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Great summary! Everyone will have their own opinion regarding which techs they prefer, but this is an awesome starting point for most players. I’ll be sharing it 😄 Thanks!
Buying techs takes setup turns to get the spice or the discounts though. Against high skill opponents games go really quick, so buying a tech is a serious commitment because you risk lagging behind on the point track and not being able to overtake your opponents anymore. Hence why cheap techs tend to perform better (less commitment) unless we're talking about the truly insane techs like holzman engine.
These tiles do have some situational bonuses and maluses to them. For example, Troop transports with Viscount Hundro Moritani goes from an okay tile a tremendously useful one considering the extra shipping you get with that leader. Recently managed to get Hundro with troop transports and two freighter fleets and I was popping off with lots of troops every round. I even had the intrigue card that gives you some shipping.
Well well... interesting tier list. Couple things: Holtzman is for me the best tech in the game. I don't think Spy Satellites is that good, honestly. Your best bet is to get 2 vp from it while also getting extra VP from alliances (this is the most reasonable return for this tech). I've seen it be trashed for VP several times. Artillery, for me, doesn't win very many games. so I'd put it somewhere around B or C. It's ok. You have to usually build your deck to do combat, which means you're not doing TSMF, which is easier. Memocorders belongs in A tier, straight up. You might not get a point from it, but you deny another player getting a point from it (and it's worth about 1/2 a point to buy it). For me, Troop Transports is worse than Sonic Snoopers. Sonic is one of those underrated techs that can win games by cycling intrigues. I actually take this tech very highly in most games. Invasion Ships is A tier for me. This tech is hugely underrated here. It's an unload enabler and it also makes you better than Helena. The rest I think I agree with. Spaceport is clearly the worst tech, but it's cool to try to get to work with Ecaz. I might move Flagship up since it's simply a point.
Disposal Facility becomes soo much better in Immortality. Since your decks becomes a lot bigger with Tleilaxu cards and the fact you buy more cards (no more skip reveals when Imperium Row is bad, since you will just flush with atomic). I had an early disposal facility which trashed 4 cards on top of what I trashed myself and I still had more than 10 cards in my deck. However I hit my graft combos a lot more often. It’s at least B tier for me (but requires high council)
I think any kind of overall tech rating list is a pretty thankless task to undertake, between game variables, who you're playing, the decks you have, so much going on. I do reckon I'd have bumped Invasion a bit, somewhat pricey but given it's main use is unobstructed access to Interstellar (much like Kwisatz which to me is a great shame) or for alliance defence or stealing, I think the threat of it is as much the power. Sonic as well can be a bit of a hail mary but I've turned losses into wins off the back of it so I couldn't put it so low. I reckon they are all at least fine, even if spaceport is used last turn to try and buy TSMF but defo is the weakest.
I won a game with Chaumurky plus one of the intrigue cards I got from it -- Corner The Market. With the final turn, I managed to buy a third Spice must flow, which gives you a single point if you have two SMF, but my nemesis had two SMF, and CTM gives you a second point if you have more SMF... which I now had. And that plus the three SMFs gave me five points which tied me at 12 (IIRC). Then Chaumurky kicked in. My nemesis was soooooo pissed off, because he had the clear win with two visible points more than me and one point more than the others... :-D
Spaceport definitely advances above F tier if the Immortality expansion is added. Guaranteeing strong combos like Slig Farmer + Foldspace is very powerful
With 3 players (we almost always play with that, a bit over 50 games so far) we found that Spy Satellites is not that good, because how easier it makes for the remaining two players to get alliances on the faction track. Still good, but certainly not S tier for us. Artillery: it's great because it is cheap, but its effect is meh. It can give you 2-3 daggers per turn if you buy lots of combat cards, and that effect is only significant if you are present in the combat (also, with 3 players, 3rd place is not awarded, making it even less strong). Training Drones on the other hand seems to be better: the troop it adds is only worth 2 daggers, but it doesn't have to be added to the combat in that round, you could wait one or two turns and amass a bigger garrison which you send into combat all in one turn. Also, there are cards / intrigue cards that need you loose or withdraw troops, so it works with those too. I don't understand why Invasion Ships is so low in the tier list. The 4 troop is nice, but that infiltrate effect is where the real power is. Not having to stand in line to get sword master, or the double shipping place is awesome. Not sure how it is for other groups, but for us late game Research Station is almost always taken by the 1st or 2nd player, and it is horrible when you have a bad hand for one of the last rounds and no way to draw cards.
