Emperor: Battle for Dune
Strategies, Unit Guides, Fun Things to Try
Written by James Simone. Version 1.4
This guide should only be found on GameFAQS, Neoseeker, and
DLH.net. If you see it anywhere else, be a kind soul and
report it to me.
1/21/02
I wrote this because there are not too many people out
there who actually have web pages helping people get better
at Emperor: Battle for Dune. Even worse, nobody actually
noted the fact that Emperor was a Real Time Strategy game
(RTS). See, the general idea I saw everywhere for Emperor
was: Just build up a lot of spice until you can build a
huge amount of units to wipe the other player out. Um....
hello, that's not STRATEGY! So I set out to write a
strategy guide for Emperor. If you want me to add
information, strategy tips, anything, just e-mail me with
the additions at Jamirus9@bestweb.net. I accept criticism,
questions, anything except flaming. I would appreciate it
if people would help with my House Ordos and Harkonnen
strategy sections. Thanks!
7/28/02
Whoa! It's been 6 months, and I still haven't finished
the guide. You can blame a whole host of things- Me seeing
the first Lord of the Rings movie and becoming completely
involved with anything Tolkien, Star Wars, and a whole host
of games: Jedi Knight 2, Battle Realms, X-Wing Alliance,
Medal of Honor, Zeus...but now I'm back to Emperor to help
the poor masses of fans searching for help (or maybe I'm
reading too much into this...hmmm...)
9/22/02
My first revision! It took GameFAQS almost two months
to post my guide, so I had stopped checking in at the
Emperor site to see if I had gotten posted. All of the
sudden, I started getting feedback. I checked the site,
and, voila, there was my guide. Hurrah! Anyhoo, I fixed
some grammatical errors, and added some tips against Ordos
human players online: apparently they have better defense
than I thought... I would also like to note that I will not
be responding to emails. If you see me add in your tip, or
fix a mistake of mine, that's about as much satisfaction as
your going to get. Sorry, but I just don't have time for
house calls. ("You know our motto, we deliver!")
9/23/02
Two revisions in two days! I'm pretty sure this won't
happen too often...first off, I forgot about my thank-you
section. I WILL be mentioning people who contribute there:
that is, if you give me your name. Ben Bacon gets the first
thank-you other than my original ones. I also fixed some
more grammatical errors, and added the Atreides defensive
buildings part, and the special ability. Don't be disturbed
by my Halo quotes, as I love that game too, and will
probably add one or more each time I revise. Of course,
you'll see a lot of other freaky quotes too- ("My life for
Aiur!")...Or something like that.
9/25/02
To my pleasant surprise, I found an email from
Neoseeker in my inbox today. My guide will now be posted
there, as well as on GameFAQS. And, thanks to those less
than kindly people out there who take advantage of people,
the computer that I use to check my mail now has yet
ANOTHER virus on it. Yes, that's right, we already had one,
and we can't seem to get that one out either. I may not be
updating for some time, as I may need to reinstall my OS.
So, you nasty, malicious people, are you satisfied?
10/4/02
October...another month gone by. As you can see, another
site offered to host my guide. Hope all you German fans
send me some good tips...
12/25/02
An update on Christmas? What's wrong with me? Anyhoo,
Dan D sent me several questions about Ornithopters the
other day...I've updated the thank-you's section, and the
Ornithopter section in the Atreides Unit Guide.
Chapter 1: General Strategies, Tips, and Things You Should
Know
First off, things you should know. If you read the
booklet that comes with the game, you'll see on the first
page the hot keys. You should either write these down or
memorize them (I have a Microsoft Strategic Commander, so I
just assigned the important commands to the buttons.) Among
the most important are:
R- retreat to base with selected units
D- for quick deploying with large amounts of deployable
units
X- scattering infantry when they're about to be run over
is a good idea
T- for selecting all of the selected type (hit once for
onscreen, twice for all of those units on the map)
Believe me, those will help. Everything else you can
do with the mouse. So, some general strategies for all the
houses, and then some specific ones.
Never forget your infantry! In Dune 2000, as soon as you
got vehicles, the infantry were forgotten. In Emperor,
however, infantry are the life force of the game. Now,
every house has what I like to call "special infantry," and
these are usually the ones that you want to use. For
Atreides, there is the sniper and the Kindjal. Harkonnen
has only the flame-thrower because they also have a
specialty vehicle (inkvine catapult) . The Ordos have the
Saboteur and the Mortar Infantry. All of these can be used
to your advantage. How to use them-
Atreides- Put the Snipers and Kindjal along the ridges
leading to the entrance, and then some near the entrance
itself. If you have a decent position, your infantry can
finish off the enemy before they even get to the entrance!
Or, stick them in trenches and infantry rock along the way
to the enemies so you can completely block assaults to
begin with.
Harkonnen- well, flame-throwers don't have long range, but
they're the only infantry who can survive a sniper shot,
and one burst of flame can wipe out scores of infantry. I
guess the best use for them is to back up assault tanks
during raids.
Ordos- The saboteur used to be able to cloak, but I don't
know if they do now. The best thing about them is well,
their explosions! It does tons of damage to buildings,
although mobile deploying is a bit harder. The mortar
infantry's long range makes them useful in the same way as
snipers. Stick them in ridges and infantry rock.
At this point, see, I saw my problem. I know too much
about
Atreides! Sure, I know a little about the Harkonnen from
all the time I've spent fighting them, but Ordos I'm
clueless about. So I'm asking for support for my House
Ordos and Harkonnen chapters. Please help me!
Chapter 2: Atreides
House Atreides has several advantages over the other
houses:
1.Excellent defense, held up by admirable infantry and
repair vehicles to ensure your vehicles won't get killed.
2. Veteran infantry (Level 3) can reenter the barracks so
the next guys who come out of the barracks of the same type
will be at the next level. Send three of the same unit type
in so you begin with Level 3 units from that infantry type.
Of course, there are also very special strategies
specific to Atreides. My personal favorite strategy is what
I've dubbed "The Mongoose Strafe." It's really very simple,
but works like a charm. Please note though that this is a
great strategy against Harkonnen, it doesn't work as well
against the Ordos because the laser tanks are fast and can
fire on the move. Okay, here it is: find the enemy's base.
Get about six to ten mongooses lined up in front of it.
Then, get a couple of infantry to lure some of the enemy
vehicles over to the mongooses. As soon as the enemy
vehicles get more interested in the mongooses than whatever
the bait was, let the mongooses get off a couple of shots,
then hit R. That will make them retreat to your base.
However, the mongooses can fire on the move. If you're
playing against the Harkonnen, as soon as their stupid
assault tanks and whatever else gets into range, they'll be
blasted by many, many mongoose missiles. Ordos is harder
because their laser tanks have the same abilities (the
mongooses do have range advantage, which is why I don't
completely discourage this tactic against the Ordos, and of
course I don't suggest it for Ordos because the laser tanks
are too fast for firing on the move: They would completely
outrun the enemy.)
Anyhow, that works, and my friends like it.
There are two other things to keep in mind with
Atreides- height advantage, and veteran infantry. Put
simply height advantage raises a given units range, power,
and defense. There are three types of height advantage
(Level 1, 2, 3) indicated by those red chevron thingies on
the side of a selected unit. You can get level 1 height
advantage by placing your units in trenches (now isn't that
odd? I mean, aren't trenches below ground?) Level 2 height
advantage is obtainable by putting infantry in infantry
rock. There are also other types of infantry cover, which
give your units height advantage. There's that stone tower
ramp thing in Atreides level three if you pick hole-in-the-
rock (I think that was the level) right near the Ordos base
where you can set up mongooses and snipers (mongooses will
only fit on the ramps though, everything else is infantry
cover. Also, there are those picket mounds in some levels:
these are infantry cover too. I think that's about it for
infantry cover. One of the best things to remember about
height advantage is shown in the third-to-last mission,
where you're on the Harkonnen home world. I'm pretty sure
the map is the same every time...but maybe it's not. Anyhoo,
in my map, there was a little ridge that jutted out near
the east entrance to my base. I placed some snipers there,
with a mongooses and missile turret for punch. The snipers
leveled up slowly enough, but once they hit level three, I
brought three back to the barracks. After that, I had about
ten cloaked snipers on that ridge. Let's just say no
infantry ever challenged the front of the base, and even
some vehicles got heavily damaged: Yes, that's how far
their range was extended. I almost cried it was so
beautiful.
