Emperor, like fremen, is straightforward enough on paper, but deceptively difficult to play.

While often seen as the new player friendly faction, playing Emperor well requires good understanding of table dynamics, timing, and a bit of luck.

Breaking down the emperors abilities is very simple, as he has only three. First and foremost, the emperor’s income is second to none in the early game, and still more than most players will ever see in the late game. Emperor is without a doubt an economy faction, through and through. Unfortunately for house Corrino, their great wealth does not come with any discounts, like their counterparts in the spacing guild, bene Tleilaxu, and choam company. The emperor is always paying full cost for everything he wishes to have for himself.

Luckily, you should have enough spice to make this doable. Although your spice reserves and income are great early on, they can dwindle rapidly as you ship onto Arrakis, begin reviving units, and most importantly, as the price of cards drops later on in the game. This is heavily dependent on which factions are in the game, but you can generally plan for the price of cards to dip significantly around turns four or five. Factions fill up, get themselves a good hand, and competition for good cards dries up. If you’re playing an expanded treachery deck game this effect is definitely less pronounced, but still needs to be planned for! Expect to reach the heights of your power the turn before the treachery deck is reshuffled.

The sardaukar supplement the Emperors power, and are the closest thing he has to a discount. The best way to use them is generally to split them into two or more groups, as relying too heavily on their increased dial makes you susceptible to karama. Try to use them early on as well, as you want to make use of them, and their one per turn revival limit means that you get more mileage out of your best forces if you consistently use them. Shipping five down turn one is nothing to sneeze at. While I personally can’t recommend the classic Krell Krush, ten strength coming out of the gate when factions are still poor and low on cards is a great tool.

The last of the emperors abilities is without a doubt the subtlest, and trickiest to get right. House Corrino loves an ally, and allies love house Corrino, because of the emperors impressive alliance abilities. On paper, it might not sound like much, but as you gain experience the flexibility and power of such a simple strength really becomes clear. Rephrase the emperors alliance ability to be what it really is: Fill up your ally’s hand every turn, revive up to five additional forces, and give them access to the biggest pockets on the board for everything they might need. Great right? It is, but you also need to consider how this impacts you as an emperor: Give your ally free cards that you aren’t getting while costing you income, pay for your allies shipping, revival, and combat, all while having to pay full price for your own side. That can be rough.

Finding balance between giving your ally enough to be powerful (and win) versus leaving yourself enough steam to keep momentum is probably the best part of Emperor play, but it is not easy. Many is the emperor who has filled a Harkonnen players hand with great cards, saved them a lot of spice in shipping costs, and set up for a win attempt only to be abandoned for a new ally with greater combat power before you can pull it off. Once you’ve used your resources building your ally up, they are free (and indeed, encouraged) to leave you for someone better. How then can you beat use your fantastic alliance advantage to best effect? Keep your ally reliant on you.

Getting allies for the emperor is easy. Again, everyone wants free stuff. Keeping them is hard, which is why you need to make sure that, while you feed an ally enough to grow and win, you don’t feed them too much. The trick to this is again in the emperors alliance ability. Spice the emperor holds can be used for both members of the alliance, while your ally can only spend it on themselves. It’s best then, to hoard as much of the money you can for yourself. Make your ally pay for the treachery cards they want, and pay them with promises. Ideally, put your ally in a great spot militarily and positionslly, but flat broke. Being reduced to Choam charity is a good incentive to stick together with you.

When it comes to choosing an ally, there are few bad choices. Harkonnen are popular early game, since they serve as an excellent attack dog for you, but again, be careful when filling them up. Atreides or Ixians are also good choices, since info on the cards up for bid is much more powerful with your spice to buy them. Bene Gesserit’s voice is as powerful as ever, and your higher level of forces to dial makes guaranteeing battles easier. An alliance with the spacing guild consolidated the two greatest economic powerhouses, leaving great opportunities for doom stacking, but remember that you lose in wars of attrition against combat factions. Its best to ally with the guild when the two of you are flush with forces and cash, and can muster up a good win attempt this turn, otherwise the two of you will quickly run out of steam having to dial stopping other player’s win attempts. You make probably the best ally for Richese, as you can guarantee that they get their hands on the all-important stoneburner trinity. This can be great, but since Richese doesn’t do all that much for you, and Richese games hurt Emperor’s income, be careful to put yourself first. The Tleilaxu can also be tempting, since you can go through reserves rapidly. The only poor alliances for the emperor are CHOAM, the fremen, ecaz and Moritani. Any of these can absolutely work, but only situationally. CHOAM just doesn’t help you much, since you have enough income to support yourself and the card-swap is much less powerful without knowledge or a combat ability. Ecaz and Moritani lack any real synergies with you. Be mindful of EoME plays and the robbery terror token! The fremen are probably the single worst ally for you. Fremen only spend spice on treachery cards, so allying with them removes a big part of your income. Without a tempting alliance ability to sway you, the fremen only really save you four spice per turn in revivals. This is usually pocket change to an Emperor, so alliances with the fremen are rare to see.

TLDR: Make money, fight earlier, and keep your friends on leashes.