Invasion ships was way too low. I got it mid game a game and it helped immensely. I found it to be very powerful and allowed me to do a lot more things I otherwise wouldn't have been able to do.
I dont think spaceport is bad if timed properly.. 2 cards can be the different between a spice must flow or not. Then on top of that if you get to put the right card on top at some point during the game you could get another point.. so it is potentially 2 points for 5 spice... Realistically if the cards and timing fall properly it could be equal to Holtzman I think disposable facility is generally worse.. (unless you have a couple good benefit trash) I'd say invasion ships is pretty bad too if you don't have either a way to put those 4 troops into the combat or discard benefit cards
I'd say that barely any tech card is underpowered or useless, they did a great job designing those and for me personally Restricted Ordnance is one of the strongest techs because you can DOMINATE fights.
Great and helpful video, but: Since you had the cards ranked before the video it was kinda boring. It would be more entertaining (for me) without the sorting before. Then I (other viewers) could guess, what rank the card is. e: Boring sounds too harsh. I love your content.
I'd say sonic is superior to tiebreakers at many circumstances. First off, you can get sonic for free from shipping track as opposed to paying 2 spice for tiebreakers, which could be used in faction spaces or upcoming techs or cards. Also you may have gone to tech neg twice in a row for 1 persuasion, getting an intrigue due to the tempo. Second off, count the times you've had the chance to buy tiebreakers and you tied with more than 2 less spice than the opponent later on (2 because I assume you're buying this from shipping track). Not all that common right? Well, having useless intrigues are way more common. They can make or break your game. They're really valuable and their only downside is randomness. Sonic snoopers help fight against randomness. Though I agree sonic snoopers are weak, I think tiebreakers being even more situational (though if they happen to work, they literally win you the game) are somewhat weaker. They clog the tech tiles more than sonic snoopers do. Not to mention how you'd have your spices if you didnt buy tiebreakers in the first place. Unless the game is about the end without tons of useless intrigues im taking sonic snoopers over tiebreakers most of the time. I'd put tiebreakers in between f and d tier due to it's lack of tempo and situationality of it.
I disagree with Spaceport Ranking. It is great for triggering Fremen Bonds. Buy Fremen Bond Cards + the standard 2-cost fremen card from the default market.
I like this video but think it's wrong to focus so much on their spice cost. Most techs will be bought either from top of shipping track or the green spot that gives 1 discount. This means the cheap 2 and 3 cost techs can often be free or just cost 1, while this cost reduction benefits the more expensive tech tiles less. Sonic snoopers instance for isn't something you rush but a very nice free pickup when you go shipping and still need to get solari and don't have spice for expensive tech. Tldr: it's rare anyone pays full price on tech tiles. I also don't understand the hype about Spy Satellites. Did anyone ever win a game where they got the full 4 points out of it? The 4 points this can give are taken directly from 4 points on the board you aren't able to get. While it's nice you don't need to invest in 1 or 2 factions and still score a point for them is nice, it also means not using that faction. And there is the ( huge) disadvantage of not being able to finish the game with it, and many of the other end game scoring cards require certain faction thresholds to score them. Don't get me wrong, it's a strong tech but not 4 points for 4 spice.
I agree with everything, but would bump up detonation devices to A tier. If you can’t win at least one combat you’re not gonna win the game 99 times out of 100 anyway. So it’s often at minimum 1 point. And at minimum one point for 3 spice and a dread naught is strong. Anymore than one point out of this and you likely won the game anyway. I think the counter-play keeps it out of S, but easy A tier in my book.
Winning a combat and winning a combat with a dreadnaught are two very different things. Non combat strategies don’t always have a dreadnaught, let alone this tech card. It’s good, but it’s situational (which for me are the best ones)
ALOHA 🤙🏝️. It start good 👍😂. "Spaceport no good". It's a powerfull techno 🎉. Too expensive !? There's some area to buy them cheaper!!!.😊 AND YOU DRAW 2 CARDS NOW💪💪💪. IT'S AWESOME 😅😅😅
I would bump sonic to C - it can really free your hand up, and getting that amount of utility alongside an intrigue for just 1 spice + a trip to tech negotiations is usually worth it to me - early/ mid game I value it for the intrigue, late game for the trash ability. I would bump training drones down by 1 - I've never found it supremely useful, for whatever reason. I would bump troop transports up by 1 - if you use it 2-3 times in a game, it can be extremely useful, especially if you chunk the extra troop into combat by itself to pick up a 3rd place combat reward. It also opens up shipping as a stronger option during the last turn of combat, where everyone is scrambling to dump troops in, and shipping sometimes goes ignored. I would bump shuttle fleet down by 1 - early game, it's too expensive to buy, and late game the 2 solari per turn doesn't mean too much to me. Meanwhile the influence isn't super exciting by that stage of the game, as I'm usually using it not to contest, but to shore up a friendship. I think 6 spice a huge amount to spend on this tech. I would decrease artillery by 2 - frankly I've never found building a deck around the bonus swords to be worth it, and if you don't it just feels like a waste of a sword. I find that cards with revealed swords on the whole tend to be quite unappealing to me. Finally I would bump invasion ships up by 3. It's incredible in its ability to swing a late turn combat in your favor, and buying it mid-game allows you so much more strategic flexibility going into the endgame than basically anything except for a kwisatz. It also synergizes well with unload. I rate the tech pretty highly.
@@bzztbzztboy you’re totally right. You wrote “invasion ships” and I read “flagships” And I’d agree with you. Invasion Ships gives you the ability to pick up mentat asap and never worry about missing out on a space. If you have an unload card to trigger it, all the better. Minimum C tier for me.
@@abuckninety have you tried immortality? I feel like my tech rankings are going to change somewhat with it - in particular I find that with the increased card usage grafting provides I'm less incentivized towards unload synergies.
@@bzztbzztboy Is immortality available on table top simulator or somewhere else? I thought I saw someone reference trying it out, but I didn’t know it was available anywhere just yet. Haven’t played myself, but eagerly looking forward to it. Very curious to see how it changes the game. I think grafting cards with discard abilities (like In The Shadows) could still be really strong. But yeah, maybe techs with discard lose a little value?
I appreciate that you took the time and effort to make this list, however, I disagree with most of it. Now granted, I'm strictly a casual player (mostly with my wife and kids) so that might color my perception slightly. In my opinion the following things about these tech cards are true. [1] All cards that give you something for free when you buy it, are instantly better than all cards that don't. [2] Combat in this game is mostly boring, and oftentimes the reward for second place is better/more interesting than the reward for winning. That being said, the times I did want to engage in combat, Troop Transports made a huge difference every single time. [3] Nothing feels worse than buying a card you really want and then never drawing it. Spaceport rocks! [4] They should add more tech cards with every new expansion. Hell, I'd take a mini expansion with nothing but new tech cards.
Been looking for something like this. Great job and thanks!
Great summary! Everyone will have their own opinion regarding which techs they prefer, but this is an awesome starting point for most players. I’ll be sharing it 😄 Thanks!
I feel like you cant go wrong with buying any of those. Tech tiles in Dune seems crazy strong.
Buying techs takes setup turns to get the spice or the discounts though. Against high skill opponents games go really quick, so buying a tech is a serious commitment because you risk lagging behind on the point track and not being able to overtake your opponents anymore. Hence why cheap techs tend to perform better (less commitment) unless we're talking about the truly insane techs like holzman engine.
always nice to hear a difference of opinions :) thank you for this video
These tiles do have some situational bonuses and maluses to them. For example, Troop transports with Viscount Hundro Moritani goes from an okay tile a tremendously useful one considering the extra shipping you get with that leader. Recently managed to get Hundro with troop transports and two freighter fleets and I was popping off with lots of troops every round. I even had the intrigue card that gives you some shipping.