Here's another little tip you'll find handy when
facing off against Ordos- Ornithopters. Let's put it this
way- Ordos has ONE unit that can fire on air units- AA
infantry, and they're not even that good! Ornithopters can
help in a lot of ways- clearing defensive emplacements-
taking out the Construction Yard, Factory, and Barracks,
and of course hunting down strike forces. In any level
where you are up against Ordos, consider getting some
Ornithopters to take out the Construction Yard, Factory,
and Barracks (in that order.) If you do that, the computer
(or human) is pretty much defenseless: You can't live on
reinforcement's forever. The other two methods are useful
too, especially when you have some Fremen Warriors handy to
take out nearby AA troopers. In fact, I believe that Fremen
raids go hand in hand with Ornithopter strikes. And
wouldn't it be nice if you could take out those pesky
Kobras before they get to your base? Unfortunately,
nothing is perfect: Ornithopters have the tendency to
return to your base after firing off missiles. To get them
to fire off their whole load, you will often find yourself
clicking repeatedly on the target so that they listen. Well
I guess you can't have everything.
Now, for another one of my favorites: Controlling the
Spice. Don't let the fancy name throw you off, this one's
simple. So simple the computer uses it against you to great
effect, and the only thing you do is build another
harvester! Bah! Strike back! Find where the enemy is
harvesting their spice, and set off. Obviously, you will
need some Mongooses- yes, shooting down the carryalls help.
For that matter, you might want to include some Air Drones.
Now, you can usually expect even the computer to try and
destroy your units, so you will also need some defense.
Minotaurus', Kindjal and Snipers will fill that gap,
although once again, your results may vary, so try to mix
different units in. Usually near spice fields there is some
infantry cover, and that's exactly where you'll want your
infantry to go. Scout ahead with Fremen, then put your
troops into action with formation move. Well, what are you
waiting for? Load up those APC's, soldier! You must
remember, however, that unlike you, the computer isn't
(that) stupid, and if there is another spice field
available, it may run there. You may need to spread out a
bit, or use two different groups to cover the spice fields.
Before we get to the last trick, I'd like to put in a
few different things that can help you, and are fun to try.
My favorite is the APC defense. If you are playing online,
this is perhaps the most fun thing to do. Get about 6 or 7
APC's near the front of your base. Situate them so they can
ambush any enemy groups, then turn off guard mode. When the
enemy comes calling, wait for them to get to the required
point, and then turn on guard mode. You might say this is
pointless, since the odds of destroying anything other than
the occasional infantry unit, but you'd be wrong. Against a
computer, this is only mildly disconcerting, although you
can use the distraction as a way to buy time as you
scramble units for defense. Against a human, however, it's
a whale of a different story. This can throw even the most
hardcore player into confusion, and although our APC's will
still be exterminated, if you have Kindjal and Minotaurus',
you can pick off a whole lot of units with minimal damage
to your actual defenses. Another great thing to do is to
airlift a repair vehicle and mongoose (or Minotaurus) to
cliffs that the enemy would be only able to reach via air.
If this cliff is along a path that the enemy uses often,
you often get the satisfaction of watching your unit pick
off other units with no actual damage to itself. Of course,
there are some tricky line of site problems on some cliffs,
where it looks like your unit should be able to hit
something, but it can't. This is especially useful if you
can also airlift an APC with Fremen Warriors and the like.
Unfortunately, don't think that you're the only person who
can do this. In one of the levels against the Harkonnen, I
had the unfortunate chance to meet up with two missile
tanks up on a cliff. Before my mongooses and whatnot could
get close enough, all the good units were already
destroyed. That is also an advantage for you, though-
Cliffs increase the range of your unit a bit, but the real
boon is on the defensive- units have to get really close to
the cliff to even fire at you. Last but not least, slowly
inch some APC's into your opponent's base...loaded with
Fremen! Mass chaos guaranteed!
Finally, an old classic that many players figured out,
but I thought I must include- The Advanced Carryall Strike.
Heard of it? Maybe you have. If not, here's how it
goes...once you get to a mission that let's you build
Advanced Carryalls, build about six of them, then start
training 10 engineers, 2 APC's, and four vehicles of your
choice (at least one Minotaurus) Then, assign the Carryalls
numbers 1-6, then have them pick up the APC's (with the
engineers in them) and the vehicles. Now, go to the place
you want to strike. My personal favorite is deep in the
enemy base. Then rapidly hit 1, left click, then 2, left
click, etc...until you finally have all six carryalls heading
towards their base. You might want to have them move to a
spot that's guaranteed not to get the Carryalls shot by
turrets first, though. Once your units are dropped in, make
the engineers run to the construction yard, and factory,
having the other units back them up. If you get these two
buildings, it's all over! This works very well with Hawk
Strike, since you can easily capture buildings if there are
only turrets to defend the base. Keep in mind, if the
defense is light, and you capture the construction yard,
that before you sell it (which is the logical thing to do)
you should build a factory, or barracks. There's nothing
more satisfying than using Devastators against the
Harkonnen.
Of course, successful offense is one thing, but what
if you're the defensive type? Well, defense is much easier
than offense...or is it? Well, for Atreides, defense is
easier to set up. Start off quickly by building snipers,
then upgrading your barracks for Kindjal. As I said before,
stick them along the ridges heading towards the usually two
entrances to your base. Then, start building mongooses.
Once you have a decent unit defense, you should build a
couple of wind traps, and then some Machinegun Posts. After
you upgrade your Construction Yard, build Rocket Turrets to
help out your Kindjal and Snipers, and then a couple at the
entrances to your base. You shouldn't build too many rocket
turrets, however, because you'll waste room on wind traps
for power. It's very easy to get sidetracked in the
beginning by building Machinegun Posts, but I only
recommend several of them at entrances where infantry raids
are inevitable. Because of their short range, Rocket
Turrets, and/or units behind them must back them up.
(putting the units in front of the Machinegun post would
negate the use of them since the units will kill the
infantry first) Other than these fixed points, use you own
strategies for defense, but try not to use more than two
defensive strategies at the same time: i.e.- You want your
infantry to cover the ridges, but then your also sticking
light infantry in infantry cover around your base to harass
units who get to close, while heavily defending the main
entrance to your base...does anyone else see how pointless
(and how many units you would lose) that this is? Try to
have several strategies to use for defense, then use them
accordingly per level or mission, choosing ones that will
help you use your surroundings to your advantage. Of
course, the trick to some missions is not to defend your
base, but your opponent's base. This works well with
missions with the Fremen (if you're allied) because they're
cloaked. I once found two trenches located conveniently at
the two entrances to the computers base. I stuck 20 Fremen
(mostly Warriors, maybe 8 Fedaykin) per trench. The Warrior
would take care of the infantry, while Fedaykin handled
vehicles. I held off entire assaults that would have
leveled my base! However, conditions have to be pretty good
for defensive things like this to work,
However, defense may be intimidating to newbies, even
on easy mode, because if you decide to bulk up on your
defensive strength, the computer will use the only strategy
it can- periodic medium assaults that will annoy the heck
out of you because these assaults generally aren't aimed at
your destruction, they're just done to weaken your
defenses. The computer uses these assaults to postpone your
actual discovery of their base, or to stop you from bulking
up on units for attack. This works because instead of
retaliating at a computer's attack, players begin to
rebuild their defense. And this pattern happens over and
over again until in a normal game you have built up enough
units to pour forth from your base and completely wipe out
the computer. Once again going back to my original
point...that's not strategy. The thing with Emperor is that
it's one of the first games to use free-form computer
thinking. In Dune2000, you could play a game once, then
restart it, and know exactly what was coming. In Emperor,
every game is different. The computer actually "thinks"
about what to do, depending upon what their scouts find you
doing. Unless you're really, really bad at exploring, you
will notice many scouts trying to get into your base, or
near it. The computer will then decide on a course of
action, depending on what the scouts find you doing.
Atreides Vs. Harkonnen, Atreides Vs. Ordos, General Tips,
and Unit Guide
Using information like this, you should be careful not
to let yourself gather offensive strike units near the
front of your base. If scouts see that, the computer will
gather a task force large enough to damage or destroy your
attack units at the front of your base. Or, if you're
against anything but Atreides, you might here that voice
say "Missile Launch detected," or even worse "Chaos
Lightning detected". Chaos Lightning is worse in my
opinion, since it affects turrets, although it's not like a
missile wouldn't destroy the turrets anyway. If this
happens, then its back to repair and rebuild. Keep your
units in your base until the moment you are actually ready
to spew forth. Then, especially if you are attacking with
more than one unit type, you may want to use formation move
(hold J while telling selected units to move) so that the
units will pace themselves to the slowest unit in your
group. While this sounds stupid, consider this:
If you were to mount a light sandbike and mongoose assault
on the enemy's base, and you needed this attack to be
precisely timed in order for it to work, which would you
prefer?
1. Having the sandbikes arrive first and get blown to
smithereens by laser tanks/assault tanks...or
2. Using formation move so the sandbikes formed a
protective escort around the mongooses, and arriving
at the enemy base at the same exact time to wreak some
havoc.
I pray you chose number two............ anyway, moving on. The
Waypoint Command, another new addition, is also very
helpful. Or, maybe not. By using the waypoint mode, you
can set up your own patrol lines for your units. This is
more useful with vehicles then infantry, but some people
don't like it, because the paths get bogged down when
using more than one different types of units are in one.
However, when you just use one unit type, waypoints
become a viable option, especially with mongooses,
because the fact that they're moving greatly augments
their abilities: firing on the move is once again
helpful.
Now, I'll lay down some stuff for Atreides vs.
Harkonnen. First of all, let's point out your advantages-
The only unit that can fire on the move for Harkonnen is
the Devastator, and that's only the tiny missile
launcher, so hit and fade attacks are quite useful.
Secondly, you've got the range that Harkonnen doesn't,
seeing as how only the Missile launcher and Inkvine
catapult have long ranges. Unfortunately, these two units
make up for everything. Level three Inkvine catapults
have a range that should be illegal in all states other
than Nebraska, and level three missile tanks can take
down a mongoose in a single salvo. So, what do you do? My
friend came up with an excellent strategy for taking out
Inkvines, and the best thing is, you only need one
mongoose! Simply get the mongoose in range, than start
ordering him to move left to right, right to left. Your
mongoose will be able to easily hit the Inkvine, since it
can fire on the move, but the Inkvine won't be able to
hit the mongoose since it's little toxic canisters don't
home. Haha! For missile tanks, remember that they have
VERY light armor. Hit it hard while it's still moving,
and chances are it will be overkill. The rest of
Harkonnen units aren't really that hard to deal with,
although you should watch out for flamethrower infantry.
They can survive a sniper shot, and can wipe out a ton of
infantry units with one burst of flame. The same applies
to the flame tank. Also, watch out for Buzzsaws when you
play against human players, as they will likely try to
ruin your spice. I find that the Harkonnen computer is a
bit more aggressive than Ordos, so watch out.
Fortunately, you also have time as your advantage- many
units for the Harkonnen take a long time to build, so you
can be sure to do a good amount of damage to them if you
strike right after they do. Lastly, watch out for the Gun
Turret- it does way too much damage in too little time.
Ah, Atreides against Ordos...life is good. Ordos lack a
lot of things, including offensive punch. Oh sure,
they've got cool APC's but that's about it. Their two
most dangerous units are the Laser tank and Kobra. I'll
make it clear now- I hate Kobras! They make my blood boil
when they attack right outside of your unit's range. When
you are hit with Kobra's, hit back hard with Sonic tanks
and Minotaurus', and quickly. Often if you aren't quick
with the mouse, most of your infantry will be dead before
you can strike a blow. Most infuriating is there is a
difference between your unit's range and their automatic
defensive strike back thingy. Minotaurus' CAN hit Kobras
if the Kobras can hit your units, but unless you order
them too, they won't. Laser tanks are thankfully much
easier to handle. Oh sure they're fast, and if you're
defense isn't watertight, you'll often see them blow by
firing at your defensive units, then wreaking havoc in
you base because you forgot to put at least one Rocket
turret near your construction yard. Thankfully, they have
many shortcomings, which s why they're so easy to handle-
long recharge rate for firing, can't run over infantry,
ineffective against infantry...a couple of Kindjal will
send these babies running home whimpering, if they're not
blasted to bits. Plus, Ordos has a huge weakness that is
only slightly exploitable in other Houses. You see, when
you do enough damage to an Atreides or Harkonnen, they
slow down a bit. If you do enough damage to an Ordos
unit, they will slow down A LOT!! If an Ordos unit
becomes critically damaged, and attempts to run, it most
likely won't get far. You may have wondered why I haven't
listed the Deviator as a fearsome unit. It's really quite
simple why I didn't- Deviator's have so little armor and
range, that if they actually got close enough to fire a
missile at one of your units, you should be ashamed and
rethink your defensive strategy. Remember to use
Ornithopters to great affect, and remember that Ordos's
defensive structures suck. However, here, do to some
requests I'm getting, I will address the problems people
are having getting into a heavily defended Ordos base.
Yes, with Kobras, Mortar infantry, and so on it can be
tricky. But, have you ever tried to mix it up a bit?
Which allies do you have? Fremen/ Sardaukar or Fremen/
Guild are the best two combinations for Ordos. Fremen is
pretty self-explanatory: there is nothing more satisfying
than watching those frickin smarmy "Well I've got a
longer range than you," Kobras being blown to bits by
invisible Fremen Fedaykin commandos. The Sardaukar are
also a fine choice, because their heavy armor allows them
to get close enough to most units to fire. The Elite
shouldn't be used to extensively: they take to long to
build, and a mongoose is better for what you get. As for
The Guild, teleport their tanks into the base, then,
while the player is distracted, fly in some units, or
parade some Fremen in...works every time! If you don't play
with those allies, sucks to be you! No wait, only
kidding. Just airlift some units, soldier. Take it to a
higher level. Or, if you're forced to wait, level up some
snipers and Kindjal, then start sabotaging their spice.
Reinforce their spice fields with fully upgraded snipers
and Kindjal, and toss in some Minotaurus' and Mongooses
for good measure ("and if you throw in a pinch of salt...")
That's right, classic siege techniques! Starve those
Ordos rats out of their holes.
Unit Guide
Scout- well, there's not much to say about the scout.
They move very fast, and have a huge line of site. When
not moving, or just moving a few steps, they are
camouflaged. How can you tell if by moving a unit that
has only temporary camouflage will reveal it? There will
be a little white revolving ring on the inside of the
cursor. If it disappears, then the unit cannot move there
and still stay camouflaged. If it stays, you can move
there in camouflage. Being to close to an enemy unit also
breaks camouflage.
Light Infantry- Light Infantry will definitively be the
least used unit that you have. They are effective against
infantry, but even the damage there is minimal. Don't
even think about using these guys for vehicles. They're....
not good at all, to put it nicely. In any case where you
would consider using Light Infantry, use Snipers instead.
Sniper- Ah, the Atreides sniper: a jewel among infantry.
For starters, let's just say that these guys have the
longest range of any infantry. Secondly, other than the
Flamethrower Infantry, their shots are one hit infantry
killers. Unfortunately, they are very ineffective against
vehicles. Snipers move fast enough, but reload slowly. It
must be noted that when Snipers level up to level three,
they become camouflaged. Stick them in infantry rock and
ledges to improve range, and there you have it, a one man
infantry wonder.
