Duke

Duke
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Victory
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Intrigue
Illustrator(s)	Christof Tisch
Card text
Worth 1  per Duchy you have.

Duke is a Victory card from Intrigue. In keeping with the "Victory card" theme in Intrigue, Dukes score   that scales with the number of Duchies you have.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• For example, if you have five Duchies, then each of your Dukes is worth 5 .
• Use 8 Dukes for games with 2 players, 12 for games with 3 or more players.

Strategy

Duke is a weak and often skippable source of alt-VP. While it can in theory be used to score even more   than Provinces, in practice it suffers from a few key drawbacks:

1. While the total   you can get is similar to Province, the   efficiency (i.e.,   per Buy and per stop card added) is lower than with Province, especially considering you need to also be gaining Duchies. In other words, scoring with Duke is both worse for your deck control and more demanding of your deck’s ability to gain multiple cards. While engines can supply the latter, they’re usually not resilient enough to handle all the stop cards Duke needs to score sufficiently. Duke is therefore more usable if your deck both has a way to gain cards consistently (e.g., Artisan or Horse Traders) and no need to maintain deck control, perhaps due to a lack of thinning options. Alternatively, if you can gain many cards at once with the game ending shortly thereafter (e.g., with Charm), the deck control aspect may be less of a concern.
2. Because Duke’s   is only relevant once you have many Duchies, scoring with Duke is relatively slow to ramp up, and opponents scoring in other ways may be able to end the game with a   lead before it begins to pay off for you. This investment requirement also means that, contrary to most other alt-VP cards such as Fairgrounds, Duke is generally not very viable as a one-off purchase, as you need at least four Duchies to get more   from Duke than from another Duchy. For this reason, Duke is far more potent when you are intentionally building to score with it, and much more likely to be relevant when it will have time to pay off; this is most likely to occur in slow Kingdoms or slogs, but may also be the case if your opponents will struggle to close out the game by taking all of the Provinces.
3. Duke’s   efficiency and total potential   are both attenuated if your opponents contest the Duchies. Theoretically, having a balance of three more Duchies than Dukes will maximize your  . However, because every Duchy your opponents get hurts your scoring potential, winning the Duchy split is usually your first priority, and you should often only start gaining Dukes once the Duchy pile is empty. This can be especially important in a mirror, but still matters if your opponents are scoring otherwise and trying to counter you.

Duke tends to synergize with cards that help you add cards to your deck while also not enabling a stronger money strategy or engine. In addition to the aforementioned cards which enable you to gain cards, simply flooding your deck with Treasures to up your money density and consistently hit may work. Lucky Coin, Trader, or Jack of All Trades can supply Silvers for this purpose, while Hoard can gain Golds alongside your Dukes and Duchies. It can also work well with cards that benefit from a high density of Victory cards, such as Crossroads or Shepherd.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• WanderingWinder's 2012 article

Victory Point Table

	0 Duchies	1 Duchy	2 Duchies	3 Duchies	4 Duchies	5 Duchies	6 Duchies	7 Duchies	8 Duchies	9 Duchies	10 Duchies	11 Duchies	12 Duchies
0 Dukes	0	3	6	9	12	15	18	21	24	27	30	33	36
1 Duke	0	4	8	12	16	20	24	28	32	36	40	44	48
2 Dukes	0	5	10	15	20	25	30	35	40	45	50	55	60
3 Dukes	0	6	12	18	24	30	36	42	48	54	60	66	72
4 Dukes	0	7	14	21	28	35	42	49	56	63	70	77	84
5 Dukes	0	8	16	24	32	40	48	56	64	72	80	88	96
6 Dukes	0	9	18	27	36	45	54	63	72	81	90	99	108
7 Dukes	0	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120
8 Dukes	0	11	22	33	44	55	66	77	88	99	110	121	132
9 Dukes	0	12	24	36	48	60	72	84	96	108	120	132	144
10 Dukes	0	13	26	39	52	65	78	91	104	117	130	143	156
11 Dukes	0	14	28	42	56	70	84	98	112	126	140	154	168
12 Dukes	0	15	30	45	60	75	90	105	120	135	150	165	180

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Worth 1  per Duchy you have.	Intrigue 1st Edition	July 2009
		Worth 1  per Duchy you have.	Intrigue 2nd Edition	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	公爵 (pron. gōngjué)
Czech	Vévoda
Dutch	Hertog			Is 1  waard voor elke hertogdomkaart die je hebt.	Eerste editie (2009)
Finnish	Herttua
French	Duc			Vaut 1  pour chaque Duché que vous avez.
German	Herzog			Wert 1  pro Herzogtum im eigenen Kartensatz.	(2009; 2021) one or more other versions listed here
Hungarian	Herceg
Italian	Duca
Japanese	公爵 (pron. kōshaku)			あなたの公領1枚につき1
Korean	공작 (pron. gongjag)
Norwegian	Greve (lit. count)
Polish	Starosta (lit. foreman)			Ta karta jest warta 1  za każdy Powiat, jaki posiadasz.
Russian	Герцог (pron. gyertsog)			Приносит 1  за каждое ваше Герцогство.
Spanish	Duque			Consigues 1  por cada carta Ducado que tengas en tu mazo.	First Edition (2009)
	Duque			Consigues 1  por cada carta de Ducado que tengas en tu mazo.	Second Edition (2016)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Another card added when the set went to 25 cards. I picked this particular card for this set to round out the victory card theme. Baron makes Estates matter, Duke makes Duchies matter.

This card started its life in another set as a victory card worth one point per copy of it you had. That just varied way too much. You have to charge enough for it to be fair when you get a lot of them, and then it's horrible when you don't. The fix was to have it count another card. The other card had to be one that was always out, and Duchy was the obvious choice.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Intrigue Cards