Dune: Spice Wars is a real-time Grand Strategy game developed by Shiro Games and based on the sci-fi classic Dune worldview. Players will take on the role of one of the three traditional factions on the planet Erlakos (the so-called 'Dunes') and the independent smugglers. The ultimate goal was achieved by extracting spices, conducting military operations, controlling and developing towns, and diplomacy and espionage: to become the de facto ruler of Erakos. The game is currently in the early stages of development and testing, and the EA version was released on April 26. Steam is currently rated as particularly positive.
In much of the early publicity, Spice Wars was described as an RTS game. And when the words 'dune' and RTS are connected together, many old players naturally can't help but be foolish. After all, the ancestor of the RTS genre is 1992's "Dune II", and then Nishiki's "Dune 2000" has also been popular for a while. As a result, many players may unconsciously make up a concept image in their minds. However, the true gameplay of Spice Wars is fundamentally different from Westwood's old Dune series. Its overall style is closer to a P-club", "Stars" under the "Dune" worldview. The gameplay is actually closer to an instant, pauseable grand strategy game than RTS. There is more content in the operational strategy link, and much less in the battle command and tactical choices.
(2 out of 4 consultants provide some special bonuses)
The factions that players can choose from in the game include the traditional dune factions: Yatridi, Hackani, Freeman, and the independent smugglers. Each faction has active or passive specialties that can influence the game from different angles to highlight the faction's characteristics. In addition to the main faction features, players can choose 2 of the 4 advisors in each game during the preparation phase to provide additional perks for the single game. Each game map comes with a certain randomness. The entire large map is divided into several small 'plots', except for the player's initial main city, all other areas need to be occupied by controlling the villages in the plot, in other words, the player cannot 'build a base' in any area at will, but must be based on the villages inherent in the specific plot. These initially neutral villages will have militias stationed in them, and once they are defeated, they can choose to collect them under their own camp by paying a certain amount of resources or simply plundering them to obtain resources. However, if you are a member of the Yatridi family, you can also choose to use the faction's ability to 'peacefully' take over the village. After completing the capture of the plot, the player can carry out a series of operational planning here. The so-called operation is nothing more than resource collection and expenditure. There are different resources on each specific plot, some of which are natural resources, which are displayed directly on the map. Others are hidden resources such as hegemonic values or technology bonuses, which are presented as regional buffs. There are about 10 different types of resources available in the game, which are used for different purposes, far more than the average RTS. This is also a manifestation of the game's more inclined towards grand strategy.
(Spices are dune specialties and had to be tasted)
Let's start with natural resources, the most typical of which is naturally the most well-known setting in the dune worldview: spices. Spices are pegged to the game's base currency, the Cosmic Cable. Almost all units/buildings in the game have a need to consume them. Players can build refineries on plots with spices and send out spice hunters to collect them, and then sell them for cosmic sols at a certain exchange rate. Usually according to the default setting, the collected spices will not be fully exchanged and there will always be a surplus. This was to cope with a system mechanism: imperial taxation. After all, although the story of the Dune series never surpasses Thatlacus, the entire worldview is still in the context of the Cosmic Empire. At regular intervals, the Empire would charge a certain amount of spices. And if it is not paid in time, it will affect another mechanism, the Imperial Legislature. We'll wait a minute and say this in the diplomatic section.
In addition to the basic resource of the cosmic rope (money), other types of resources should be more targeted in terms of use. For example, the 'water' needed to train combatants and occupy towns, the 'plastic clay' needed for buildings, the 'batteries' needed for the production of mechanical units, and so on... These resources can be obtained by building the corresponding buildings. On some plots, there will be additional area buffs that increase the output of these resources, which also brings some of the characteristics of these areas. Each town initially has two building slots fixed, which can then be unlocked for an additional 100,300,500 plastic clay. As a result, the early stage has to face limited resources and the later stage has to face limited building blocks. The planning of each plot still has to be carefully considered. Plus technology, diplomacy and espionage systems. The operating system is still quite complex. New players will inevitably have to scramble for a while to figure out this routine. Of course, this is also the necessary foundation for grand strategy games, otherwise how can it be called 'big' strategy?
(Can play, but not necessarily)
There are three ways to win the game: the 'political victory' of the governor's election through the voting agenda of the Imperial Legislature; the 'hegemonic victory' that first accumulates the "hegemonic value" that reflects the comprehensive strength of the faction to 25,000; and the traditional 'conquest victory' that destroys all enemies' hometowns. The characteristics of each faction will give them a certain advantage over a certain way of winning, such as the Yatridi family has some political victory advantages and Hackeny is strong, but this does not mean that the gameplay of each family is fixed, and the game still leaves enough strategic space for players in terms of gameplay.
Let's start with the most easily understood conquest victory, the battle system. Frankly speaking, spice wars' current combat system can only be called 'rudimentary'. Although the combat units of each of the 4 factions are basically different, there are only 5 classes under each faction and one of them is still auxiliary, and the combat units are all infantry without artillery tanks... Even if you add two additional ones that are unlocked through some conditions (legislation, technology). This amount is really too little even for grand strategy games. Advanced classes also need to invest some time in researching technology to unlock. Moreover, only the main city can build troops, and the required resources require additional 'manpower value' in addition to the basic money and water. The cost and maintenance fees are also relatively expensive. The total number of combat units that the player can control is also limited by the 'command value', and beyond the command value, it will also suffer negative effects. At the same time, because of the presence of town garrisons and defensive buildings. Add to this the very key setting 'Supply': all units have a supply value in addition to the health bar, which begins to burn out as soon as they leave the town. When supplies are depleted, health will begin to be lost until the unit dies. Although this is a good simulation of the harsh natural environment on the dunes. But it also means that trekking on a map is a chore in itself. As a result, we can see that there are too many rules and regulations in the game that negatively limit the combat system. As a result, the entire game is more inclined to static defense and slow expansion in terms of combat system, and there is not much strategic and tactical development depth in pure combat. Considering that it is still in the EA stage, it is hoped that the production team will be able to use it as the focus of development in future subsequent updates. At the very least, you have to add heavy weapons like planes and tanks. After all, most of the players who will like this genre still like to fight.
(The Dunes speak of imperial law)
Beyond that, it is the political victory we mentioned earlier from the victory of the 'Imperial Legislature' to the governor.' The Imperial Legislature is a mechanism similar to the United Nations in Civilization VI. Voting is used by the various factions in the game in a regularly open parliamentary body to select the objects affected by it in 3 resolutions. These resolutions have varied effects ranging from increasing the spice exchange rate, lowering the recruitment fund, increasing the additional maintenance fees of a certain faction, and so on, with both gains and debuffs. In addition to some regular issues, there are 5 powerful 'charters' such as unlocking special classes, optional topics and a series of functions. The effect is usually a gain. To be a beneficiary of the Charter, one first needs to complete certain occupation/production requirements. The camps that benefit from these agendas can also maintain this advantage until the next vote on the issue, rather than just until the next legislative session, as is the case with ordinary issues. From the perspective of RP, the interpretation is that a certain camp has taken an important position on the dune by winning the election. The most important of these charters is naturally the one that determines the subject of 'dune rule' of the Governor of Dunes. The prerequisites for this qualification are also very stringent. However, after winning, as long as no one meets the other winning conditions for 60 days (about 25 minutes) in the game, the game can be won. So, if you want to make all the agendas in the Legislative Council develop according to the results you want. Naturally, it is necessary to obtain as many votes and influence as possible. The votes were largely determined by the camp's hierarchy of power in the Legislature, which came from the Cosmic Empire's mandate to pay the Spice Tax to the Empire on time and in quantity. Equivalent to official opinion. The additional influence comes from specific buildings, the occupation of plots with special landmarks, etc. Equivalent to popular opinion. Only when the two are combined can we truly control the politics of the dunes. In addition, the Freemans, as so-called 'Indigenous rebels', had very little interest in the Imperial Legislature, and many agendas were not eligible for benefit. It is also a camp feature.
