Before you can learn how to play Dune: Imperium on Tabletop Simulator, you'll need to have access to a mod or workshop item that allows you to play the game. For the purposes of this guide, we recommend using the workshop item provided in the link we mentioned earlier.



To install and create a game using this workshop item, follow these steps:

Close Tabletop Simulator.

1. Go to the workshop page and subscribe to the item.
   
2. Wait for Steam to update Tabletop Simulator.
   
3. Open Tabletop Simulator.
   
4. Click on "Create."
   
5. Click on "Multiplayer."

Choose your preferred settings and click "Create Server."
You're done! You can now invite your friends and start playing.

Before we start setting up the game, there are two important Topics we have to go through: color selection and board overview.

The first step is for each player to choose a color from the available options: red 🔴, blue 🔵, green 🟢, or yellow 🟡. It's essential for every player to select a color as each color represents a fixed position on the board. For instance, if you choose red 🔴, you will always occupy the top-left corner of the board.

! It's crucial to note that switching colors is identical to switching seats !




Additionally, we have two other colors - grey ⚪ and black ⚫. Grey ⚪ is for spectators who want to watch the game without interfering, while black ⚫ is perfect for teaching and learning purposes. The person with the black color can see all cards and intrigues in the players' hands, also making it easier to comment on the game in competitive games.

Once every player has chosen a color, we can move on to the board overview.

In this guide, I will not be explaining how to play Dune: Imperium. Instead, I will be guiding you on how to play the game on Tabletop Simulator using the workshop item that I have mentioned earlier. This means that you should already be familiar with the rules of Dune: Imperium and its expansions if you plan on playing with them.

However, if you have never played Dune: Imperium before, do not be discouraged! You can watch some gameplay videos on YouTube to become familiar with the rules, and then persuade your friends to join you for a game either in real life or on Tabletop Simulator. If you choose the latter, you can still read my guide and find it helpful.

The Rules of the Base Game, all the expansions and more information can be found in TTS under the game board. I will also link the official pdfs here:

• Base Game[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• Rise of IX[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• Immortality[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• FAQ[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• Player Aids[www.direwolfdigital.com]

After successfully creating or joining the game as per the instructions provided earlier, your screen should now display something similar to the following:



This section of the guide will provide a comprehensive overview of all the spaces and areas that you will encounter while playing the game, along with the currently available scripting options. To make things simpler, I will divide each board space into specific segments and walk you through each one. The segments include:

• Non-Scripted Area: These are places or objects on the board that require manual interaction in order to play the game.
  
• Buttons: These are fully scripted buttons that aid in gameplay and make it more seamless overall. It's worth noting that some buttons may have additional functions built into them.
  
• Fully Scripted Area: This is the board space that does not require any interaction from the player. Other places on the board that are scripted will automatically use or interact with this area.
  
• Fully Scripted Area that you still have to interact with: These are places on the board that are typically fully automated through other scripts, but may still require manual interaction from time to time.

If the segments and their explanation seem confusing, don't worry - I will provide ample examples for each segment in order to ensure that every player fully understands each board space.


The first thing you do, when starting a new Session of Dune: Imperium is choosing a Leader. The Leader selection board space should look something like this:

Note that there are only three buttons on this space. Select Combat Sound, Sound and Claim Leader.

• Select Combat Sound let's you change the Sound that plays when every Player had passed their reveal turn. To indicate the beginning of combat.
  
• Sound let's you choose if you want the Sound to play in the first plays
  
• Claim Leader activates a script that, by clicking the Button, will automatically place the Leader on your Player Board Space and will add and or deduct any the starting resources from you that will come with that Leader (example: The Beast, Princess Yuna).

Probably the most important board space, excluding the spice spaces of course ;)
You and all other players will pay close attention to each others player board space, so it's good to know what everything does, so it doesn't fly over your head when people start to draw 4 cards, add 2 spice, 2 solaris and 3 troops to their garrison.

The board space will look something like this:

Note that i haven't chosen a Leader yet, so the designated field is empty.

I will highlight the spaces with a white outline, that are part of the segments that i described earlier.

#################################################################################

• Non-Scripted Area:
  To draw cards from your deck, you can use the designated buttons for drawing either 5 cards or 1 card at a time. However, if you need to perform a specific action that falls outside of those options, you'll need to do it manually.
  
  It's important to note that if you ever find yourself needing to draw new cards but there are none available, the cards from your discard pile will automatically be reshuffled and restocked into your deck if you press the before mentioned Buttons.
  
  You'll need to place your agents and cards for your agent turn yourself. If you're playing with the "Rise of IX" expansion, you'll also need to manually place the techs you've bought in the designated area, or anywhere else you prefer.
  
  
  
  
• Buttons
  
  The buttons are pretty self-explanatory and do exactly what is written on them. However, the resources buttons are different because they not only serve as scriptable buttons but also function as a counter for the player's resources.
  
  The orange hexagon represents spice, the silver circle represents solaris, and the teardrop represents water. To increase a resource counter, simply left-click on the corresponding button. If you need to decrease the counter, right-click on the button instead.
  
  If you click the "Reveal Cards" button, all your cards in hand will be revealed. If you still have an agent left to play, it will first ask you if you're sure to early reveal.
  
  If you play with the immortality expansion, there is the "Atomics" button. It is a one-time use button, that resets the Imperium row.
  
  
  
  
• Fully Scripted Area
  
  If you have the most swords in combat, the script will automatically add your banner to the city that was fought over. However, you can manually change it if necessary.
  
  When you click "Claim Leader" at the leader selection space, your leader will automatically be placed on the empty middle space. Currently, only one leader has an interactive button, and that is Paul, whose button is named after his signet-ring ability. Clicking the button lets you look at the card on top of your deck.
  
  If you're playing with the "Rise of IX" expansion and you buy a dreadnought, it will automatically be placed in your garrison. The only time you need to manually put it in your garrison is when you play the "Advanced Weaponry" intrigue."
  
  
  
  
• Fully Scripted Area that you still have to interact with
  
  When you, for example, play an intrigue or buy a tech, you need to manually add troops to your garrison. If you or someone else plays an intrigue or buy a tech with your negotiator you also have to put them back in your supply by hand. This can happen quite often.
  Most board spaces will automatically add troops to the garrison or remove them, but sometimes you may need to do it manually. Keep an eye on the chat to see what has been added or removed.
  
  Same goes with your gained VP(Victory Point) tokens. Advancing on an influence track will automatically add the token to your VP token space. However, if you earn a point by winning a combat, you'll need to manually take the point and place it on your VP space. We'll discuss Victory Points later in this guide, so don't worry about it for now.

Phew! We are finally done with the player space and can continue with the more exciting thing, the actual game board that we all know and love.


I won't go as in-depth as i did on the player board space, since the board is really simple and straightforward.

Non-Scripted Area
There is currently no board space, without some sort of script. The only manual thing you have to do, are the things that happen or you get from the card you played.
If you want to add units into combat or put them back in the garrison, you also have to do it manually.

Rise of IX has "Tech Negotiations" board space, where you manually have to take a tech and manually deduct the spice you need to pay from your resources. For adding or removing a negotiator, you can use the buttons.

Buttons
Every board space has a scripted button, that will take/give you resources and/or something else.

Fully scripted Area
The first player token will be set on the starting player and passed around automatically.

Fully Scripted Area that you still have to interact with
The Faction Influence track will advance automatically of the faction you send your agent to, if you click "get" or "pay & get". However, if you use a card effect, an intrigue, a leader ability, etc. you have to manually click the up and down arrows next to the Factions influence track depending on your activated effect, ability, etc..



On your reveal turn, you'll need to manually click on the "acquire" button, under the card you want to buy, on the imperium row or in the middle if it is a reserve card. The card you've bought will be put directly on top of your discard pile. If you have an intrigue, ability, or tech that allows you to put it on top of your deck, you'll need to do that manually.

If you're playing as Helena Richesse, you can put the card you've set aside with your signet-ring above the Imperium Row Deck.

It's important to note that the game doesn't check or count how many Persuasion points you've collected. You'll need to count them yourself and then click on the card you want to acquire. If you're unsure, ask your fellow players how many points you've collected.


Similiar to the imperium Row, you can acquire cards, and it will put them directly on top of your discard pile. If you choose to use the "Reclaimed Forces" card and either get 2 troops or a scarab, you simple have to press "pay & get" next to the symbols. It will automatically deduct your specimans and add the troops or advance the players disc on the Bene Tleilax track.

Setting up is probably the easiest thing to do, as there is a button for everything. But wait, what do all the available options mean??



If you want to play a normal game without any expansions, unmark every option and click on the big "Setup" button. Done! you can now start playing.