Well well... interesting tier list. Couple things: Holtzman is for me the best tech in the game. I don't think Spy Satellites is that good, honestly. Your best bet is to get 2 vp from it while also getting extra VP from alliances (this is the most reasonable return for this tech). I've seen it be trashed for VP several times.
Artillery, for me, doesn't win very many games. so I'd put it somewhere around B or C. It's ok. You have to usually build your deck to do combat, which means you're not doing TSMF, which is easier. Memocorders belongs in A tier, straight up. You might not get a point from it, but you deny another player getting a point from it (and it's worth about 1/2 a point to buy it).
For me, Troop Transports is worse than Sonic Snoopers. Sonic is one of those underrated techs that can win games by cycling intrigues. I actually take this tech very highly in most games.
Invasion Ships is A tier for me. This tech is hugely underrated here. It's an unload enabler and it also makes you better than Helena. The rest I think I agree with. Spaceport is clearly the worst tech, but it's cool to try to get to work with Ecaz. I might move Flagship up since it's simply a point.
Good stuff as always!!!
Great analysis. Very helpful.
Excellent video thank you! Can you rank the Combat cards next? You often talk about whether a revealed Combat card is good or not
Great content. Keep on uploading :D
Thank you! Will do :)
Thanks for the tier list.
Disposal Facility becomes soo much better in Immortality. Since your decks becomes a lot bigger with Tleilaxu cards and the fact you buy more cards (no more skip reveals when Imperium Row is bad, since you will just flush with atomic).
I had an early disposal facility which trashed 4 cards on top of what I trashed myself and I still had more than 10 cards in my deck. However I hit my graft combos a lot more often. It’s at least B tier for me (but requires high council)
I think any kind of overall tech rating list is a pretty thankless task to undertake, between game variables, who you're playing, the decks you have, so much going on. I do reckon I'd have bumped Invasion a bit, somewhat pricey but given it's main use is unobstructed access to Interstellar (much like Kwisatz which to me is a great shame) or for alliance defence or stealing, I think the threat of it is as much the power. Sonic as well can be a bit of a hail mary but I've turned losses into wins off the back of it so I couldn't put it so low. I reckon they are all at least fine, even if spaceport is used last turn to try and buy TSMF but defo is the weakest.
I won a game with Chaumurky plus one of the intrigue cards I got from it -- Corner The Market. With the final turn, I managed to buy a third Spice must flow, which gives you a single point if you have two SMF, but my nemesis had two SMF, and CTM gives you a second point if you have more SMF... which I now had. And that plus the three SMFs gave me five points which tied me at 12 (IIRC). Then Chaumurky kicked in.
My nemesis was soooooo pissed off, because he had the clear win with two visible points more than me and one point more than the others... :-D
awsome list
Spaceport definitely advances above F tier if the Immortality expansion is added. Guaranteeing strong combos like Slig Farmer + Foldspace is very powerful
Invasion Ship tech is Tier D? What? That's my favorite technology! In 4 player game this game is a must :D
It's rankings like this that sometimes make me wonder if I am playing the game wrong.
With 3 players (we almost always play with that, a bit over 50 games so far) we found that Spy Satellites is not that good, because how easier it makes for the remaining two players to get alliances on the faction track. Still good, but certainly not S tier for us.
Artillery: it's great because it is cheap, but its effect is meh. It can give you 2-3 daggers per turn if you buy lots of combat cards, and that effect is only significant if you are present in the combat (also, with 3 players, 3rd place is not awarded, making it even less strong).
Training Drones on the other hand seems to be better: the troop it adds is only worth 2 daggers, but it doesn't have to be added to the combat in that round, you could wait one or two turns and amass a bigger garrison which you send into combat all in one turn. Also, there are cards / intrigue cards that need you loose or withdraw troops, so it works with those too.
