Rex: Final Days of an Empire

AKA Dune.

Dune was 1979 Avalon Hill game made by the same guys that made Cosmic Encounter; it's one of the crown jewels of the Avalon Hill body of work. The game property was bought by Final Flight Games, but the owners of the Dune trademarks said "no," so FFG published the game using their Twilight Imperium setting as a prequel to that wargame.

Since we already have a Dune article covering the setting, and need to cover the game itself, and Dune is Out Of Print, but Rex is not, we'll cover both games here. Anyway, begin the description:

A brutal mindfuck of a backstabbing, horribly evil game, Rex/Dune is fascinating for a few mechanics. Let's go over one, the victory conditions, just to give some flavor:

Victory

A player wins if he holds three (of five) strongholds (it's also possible to win in a (publicly declared) alliance by two players, each holding two strongholds). There are three exceptions:

• The Fremen (or Sol in Rex) Player wins if nobody else has won by the end of round 8 and either they or nobody controls two specific locations.
• The Guild (or Hacan in Rex) Player wins if Round 8 has passed, and the Sol/Fremen haven't won.
• The Bene Gesserit (or Xxcha in Rex) Player, before the game starts, predicts which player will win, and in what turn. If both of these predictions comes true, even if it's an alliance, even if they are in the alliance, even if it's one of the above two "default" victories, and even if the BG/X player has been eliminated, the Bene Gesserit/Xxcha wins alone.

(Yes, every faction has a few bonuses, it's just that these three are the ones that involve victory.)