However, if you plan on adding some "spice" to your game, you might want a quick explaining on what the available options are.


Rise of IX - Enables the Rise of IX expansion
Immortality - Enables the Immortality expansion


In no particular order we have:
Epic Mode - This mode exchanges your "Dune - Desert Planet" cards and the VP to end the game is increased to 13! You'll find a greater explanation in the Rise of Ix Rules PDF.
Clock Mode - ###
Blitz Mode - ###
Hidden Picks - An amount of leaders (standard is 6) will be randomly removed. All player lose the ability to see the available leaders. The player who is starting last, can select a leader first (the one starting third, can choose second and so on). The leader he picked will be invisible to all other players. He will then again lose the ability to see the available leader cards until everybody else picked a leader. This ensures fairness, as the last player usually has a clear disadvantage when it comes to competitive games, but with hidden picks, he can put the odds slightly into his favor by seeing the currently available choice of leaders.
Black Market - Will add a second Imperium Row called "Black Market". It will make 3 Cards available to buy with your persuasion on your reveal turn. However, instead of staying, the cards on the Black Market will be exchanged to new cards at the start of the next round.

Tournament - You will have the options to put in your tournament token. It will also show all final stats => Spice, Solaris, Water and VP's at the end of the Game into a neet list.
Scoreboard - Awesome when recording a match. Will show the current VP's of all players.


If you've chosen a Setup, simply click on the big "Setup" button and the game will automatically shuffle all cards and reveal the imperium row. It also reveals the tleilaxu row and techs if you play with the expansions. You made it! You're playing Dune: Imperium on TTS! Awesome!

To choose a leader, simply click on "Claim Leader", and you're done!
When you select a leader, it will add what you would get at the start of the game automatically.



There are fanmade leaders available to play. There are located above the leaders of the official releases.

I've sadly never played with fanmade leaders, but i'd love to try them out.

After each player has chosen their leaders, don't forget to press "reveal first conflict" to, well, reveal what the first combat is about.

I quickly went over agent placing in the Board Overview section when we discussed the avail- and unavailable scripts. This will be a quick recap and i'll go more in-depth between the unscripted board spaces.

When you want to place your agent, simply play a card and put it on an available space on the board. After that either press the "get" or "pay & get" button. That's that. The script should deduct the resources you need to spend, to go to that board space and adds any resources you would get when visiting that space.
There are exceptions. Some spaces that don't have the "get" or "pay & get" buttons, let's take a look at them.

The Base is quite simple in mechanics, and most spaces are pretty straightforward. Telling you to pay this to get that or to just go here to get this.

However, there is only one board space, that has the button "pay" under it. The button will take your spice, but won't draw the cards for you. The reason for this is simple, you have to trash a card before you draw the 2 cards. And since there is no script for trashing, we will have to do the trashing manually and then, also manually, draw 2 cards from our deck.

In Rise of IX there are 4 spaces that you have to look out for when deploying your agent.Let's start with the green ones above the Freighter Track. "Tech Negotiation", gives you a persuasion point AND either let's you buy a tech for -1 the cost or put in a negotiator below the "Dreadnought" space that will reduce the cost of a tech the next time you buy one.
Since there is no script for auto buying techs, like with the imperium row, you have to manually pay for the tech by removing the resources and place the tech somewhere on your player board. Yikes.
Luckily, it goes uphill from here. The space below "Dreadnought" automatically removes 3 solaris from your resources and places a Dreadnought in your garrison. Again, only buying a tech requires manual labor.

The Freighter Fleet under both of the green spaces, has some pretty confusing symbols when you play for the first time.

We see next to the "Interstellar Shipping" space two arrows up "↑↑", one arrow up & two arrows down "↑ + ↓↓" and two arrows down and one up "↓↓ + ↑". This is simply a simplification. If you press "↑↑" your freighter will go up 2 spaces on the shipping track. If you press "↑ + ↓↓" your freighter will go up 1 space and all the way down on the shipping track. Lastly, "↓↓ + ↑" will make your freighter go down all the way and up 1 space on the shipping track.

If you smuggle, you have two options; "get + ↑" or "get + ↓↓". "get" will automatically give you 1 Solaris (or two if you're a princess) and arrow up ↑ and will, again, move your freighter one time on the shipping track. Two arrows down ↓↓ always means "all the way down".
Under the freighter track are also ↓↓ + ↑ buttons. These are for manually moving your freighter. For example; When you're Hundro and spend 1 Spice for your signet-ring ability you would press ↑ under the freighter track to make it go up or ↓↓ if you want to make it go all the way down.