Kindjal Infantry- When you look at your basic Kindjal,
you see an overly expensive, slow unit, armed only with a
pistol wearing a sign that says "Some Assembly Required."
Then, you deploy him, and you see how good life gets.
When deployed, Kindjal use a long-range mortar to shell
incoming enemies. Extremely effective against vehicles,
they are the vice-versa of snipers, as they are
ineffective against infantry. Like snipers, they enjoy
being deployed in large groups in near infantry rock or
on ledges.
Engineer- The Atreides Engineer is a very straightforward
unit. Select him, and then click on enemy building. When
he gets close enough, he will capture it and paint it the
lovely Atreides blue. Unfortunately, he isn't the fastest
unit, and certainly doesn't have the best defense. A
little known fact about engineers is that for a cost, you
can repair a building very quickly: just select him, and
click on a damaged building. It will repair much faster
than using the repair button, and since you can do both
at the same time, you can make life easier for yourself.
Keep one handy around turrets.
MCV- well now, here's another straightforward unit.
Deploy an MCV, and it turns into a Construction Yard.
Select a Construction Yard, and tell it to move, and it
changes back into an MCV. Wow! It's just like those
transformer toys...I think. MCV's are slow, but heavily
armored. An interesting thing to do is to airlift an MCV
behind enemy lines. Hide it where you can deploy it, and
use it if you need it.
Harvester- Wahoo! Automated resource gathering!
Harvesters are SLOW, but heavily, heavily armored. Even
concentrated armor from something effective against
vehicles doesn't stand a chance if you repair the thing
from time to time.
Sand Bike- Sank Bikes are underrated, and they shouldn't
be. They are very effective against infantry, and are
very fast. They sacrifice armor for that speed though, so
don't think twice about running when you see more than a
couple units. Sand Bikes are great for rousing the
enemies defensive force- perform a hit and fade maneuver
right back to your forces. Works wonders against those
pesky Laser Tanks!
Mongoose- Ah, the mongoose. When compared to the sand
bike, mongooses seem slow, but they really have a
respectable speed. Although they don't have much armor,
they have three things that count: They are effective
against vehicles, they can fire on air units, and the
360-degree rotating turret can fire on the move. Go
mongooses!
APC- The Atreides APC is your standard ho-hum infantry
transporter. These little guys are suicidal to the nth
degree, sometimes sensing units like the Kobra that most
units wouldn't fire on even if they could see it, and
rushing to their doom. Turning off guard mode helps a
lot, making these little guys into your favorite infantry
friend. However, they are armed with only a light machine
gun that does next to nothing, so always consider staying
in camouflage rather than attacking. APC's can hold up to
five infantry units. Plus these things scurry along real
fast.
Minotarus- If the Mongoose is the Kindjal of the vehicle
world, then the Minotaurus is the Sniper. Those four
shots are extremely deadly to infantry, and do a huge
amount of splash damage. The Minotaurus is okey-dokey
against vehicles, but really shines against buildings,
leveling small ones in one four-round burst. They have a
huge range, and the reload rate is just right. Plus, they
can swivel up to 90 degrees left and right...what a pity
with a feature like this that they can't fire on the
move. Unfortunately, Minotaurus' pay the price: they are
EXTREMELY slow! I will also note that I have been getting
some requests about the Minotarus, Kindjal, and Sniper
combo. Apparently, some of you think that Minotaurus' are
also the ultimate defensive weapon when used in groups.
Okay, you're right, I forgot to mention that.
Repair Vehicle- Haha Harkonnen! Sure, Ordos units "Heal"
naturally over time, but Atreides one-ups even them with
the repair vehicle. Sure, these dudes have very little
armor on and often die quickly. But nobody cares since
using the buddy system makes sure they stay around. Two
repair vehicles supporting a mongoose can hold out for a
long time, fixing each other and the mongoose. They
repair at a great rate, and are pretty fast. Now if only
they didn't take so long to build...
