That's right. They have better technology than other races from begin on and further on too.

False. All the races have the "best technology" available, what change is their way of thinking.

The Harkonens are very heavy and slow. They have access to their destructive missile by late game, and it's the most destructive weapon in the whole game.

The Atreides have a nice mix of defense and speed and also have the only aircraft in the game. They can call up on Fremens in the late game and they are really worth it.

The green army (don't remember the name at the time) are very light but also very fast. Their missile launchers can "brainwash" ennemy units to fight on your side, so you should not even bother trying to mind the lack of their own units armor. :evil: Their secret agents are sure not worth much tough.

ordos. they dont' have heavy tanks. their "path" is the tougher. also because palace ultimate weapon is of no use. they too have the aircraft.

Ordos didn't have a heavy tank in Emperor:Battle for Dune either.
Instead they had a tank that, when used to attack, would take control over any enemy tank you chose to 'attack'
which is quite nifty

1: Ordos (green) deviator (that brainwashing missile tank). I tried using it once - except I forgot that the effect was only temporary! Very useful against Harkonnen Devastators though! (brainwash them, then self destruct them before they regain their senses!) As for the spies, they were only good if they didn't run into anything along the way to the enemy base.

2: Er....has anyone else lost up to 10 tanks in a battle, simply because the computer BUILT a structure (heavy factory) on top of them? This was fixed in C&C, but in Dune2 having an enemy unit in the way didn't prevent a structure from being placed.

3: The Genesis (called Megadrive in Europe) version was easier in some respects - each "block" was relatively larger than on the PC version (so missile tanks were much more effective at attacking turrets - since they were less likely to miss - on the PC version, the missile had to score a direct hit to do any damage). That said, I'm not sure that Devastators could be self- destructed in the Genesis version.

4: At the end of the Atredies (is the spelling right?) campaign, the mentat and some guards enter the Emperor's throne room. He asks what is the meaning of this intrusion, and the mentat tells him that he is to be removed and charged with crimes against House Atreides. You see his face fall, then you see the whole planet go blue (since it's all Atreides owned now!).

5: Infantry and troopers are almost pointless here - I find it hard to capture buildings, due to the speed at which repairs are conducted (so it's hard to keep the enemy building in the "red zone" in terms of health). Also, they are soooo slow, and can all run over by even the slowest tank. However, I think they can be used as a sacrifice to those sandworms (I think these disappeared either if you hurt one by more than 50%, or if it had swallowed a certain number of units).

What a great game. I don't know how often I played through it when it came out. It's still an awsome game and I like it more than it's two follow ups.
I always used to build my base as pretty as possible, with streets between the buildings and walls arround it with heavy garded entrances, like a sci-fi version of Sim City.
This game is a true gem, and the reason i started to read the great novels of Frank Herbert.
It also reminds me of the good old days, where you recieved beautyfull illustrated manuals, it's a shame that today's games often come along only with a few pages or even a pdf file.

Really a great game i played it when i was really young
i didnt even saw the movie before
so in my oppinion the harkons were the only people
who have usefull troups
just heavy metall nuclear missiles and no stupid
soldiers which you can easily drive over
or ornithopter who just took one or two missiles to explode

after seeing the movie I had already completed the game
so i tried atreides only in Emperor

a good trick for destroying enemy missiletowers is
to aim with 4 or 5 missile ramps a bit before the tower on
the ground after a while they will destroy the tower
without beeing hit
just have an eye for approaching enemy troups :ok:

and i think it was fun to built thinks over enemy troups
and makes them part of the building like the cosa nostra

the "only" thing new rts games make better (ecxept graphic)
is the ability to move more than one soldier at the same time :not_ok:
:crazy: :bye: :bye:

Actually, Missile Tanks already have a bigger range than the Missile Towers. The trick is that you must be at the furthest range before telling them to attack or the stupid computer AI will make them move forward +1 squares as soon as they are in range, effectively putting them in range of the towers too.

For the Harkonen, I beleive that's the newbie race of choice. On the other hand, I always played as Atre?des and I like them too. They have special weapons which counter the fact that they have less armour, and they go faster too which give you a bigger range of strategies to exploit.

The Fremen are really tough soldiers too. Since they are free to produce with your castle, at worse you send them kamikazing themselves on buildings and you should capture one or two easily.

For the Ornithopters... Well yeah, they do are fragile. But think about them as an extra attacker when you have the spice to come up with the cost of building them one after the other. Just don't build them when you know your ennemy still have a lot of Missile Towers still up and you should be fine.

I also preferred the Atreides. Their Sonic Tanks are immense powerfull. And the function of this weapon is also very original, it destroys the molecular structure with gigantic sonic blows. I don't want to know how this must feel.
Also you had to be carefull that none of you own units comes into the way of these units as they are lethal to everyone.

I think the Hand of Death was one of the best implemented Weapon of Mass Destruction ever implemented in a RTS because I don't like the fact that the one with the first Nuclear Missle or Ion Cannon or whatever, wins. This makes the whole game a little boring. I appreciate the fact that the Hand of Death (aka big nuclear missile) wasn't a game winner.

Oh, and it's was too bad that you could never build Sardauker. They where really awesome infatry troops and as far as I know in one mission you even had a squad under your command.

What I consider a big advantage of the Harkonnen and the Ordos, was that they automatically opened fire against the worms. The Atreides didn't open fire and there was no way to attack the wurms with their towers.

I used that as an advantage actually, leading the worms in the spice mines of the opponent. They must have spent a lot of spice purchasing new harversters! :ok: