How to beat hard AI

[朝田 詩乃]

Yesterday and today, i purchased this game, because i have previously played with my friends, i want to share some useful knowledge in order to instruct everyone to play well and beat hard AI.
Firstly, the character you played is not that important, I nearly tried all characters except beast, i could tell there's no big difference when you are playing game. There's all a card could use the special ,but its depending on you to cycle it out.
So let's begin with the pentagon token places, in these places, you need go to swordmaster as soon as possible, eventhough it might appears not that important for one additional agents, but imagine u have a mentat, 3 agents, quisartz haderack and a intrigue card. So you can make you turn at 6 turns. Just imagine this, it's so incredible! Because when you have an additional agents, you could perform one more move each turn, and it really benefits a lot when you acquire it early. Another effect, +2 influence, i would say it worthwile but not that much. Hard mode AI always go to the +2 influence places, but I could get THE SPICE MUST FLOW not using it by going to the research station or Arrakean, or to the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.
Then, the triangle token, it mainly for you to harvest the spice, i think it is pretty much easy, because u spend most of your time getting spices, go to fremen to acquire enough water, so I would better skip it. However, there's the biggest difference is that selling melange, it's quite worth to discuss because using 2 spice is most appropriate, for you acquire 3 money for melange you take. Plus the war effect, you could get 8 and go to swordmaster.
The blue circle token , ithink its quite correlating with your TURN. It really depends on who's currently playing, at the prophase of the game, people go to arrakean or carthag to gain troops or to have intrigue cards, at the middle, people go to the place whcih gets water, and seldom go to the research station to acquire more cards, thus more influence.
The other parts, I thinnk, is much more easier to choose. You could just base on normal mode playing to gain some experience.

So lets then come to the topic: how to beat hard mode AI.
Take The harkonnen I played this afternoon. Harkonnen's best usage is to place the troops at 4 to acquire more influence on the left side. You need to do it as soon as possible, and I gain this effect at turn 2.
Every character has its own "extremely useful cards", for harkonnen its the 5 influence to double the effect you gain when you are going to the left side(I forgot the englishname lol). It really helps you to gain enoughVP, or to retrieve the alliance token back from the AI.(In my game, I use twice and snatch it from Duke Leto in Fremen.).
Also, when you are playing against AI, you need to calculate how to maximize your earnings, when you are deciding go to the mentat, you need to reconsider is it really worthy? For the character which gains one card when going to the pentaon area, it must worth, but for Beast or some other troops which doesnt rely on additional turns. For example, I lose to Paul Atredies which does not go to the swordmaster at the end of the game.
Another thing important is deciding your card to buy, many newcomers of this game usually bid lots and lots of cards, earning every one or twon influence cards. That's incorrect. Just think about this, you have a quisartz haderack, and your deck is in the total amount of 20. Consequently, u need to cycle it out for 2 or 3 turns in order to have it, less than you only have 12 cards and could constant cycle it out.
For the game like this, the core concept is cycling. Lady Jessica needs to be cycled out in order to gain 2 cards, Doctor Yue needs to be cycled out too. So it is very important to just make your deck compact and could make you earn much profit.
Finally, comming to the battle, I would say it is much better not to have a direct decision, because AI is stupid. The circumstances occurs when the troops are 20 10 2. I am the 2, and I gain one water, which enables me to go to the research station to cycle out cards. You could easily determine whether ai will send out their troops base on their initial turn.
Last, my recommendation. So my recommendation for the cards are: Quisartz Haderack>Lady Jessica>sandworm rider>CHOAM>The spice must flow, these are the most powerful cards you could acquire. For the intrigue cards, you mainly need to gain it from battles and bene gesserit sisterhood, but believe me, it is very useful in the last battle, it really make you sweat when others play gain 5 troops or other when you are leading. For the spice, just considering get an additional and go to the 6 spice cost area to have enough water to cycle cards or harvesting more spice. One interesting thing happens when you have both the 5-influce card to double your spice harvest and you go to the 6cost places constantly, so you could acquire about 10 trrops in one turn. That's unbelievable!
My last recommendation is to play frequently, Dune:imperium is my favorite board game forever, and you really need to play it frequently in order to play well. (The biggest part i dislike is its price, too expensive for a student like me.:(