to visit board spaces.

I bet you can guess precisely how both these contracts work. If not, please lodge a complaint with your local CHOAM Delegate. Or ask us about it on our Discord.

Now that we know the fundamentals about how contracts work, let’s talk about some of their pros and cons. In my mind, the best thing about contracts is the re-playability they add to the game. It’s more difficult to stick to a favorite set of opening moves when two randomly-selected contracts are on the row, tipping the scales on the payoff for different strategies. Sometimes, those early contracts might provide a significant economic boost that you’ll want to pursue. But if you do so, remember that competitive opponents can factor your goals into their decision-making. If you take the Deliver Supplies contract, when do you think you’ll be able to send an Agent to Deliver Supplies? It might take a while, depending on where the First Player marker is and how aggressively your opponents look to block you.

One potential drawback with contracts is the risk for “goal overload” that new players can experience. By themselves, contracts are not that complex. But Uprising brings several new things to the Dune: Imperium table, and for some players contracts may feel like one too many things to juggle.

That’s why we decided to make contracts a modular, optional element of Uprising that we call the CHOAM Module. We highly recommend playing a “no contracts” game or two to get comfortable with Uprising and then adding them in. For games with no CHOAM Module, the alternative is quite simple: every time you trigger the contract icon, you gain 2 Solari.

This is what is printed on the board. If you don’t place contracts here, there is a reminder of the basic rule of collecting 2 Solari when you trigger a contract icon.

Once you add the CHOAM Module into the mix, you’ll be able to shuffle in four additional Imperium cards, four additional Intrigue cards, and one leader. These are all marked clearly with a CHOAM Module icon in their top left corners, and they all refer to contracts in some way. Some give you additional methods of picking up contracts, and some reward you for your mercantile accomplishments.

Rise of Ix and the CHOAM Module

For players who integrate the Rise of Ix expansion with Uprising, there are an additional ten special Rise of Ix contracts included in the game. The Rise of Ix board overlay covers up one of the contract spaces, which significantly changes how many contracts players can acquire.

At the start of the game, Rise of Ix contracts are shuffled. Each player looks at two and chooses one to start the game with. One thing that’s different about all of these “starter” contracts is that the reward for completing them always includes taking another contract. This allows the number of contracts able to be completed to be in the same ballpark as an Uprising game without Rise of Ix.

Here’s a look at several of these special Rise of Ix contracts. As you can see, some of them refer to board spaces that only become available when Rise of Ix is added.

Introducing the Padishah Emperor

Uprising comes with nine leaders. One of them – Shaddam Corrino IV AKA the Emperor of the Known Universe – requires the CHOAM Module. This is because when you play as Shaddam, you alone have access to the two Sardaukar contracts (because the Sardaukar swear loyalty to the Emperor).

Note that you are allowed to “stack” contracts for the same board space: one visit to that board space will complete both contracts.

Shaddam’s Signet Ring can be a mixed blessing. On one hand, gaining a Solari and a troop is a very potent effect early in the game. On the other hand, when Shaddam plays his Signet, no units can be deployed to the Conflict on his turn, so Shaddam often has to make strategic “setup” turns. The second option, to pay Solari to gain influence on the Signet Ring can become a powerful political tool later in the game.

Shaddam’s abilities both tend to line up with the story of Dune, where the Emperor was scheming in the background for quite some time. But, Shaddam can really make his mark on the late game if he can line things up properly.

Now you’re ready to sign your name on the dotted line for the new contracts of Uprising!

We’ll have more to come, including how Uprising works in Solo mode, with 2 players…and going BIG with the new six player mode!

Until next time: Long live the Fighters!

– Paul Dennen

Go Deeper on Uprising!

Ready to learn more? Dig into Dune: Imperium – Uprising in the full Design Diary series!

Dune: Imperium - Uprising Design Diaries
Dune: Imperium - Uprising
Sandworms, Conflicts and the Shield Wall
Spies
Contracts
Leaders
Six-Player Mode
Solo, Two-Player and Companion App Modes

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