Finally, it represents the 'hegemonic victory' of the player's comprehensive strength in the game. Hegemony is a statistical value that accumulates slowly from the beginning of the game. All player activities in the game, including resource collection, town capture, election victory, number of kills, etc., will be recorded. It is not a resource and cannot be consumed. However, there are ways to speed up acquisition in some ways, such as specific buildings. In addition to being a condition for winning after accumulating 25,000, the hegemonic value is more important as a threshold for unlocking special abilities. For example, the overall faction will have two thresholds of 5000 and 10,000 to unlock the faction's advanced ability, and special buildings to unlock the main city from 2000: the main city is not a village, and it cannot build regular buildings, but has a series of characteristic powerful buildings that affect all aspects of the game that need to be unlocked under certain conditions. In short, I think that the hegemonic victory is more like a means of controlling the garbage time in order to avoid the strength of all parties in the later stages of the game, resulting in a garbage time of 'fighting and not moving, developing and having no place to develop'.
(Spy system can provide panel skills)
In terms of technology, there are a total of 4 technology trees in the game that can provide players with military, economic, expansion and espionage advantages. Includes unlocking special classes, buildings, and more. The acquisition of research values can be improved by methods such as building scientific and technological buildings to speed up the research process. Speaking of spy systems, although there are already similar systems in Stars. But I think the spy system in Spice Wars is still very interesting to play. Simply put, each faction in the game will automatically recruit up to 10 spies over time. Players can assign these spies to 'infiltrate' other factions in the espionage system interface, including three opponents on the dunes and a total of 7 factions of the Imperial Legislature, the Union Guild, the Chamber of Commerce, and the native people of Erlakos. In addition to the fixed provision of 'intelligence' for each faction, the infiltration of each faction has different resources such as manpower provided by the Astronautical Guild, influence provided by the Legislative Council, and so on. And as the penetration of it continues to increase, a series of 'actions' can be unlocked. These actions can be said to be the essence of the spy system, which is a concept that is easier for RTS players to understand. The effects of these skills range from simple probing an area and reducing the combat effectiveness of enemy units to attacking super weapon areas or even directly assassinating the leader of an opposing faction. The richness of its effects can meet the game style of most players. In addition to the intelligence value, these operations also have certain infiltration level requirements. The more powerful the espionage operation, the higher the requirements, such as assassinating the leader of the opponent requires 5 factions to reach the penetration level of 2, which is actually difficult to achieve. But the demands for action at the middle and lower levels are not so high. Whether it is in conjunction with military operations or economic strikes against opponents, it is very practical. You can provide a rich strategy selection scheme for the game.
(Is there no sandworm that still dune?
Others include random weather systems, randomly generated decision events that provide small buffs/debuffs, and features that have to be tasted: Sandworms are presented in the game as small systems that reflect the characteristics of the worldview. These elements do not have a big impact on the global game, but only appear as embellishments, so I will not go into detail.
Overall, Dune: Spice Wars isn't the nostalgic work that old RTS players have come to expect. Its gameplay style is more similar to a series of grand strategy games of the P Society. However, such as "Stars", which has been perfected in all aspects, although the design of the entire gameplay system is still relatively complete, it can still clearly see the blank spaces that need to be filled. In terms of system complexity, it operates more and fights less, so it appears to be 'bigger' than RTS. But if you really want to talk about the level of detail in this system, it is 'small' than those mature grand strategy games. The single game is about 3 to 5 hours. The current amount of content is about 2 to 3 games after the complete game can basically experience more complete. As an EA stage work, 130 blocks is also a little expensive. Interested players are advised to stay tuned and wait until the discount or game content is further improved.