I don't understand why Invasion Ships is so low in the tier list. The 4 troop is nice, but that infiltrate effect is where the real power is. Not having to stand in line to get sword master, or the double shipping place is awesome. Not sure how it is for other groups, but for us late game Research Station is almost always taken by the 1st or 2nd player, and it is horrible when you have a bad hand for one of the last rounds and no way to draw cards.
Orski,
Love this game, thanks for all the info. How about Immortality?
This was really cool, do you have this in a pdf?
Invasion ships was way too low. I got it mid game a game and it helped immensely. I found it to be very powerful and allowed me to do a lot more things I otherwise wouldn't have been able to do.
I dont think spaceport is bad if timed properly.. 2 cards can be the different between a spice must flow or not. Then on top of that if you get to put the right card on top at some point during the game you could get another point.. so it is potentially 2 points for 5 spice... Realistically if the cards and timing fall properly it could be equal to Holtzman
I think disposable facility is generally worse.. (unless you have a couple good benefit trash)
I'd say invasion ships is pretty bad too if you don't have either a way to put those 4 troops into the combat or discard benefit cards
I'd say that barely any tech card is underpowered or useless, they did a great job designing those and for me personally Restricted Ordnance is one of the strongest techs because you can DOMINATE fights.
Great and helpful video, but:
Since you had the cards ranked before the video it was kinda boring. It would be more entertaining (for me) without the sorting before. Then I (other viewers) could guess, what rank the card is.
e: Boring sounds too harsh. I love your content.
I'd say sonic is superior to tiebreakers at many circumstances. First off, you can get sonic for free from shipping track as opposed to paying 2 spice for tiebreakers, which could be used in faction spaces or upcoming techs or cards. Also you may have gone to tech neg twice in a row for 1 persuasion, getting an intrigue due to the tempo. Second off, count the times you've had the chance to buy tiebreakers and you tied with more than 2 less spice than the opponent later on (2 because I assume you're buying this from shipping track). Not all that common right? Well, having useless intrigues are way more common. They can make or break your game. They're really valuable and their only downside is randomness. Sonic snoopers help fight against randomness. Though I agree sonic snoopers are weak, I think tiebreakers being even more situational (though if they happen to work, they literally win you the game) are somewhat weaker. They clog the tech tiles more than sonic snoopers do. Not to mention how you'd have your spices if you didnt buy tiebreakers in the first place. Unless the game is about the end without tons of useless intrigues im taking sonic snoopers over tiebreakers most of the time. I'd put tiebreakers in between f and d tier due to it's lack of tempo and situationality of it.
Spaceport is so good tbh
Spy satellites are very situational and often useless... I think B is a max for it.
I disagree with Spaceport Ranking. It is great for triggering Fremen Bonds. Buy Fremen Bond Cards + the standard 2-cost fremen card from the default market.
I like this video but think it's wrong to focus so much on their spice cost. Most techs will be bought either from top of shipping track or the green spot that gives 1 discount.
This means the cheap 2 and 3 cost techs can often be free or just cost 1, while this cost reduction benefits the more expensive tech tiles less. Sonic snoopers instance for isn't something you rush but a very nice free pickup when you go shipping and still need to get solari and don't have spice for expensive tech.
Tldr: it's rare anyone pays full price on tech tiles.
I also don't understand the hype about Spy Satellites.
Did anyone ever win a game where they got the full 4 points out of it?
The 4 points this can give are taken directly from 4 points on the board you aren't able to get.
While it's nice you don't need to invest in 1 or 2 factions and still score a point for them is nice, it also means not using that faction.
And there is the ( huge) disadvantage of not being able to finish the game with it, and many of the other end game scoring cards require certain faction thresholds to score them.
Don't get me wrong, it's a strong tech but not 4 points for 4 spice.
You pumped for the new expansion??
So pumped!! It’s seems awesome.
