Dune: Spice Wars

The more I play this game, the more I like it. The art style is fun, the universe is immersive, and the gameplay is varied and each faction feels different. Just when I think I'm getting the hang of things, the game throws a curveball at me. There are also several different ways to win. I have to be on my toes, hoping that another faction doesn't stab me in the back. On the other hand, betraying your ally is so very satisfying. Why yes I do prefer Harkonnens, why do you ask? As far as performance goes, I can run it on medium high graphics and 40-50 fps. On another computer it can start lagging with more than 3 factions running around and fighting at the same time.

Doesn't quite scratch my itch. Everything just seems so painstakingly drawn out and frustrating. It feels like a Euro style board game in that it seems like it's built around making victory so painstaking, that nobody will be able to outpace their opponents to such a degree that one player dominates. Instead, it feels like you need to put in half an hour to gain the sort of soft cap in size, queue up your research, and then you can watch a show and just check in from time to time, as everything after that is of minimal value. Authority makes sure that your expansion is effectively capped at a certain rate that just keeps growing with each village you take. Forget fast expansion, simply waging war with an opponent doesn't really work, as you're unlikely to be able to maintain a pace beyond maybe a village per week (in-game ofc) on top of the week you have to wait until a village is captured. You can of course skip villages and only capture a few along the way, but that still leaves a week each village to liberate them and an increasingly difficult hopscotch as you keep having to retreat to your nearest village for resupply before again pressing on. Should you persevere, you are then face with the fact that the enemy base is both very powerful and takes forever to crack. You're going to have to rotate your troops and use your entire cap to crush it. I tried it, as the other competitors took advantage of my lack of defenses, and I didn't get very far. Then (as is a theme in this game) my opponent grabbed one of the possible truce options in the landsraad and I gave up. Subterfuge as a whole never really feels powerful, allowing you to purchase certain effects that rarely make much of an impact on the game. The subterfuge victory combines with the above monotony. You must place an agent with a faction, wait while the information level levels up, place an information network (and hope it doesn't get discovered), place another agent, wait again for it to level up to place another information network (and at this point losing an IN will cause your agent to get booted out and the info level to fall). And then you'll be able to launch a loading bar that will require a ton of resources to fund while you throw even more into one-time use troops to maintain the speed of the loading bar and hope they don't find the INs in the meantime, as that effectively dooms your operation (NB, I managed to still get it done by using bene gesserit. The extra info level allowed me to maintain the operation while sending a line of troops to be sacrificed to maintain the progress). Very very tedious, and it didn't really feel like it connected to any mechanic in the game at all. Note as well that both of those methods, you then have to repeat. For. Every. Opponent. The other three victory conditions are then buying up 50% of the CHOOM company, becoming the governor, or the 'time cap' condition of gaining enough hegemony. It says a lot that the games I've played against the AI have so far all at least come close to just defaulting out and I've often considered if that wouldn't just be the most convenient way to always go about things. Just take an area and then watch a movie while you keep one eye on the game so things don't go awry. As for the other two: Buying up CHOOM has a lot of benefits built in and is a great mechanic. Being able to sell it as well is a great option... but the game shoots itself in the foot in it not really being relevant. You can do it to get influence, but late game you're usually drowning in resources and you don't really do much with money except buy CHOOM! The price also keeps rocketing up so it's simply not smart to sell some since you'll only have to pay more to repurchase it. If the game had more stuff you could throw your money into (late game, you're paying more for a single purchase of 5 shares than you are for the limited 'wonder'-tier buildings), then the mechanic would work a lot better. As is, when I tried to chase down CHOOM, it simply became incrementally more difficult to purchase as I clawed my way to the top. Rather than feeling like I was getting close to victory, it felt like the game was trying its best to slow me down, as the price climbed to absurd levels just from me purchasing it. The game even includes an auto purchase that seems to indicate the devs not really understanding their own system, as it buys 5 instead of 20 at a time, and stops as soon as you run out of money. So it explodes the price as fast as possible and stops working when you run out (which you will in only minutes). Instead it is so much better to just manually buy 20. It takes longer, but that results in the price spiking less. Finally you can become the governor. For context, you have 100 votes in the landsraad which you can spread out between the three bills. You can increase that to 250 and you can further boost your power by using influence (the cap on influence can be increased but IIRC the default is 300). Before you become governor, you need to hold some other office. Imagine my surprise when I called a vote on one of those offices, ingeniously that only I was in line for, tossed over 500 votes into the mix only to be defeated by over 600! It turns out that other factions can simply vote no, and that's what everyone did, plus prioritized voting on that. This is how I then gained the rare achievement of having over 1000 votes cast for me (1k just from myself). It is simply what it took. While it was doable to outsmart the AI to gain the necessary offices, the landsraad ALSO has bills that will torpedo your attempt at winning a political victory and I can't imagine that being possible when playing against humans. This felt like what happens in so many board games where the players look around and say: "He's about to win, let's all work together to make sure that doesn't happen." And I simply can't see how any player would be able to outvote three other players given how influence is used for nothing but voting, and so pools up a lot. All of that just makes the game unfun. I found myself pursuing all kinds of things in each game, as each victory type took ages to accomplish. And never in a very active way. Just waiting for the information level to go up, or waiting for enough cash to pool up, or waiting for enough authority to pool up. It was simply very boring.

It's a great game! Maybe more like a "real-time board game" if that makes sense, but honestly the fact that recent reviews are "mixed" is a travesty - so I'm doing my part. If you like the Dune universe, you can't go wrong with this one.

Meh, it's just a bit boring.

I love the politics of this game. It FEELS like Dune... sort of. I think it would be better suited for have less focus on one planet. I get it... its a fight for Arrakis. But there is a galaxy to fight over in that universe. And we all know only one family can mine the spice, so it feels a bit shoehorned. Since all of the maps are the same type, the strategy for most maps ends up the same... for me anyways. I think research happens too fast, and it feels like you don't have to work for it. Agents are great! There is a lot of potential here, and would love to see more.

Didn't launch no matter what I did for some reason. Followed all advice on forums etc. Would love to play it but cannot recommend atm. Refunded.

Good, albiet slower paced RTS. Great for someone like me who prefers turn based strategy games, but wants to dip my toes in. You wont get any insane APM like aoe or starcraft, but this game is still insanely fun with good strategy aspects.

No. They pronounce Atreides wrong. No. It's like the intro to the new Dune Movie. That ♥♥♥♥ never happened. Why? Leave it alone. No.

This is pretty much a good version of Northgard. If you're not familiar with that game, think a cross between Civ and Starcraft.

Sink in few hours into the game, only for the economy to tank within one day due to some random event and loose everything. Too buggy.