Among the board games I backed on Kickstarter, there are a few where I didn't just back the base game, but got some expansion with it. And quite frequently that turned out to be a mistake, especially with campaign games: An expansion just adds more content for those who have already played through the whole game, and want more. With big box campaign games sometimes needing a year or more to play through, I now own expansions where I never even opened the box.

Dune: Imperium isn't a campaign game, so expansion don't add to the length of the game, but rather to its breadth. And, unlike most other board games, Dune: Imperium now has *two* different base games; the original Dune: Imperium and the newer Dune: Imperium Uprising. There are currently two expansions, Rise of Ix and Immortality, with a third expansion, Bloodlines, just being announced. And you can play either base game alone, or with any expansion, although I am not certain that adding more than one expansion at a time will give a good result. But that still leaves 8 possible combinations of base game plus zero to one expansion. And they are all interesting variations of the same fundamental game.

Even if you just have one base game with 8 different leaders, there is a good amount of replayability. Dune: Imperium has some very good game design, where a winning strategy of your last game doesn't necessarily apply to your next game. Different leaders have different strengths, and one might be more suitable for a military victory, while another would do better with diplomacy. And then there are slightly different conditions in each game, with different conflicts to fight over, different cards available for purchase, and even different player order might make a big difference.

The need for replayability is where it makes a big difference, whether you play in real life or the digital version. In real life, I can maybe play one game of Dune: Imperium per week. Digitally, especially against the AI, games are fast and always available, so I can play several games a day. I started out playing the iOS version, and at some point I had played every one of the 8 leaders several times, and encountered them as opponents many, many times. So I switched to the Steam version, where the first expansion Rise of Ix is already available, and the variation of the rules, and the additional 6 leaders really added a lot of replayability.

I now decided to add the original Dune: Imperium and the Rise of Ix expansion to my board game collection. This is a game that I might want to play from time to time, and then it is better to not have to have it available. I haven't had the opportunity to play the game in real life again; but while I was pretty lost in my very first game, I am sure that now I would be reasonably competent for the next game. The AI in board game apps generally isn't brilliant, but the one in the Dune: Imperium app isn't horribly bad either. If you can win games against the AI in the app, you understood the game well enough to not embarrass yourself against real players.