@@orski78 looking forward to you commentary on it
I agree with everything, but would bump up detonation devices to A tier. If you can’t win at least one combat you’re not gonna win the game 99 times out of 100 anyway. So it’s often at minimum 1 point. And at minimum one point for 3 spice and a dread naught is strong. Anymore than one point out of this and you likely won the game anyway. I think the counter-play keeps it out of S, but easy A tier in my book.
Depends on when it shows up. If you get it early you can plan around it but late game it's a bit of a gamble.
Winning a combat and winning a combat with a dreadnaught are two very different things. Non combat strategies don’t always have a dreadnaught, let alone this tech card. It’s good, but it’s situational (which for me are the best ones)
ALOHA 🤙🏝️.
It start good 👍😂.
"Spaceport no good".
It's a powerfull techno 🎉.
Too expensive !?
There's some area to buy them cheaper!!!.😊
AND YOU DRAW 2 CARDS NOW💪💪💪.
IT'S AWESOME 😅😅😅
I would bump sonic to C - it can really free your hand up, and getting that amount of utility alongside an intrigue for just 1 spice + a trip to tech negotiations is usually worth it to me - early/ mid game I value it for the intrigue, late game for the trash ability.
I would bump training drones down by 1 - I've never found it supremely useful, for whatever reason.
I would bump troop transports up by 1 - if you use it 2-3 times in a game, it can be extremely useful, especially if you chunk the extra troop into combat by itself to pick up a 3rd place combat reward. It also opens up shipping as a stronger option during the last turn of combat, where everyone is scrambling to dump troops in, and shipping sometimes goes ignored.
I would bump shuttle fleet down by 1 - early game, it's too expensive to buy, and late game the 2 solari per turn doesn't mean too much to me. Meanwhile the influence isn't super exciting by that stage of the game, as I'm usually using it not to contest, but to shore up a friendship. I think 6 spice a huge amount to spend on this tech.
I would decrease artillery by 2 - frankly I've never found building a deck around the bonus swords to be worth it, and if you don't it just feels like a waste of a sword. I find that cards with revealed swords on the whole tend to be quite unappealing to me.
Finally I would bump invasion ships up by 3. It's incredible in its ability to swing a late turn combat in your favor, and buying it mid-game allows you so much more strategic flexibility going into the endgame than basically anything except for a kwisatz. It also synergizes well with unload. I rate the tech pretty highly.
Invasion Ships doesn’t require a discard so it can’t synergize with unload. That would make it a lot more valuable, though, if it did.
@@abuckninety it does, you need to discard a card to activate the infiltrate
@@bzztbzztboy you’re totally right. You wrote “invasion ships” and I read “flagships”
And I’d agree with you. Invasion Ships gives you the ability to pick up mentat asap and never worry about missing out on a space. If you have an unload card to trigger it, all the better. Minimum C tier for me.
@@abuckninety have you tried immortality? I feel like my tech rankings are going to change somewhat with it - in particular I find that with the increased card usage grafting provides I'm less incentivized towards unload synergies.
@@bzztbzztboy Is immortality available on table top simulator or somewhere else?
I thought I saw someone reference trying it out, but I didn’t know it was available anywhere just yet. Haven’t played myself, but eagerly looking forward to it. Very curious to see how it changes the game.
I think grafting cards with discard abilities (like In The Shadows) could still be really strong. But yeah, maybe techs with discard lose a little value?
I’m not sure how you are ranking Troop Transports so low. We have taken that tech tile out of the game due to how busted it is.
I appreciate that you took the time and effort to make this list, however, I disagree with most of it. Now granted, I'm strictly a casual player (mostly with my wife and kids) so that might color my perception slightly. In my opinion the following things about these tech cards are true.
[1] All cards that give you something for free when you buy it, are instantly better than all cards that don't.
[2] Combat in this game is mostly boring, and oftentimes the reward for second place is better/more interesting than the reward for winning. That being said, the times I did want to engage in combat, Troop Transports made a huge difference every single time.
[3] Nothing feels worse than buying a card you really want and then never drawing it. Spaceport rocks!
[4] They should add more tech cards with every new expansion. Hell, I'd take a mini expansion with nothing but new tech cards.
Dang, Dude. Slow down.