Dune: Spice Wars is a very interesting and humongous 4x strategy game. You are in the deserts of Arrakis, and your goal is to find Solari and Spice so you can be able to conquer these new lands. The ways of finding them and dealing with your competition are so fun.
War of resources is what you’ll be experiencing. You need to collect it, fight for it, save it from others, and pay taxes with it too. The way it all fits together makes it for a very unique and fun experience. Spice is essential and the heart of everything in this game.
Although it might seem difficult to master, it is way easier than you think. Let’s get started.
Complete Beginner’s Guide – Dune: Spice Wars
Scouting
First of all, before we get started. This is a strategy resource game so if you’re new, the biggest tip I can give you is scouting. Do some scouting at the beginning of the game, do some scouting after you finish this, and then some more. It is essential that you find out about the map around you in order to grow.
Get your ornithopter and set it to an auto-recon option to make this easier for you. You can do this, and I recommend it doing it this way, manually. Always scout where you plan to expand. There are special zones, so scout towards them more to get more riches.
Villages & Harvesters
If you want to be able to do anything in this game, you must be farming resources non-stop. Start visiting nearby villages or harvest locations. Make Harvesters as much as possible and make them work. Fill out all the slots inside these harvesters to be able to get the most of them.
Keep an eye out for Sandwordms. You can just do the auto-recall option if there’s a danger for then.
Spice Taxes
As the time keeps going on, that’s how much the Spice Tax will increase. Every 25 days you will need to pay a portion of your Spice as taxes. Build up your reserves! Make sure you have enough Spices to be able to pay up when necessary.
Manage your economy and the flow of Spices. Invest wisely and make sure you have enough to pay up when the time comes.
Resources
I have tracked that there are in total about 12 resources and numbers you need to keep a track of while playing. This is a list for them:
- Spice
- Solari
- Plascrete
- Water
- Manpower
- Fuel Cells
- Influence
- Hegemony
- Authority
- Knowledge
- Command Points
- Intel
All of them are very necessary for you to be able to advance and become better. But in my opinion, the resources that I’ve used the most, and I realize that every game I keep running out off and keep needing more, are the first 4.
Spice is needed for trading, and paying off the Spice Tax – is crucial. Build refineries in villages near Spice fields.
Solari is basically your gold/cash. You will need this for training the military, building expansions on your base, and paying upkeep for everything. Build processing plants near rare element deposits or just control villages that have merchants inside.
Plascrete is your building material. Build Plascrete factories to get more.
Water is needed to maintain villages and military units. Also very good for trading. Build wind traps in villages to get more.
Strong but small better than big but weak.
This is all up to you really. But it is much better to look out for your maintenance and how well you lead your small little parch of desert land than to overextend and see your land and bases get destroyed.
Build a nice income with a nice amount of Spice on the side for Taxes. Strong and compact military able to take on every enemy. Don’t think that fast but weak expansion will get you anything.
Voting
Every 25 days there will be voting announced. Here using your Influence points, you can really change the outcome of some situations.
You can defeat an enemy by banning some of his resources and making him weak and miserable. On the other hand, you can boost yourself up by a tremendous amount by choosing when to invest your Influence points wisely. You might even win the game this way.
Ways To Reach Victory
If you are a new player your thought procedure would be – I have to destroy every other faction. This is the Domination choice, and although it’s doable, there are other options to it as well.
For example, you can win the game using Hegemony choice. Get 50.000 hegemony and you’ll win the game. This is the long and patient choice. Build up as much as you can, and just play defensive. It is a very fun and rewarding strategy.
You can win a Political victory through voting. In the Landsraad Council, a vote will come for the Dune Governorship. Here you have to vote yourself more than the other factions, and total victory shall be yours.
Starting Tips
- Explore the map first
- Downed Ornihopter is 400 Solari, go pick it up
- If you run out of Solari, Ornithopter will go out first
- Find the Polar Sink – gives you a crazy amount of water and trading power(double for Smugglers)
- After your first Refinery, get your 2nd one as fast as possible. For this, you will need 1xRecruiting Centre, 1xPlascrete Factory, and 1xPower Cell Factory. You have at the beginning enough Authority to get 2 zones easily. Find a second Spice Flow and expand over there first
- Don’t build a lot of Recruitment Centres – costs a lot
- Pillaging gives you a lot of resources
- Take with you Devastator Units and a Supply drop if you are going to siege a main base. Also, Landsraad’s vote to turn their defensives off will help a lot.
I hope this helped you out a bit! Good luck!
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