Sonic Tank- The Atreides' signature unit since Dune2000,
the Sonic Tank really is a great unit. Put simply, you
can see the Sonic Tank's power: if this shot connects
with infantry, they're dead. D-E-A-D! Also, because
usually the infantry come running along one at a time,
single file, you can kill about four of them, possibly
five, with one shot, since the sonic blast goes a long
way. The Sonic Tank is also very affective against
vehicles, and at level three, they take the Devastation
out of the Devastator- they have a huge at level three,
and do so much damage, they can destroy an Inkvine
Catapult (and many other vehicles) in one spectacular
sonic blast. Plus, they fire at a great rate, and move
quickly enough for a unit this powerful. The only
drawback is minor- Sonic Tanks only have medium armor.
Carryall and Advanced Carryall- The carryall is pretty
basic: you get one carryall and one harvester with each
refinery and refinery ramp you build. You can build more
at the Hangar. They have only medium armor, so watch out!
Yeah, yeah, all the regular carryalls do is ferry
harvester to spice fields and back, but Advanced
Carryalls make up for the Carryall name. They have a lot
of armor, are even faster than carryalls, and can pick up
any vehicle! All right!
Ornithopter- Ornithopters are fast, and carry missiles
that do an okay amount of damage (alright, yes, you're
probable going to need a swarm of them to get anything
done...) They can't fire on air units, but hey, lets not be
picky. I prefer the speed to the air superiority, but I
think they could have gotten better armor. Of course, if
an Ornithopter goes up against a missile tank, you could
always have it out fly the missiles. When you tell
Ornithopters to attack, they will fly with all speed
towards the target, unleashing missiles as soon as they
get close. Yes, Ornithopters can fire on the move, but it
is hard to get them to do this once they get to the
target, as they switch to hovering. Once they have only
about four missiles left (they hold sixteen) they will
streak back to your base, and cluster around a landing
pad...what a pity they don't rearm automatically. To make
them fire all missiles, you must re-click on the target
when they turn to flee. And by request, let me simplify
things- you will have to click on each one of the
ornithopters and manually tell them to rearm, unless you
already had them in a ctrl group- but having 30
ornithopters rearm at one landing pad isn't pretty, so
either way you go about doing it, rearming ornithopters
is tuff.
Air Drone- Air Drones are right for the price- they are
insanely fast, fire powerful missiles at airborne
targets, and go into an automatic Circle the Target mode
after they arrive where you tell them to go. Once again,
I would wish for more armor.
Atreides Defensive Buildings, and Special Ability
Machinegun Post- The Gatling Gun, as I call it, has a
short range, but can be useful. It fires really fast, and
deals plenty of damage to infantry. Watch out for
vehicles though, as the Gatling Gun just doesn't have the
range or power needed to destroy armored vehicles. The
armor is pretty light too.
Rocket Turret- the Atreides Rocket Turret is everything
the Machinegun Post wants to be. It can fire on air
units, deals plenty of damage to vehicles, has a much
longer range...but isn't that good against infantry. Oh
well. I would classify the armor as medium.
Hawk Strike- When you build the Atreides Palace,
providing you have enough power, the hawk strike will
start charging. View its progress in your vehicles
building tab. You can fire it anywhere you can see on the
map, and it causes all enemy units to flee for the map
borders, never to be seen again if they cross it. This
makes a great distraction for attacking someone's base,
or for defensive purposes. Watch those suckers flee! ("We
have to put the fear of GOD in them, men!")
Harkonnen Strategy
Coming soon (hopefully!)
Ordos Strategy
Coming soon (hopefully)
Credits!
This walkthrough was made by James Simone. I'd like to
thank all my friends, especially AJ Delpup for all their
advice and hard work on different strategies especially on
the Inkvine catapults: thanks, they were annoying!
Hopefully there will be more thank-you's here soon enough
when I get some feedback. Here are the thank yous: Ben
Bacon, Dan D.
Thanks GameFAQS!!