Immortality added one new board space to send your agents to, it replaces "Research Station" in the base game.

Removing a card to draw and adding a research symbol that let's you advance on the research track. The card draw is scripted, but you have to move your research token on the research track manually.

Revealing is really easy, you just have to press "Reveal Turn" on your player space, and all the cards in your hand will be placed on the reveal space at the bottom of your player space and above your name.


Remember to count every persuasion point you get from cards, intrigues, High seat, card and signet-ring abilities, techs and board spaces. I personally scale up (<+> on the Keyboard) the techs and intrigues for as long as i have them, so i don't forget.

Then "acquire" the cards you want. If you "acquire" a card, for example: "Spice must Flow", you automatically get a victory point on your players victory point track. But some cards like "Lady Jessica" are not automated. So pay close attention to what you get, and what you don't get.



Everything in the reveal box has to be taken manually. In the case above, if you were the Beast, you would have to take 2 Solaris, 2 Spice, put two troops from your supply directly into combat, advance 1 space on the freighter track and get 3 swords. Pretty good reveal, i'd say.

Combat in this workshop is pretty self explanatory, the swords get calculated automatically when troops are added. Note that the swords will not be re-calculated when removing units to your garrison or supply. You have to adjust it manually or use this simple trick: Take any unit, place it back in the garrison and deploy it again. Your sword count should now reflect your units in combat. Don't forget to add the swords you get from your reveal turn!

(You also manually move the sword counter when adding swords through intrigues)



If all players have passed their turn for playing combat (red) intrigue cards, let every person take their VP's and/or resources. The winner has to put the Combat VP Token from above the conflict card to their own VP tracking space, and the other players their resources manually.
After that, someone needs to click "Makers Recall". Usually we let the winner do that, to give them the opportunity to play "if you win combat you get ###" intrigue cards.

After pressing "Makers Recall" the board resets. Mentat and Agents going back to their places, spice will be restocked and cards go on the discard pile & if needed will be reshuffled into a new deck. All scripted. Neet! Just have to draw 5 new cards.

Victory Points you get or lose when advancing or going down on a Factions Influence Track, will be automatically added or removed from your players Victory Point track.

Not automatically added are Victory Points you get from a conflict, a reveal box, an intrigue or a tech. You have to add those manually from above the game board to your players Victory Point track.

These are the available VP token. There is an individual one, for every possible VP you can acquire.


So now you know all of the gameplay aspects. At the end of the first round, it should look like this:


Or well.. something like this ;D

Depending on which mode you decided to play, the game has ended and you're ready to count finale intrigue cards VP's, tech VP'S and Spice to decide the Winner.

Take your Final VP tokens to your players VP track and compare with other players. I sure hope it is you!

And that's that.
If you did everything right it should look something like this:
Picture source: @fumbles on the Hidden Assets Discord Server.

This was rly fun to write. I know that at the start of the "Gameplay" section my writing became somewhat sluggish. I guess, i was getting tired. Well, but i'm still glad that it's finished.

This guide is not what i wanted to create, i actually wanted to make a guide on "how to win in Dune: Imperium" but then i saw that there is no guide for playing Dune: Imperium on TTS! I couldn't make a guide on how to win, if no one knows how to play!

So i hope you liked it, and i hope i see you when i write the other guide.

In case the first "Rules" section got skipped: The Rules of the Base Game, all the expansions and more information can be found under the game board. I will also link the official PDFs here:

• Base Game[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• Rise of IX[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• Immortality[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• FAQ[www.direwolfdigital.com]
  
• Player Aids[www.direwolfdigital.com]

This Section is for frequently asked questions. If any come up, i will add them in this section.

Is this guide finished?
"No. I will soon add a section for every expansion and try to update this guide as new features will be added by the workshop creators."

This Guide is by me. If you have any input, DM me on Discord.
Discord Username -> Artorias#0619

The Workshop Item is made by Murphy Zlaw & Alhazred.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2702663883
Thanks alot for the work you put into this!!

All Credit for Dune: Imperium goes to Paul Dennen, Dire Wolf Digital and all the artist who worked on it.
Official website: Dire Wolf Digital[www.direwolfdigital.com]
All trademarks, logos and copyrights are property of their respective owners.

Please support them by buying the original, if you don't already have.