Copyright 2005 Emiliano Mennucci "Dune 2 - The building of a dynasty" Walkthrough written by Emiliano Mennucci v0.4 ======== VERSIONS ======== 0.8 - Added walkthrough for missions 5, 6, 7. 0.4 - Full walkthrough to the first four missions. =============================================== TABLE OF CONTENTS SEARCH KEY ----------------------------------------------- Introduction #intro Missions 1-2 #miss1-2 Mission 3 #miss3 Mission 4 #miss4 Mission 5 #miss5 Mission 6 #miss6 Mission 7 #miss7 ================================================ ============ INTRODUCTION ============#intro Why a walkthrough for such an old game? This is a good question. I loved this game when I was young (13-14 years old) and I wrote a walkthrough in those years. Some months ago, while I was cleaning my room, I found an old printed version of it. "WOW", I tought, "can't believe it. I wonder if this is still valid". So, 10 years later, I reinstalled Dune 2 on my PC and I played again, following the advices wrote by myself when I was 14. And I finished it again, so I thought: "maybe those advices can be useful for zomeone else, too". That's why I'm translating the walkthrough in English for gamesfaq :). Since this is a RTS (Real-time strategy) game, walkthrough is maybe not a good word: think to this text as a set of good advices, which can simplify your life if you find hard to finish this game. ============ MISSIONS 1-2 ============#miss1-2 These missions are really easy. What you need is to harvest enough spice. In the second mission, an enemy base will be present, but do not attack it! Simply harvest the spice, you'll have time to war in other missions, believe me :). In the second mission, you should build two refineries, and two silos to contain the spice's amount requested. ========= MISSION 3 =========#miss3 From here, the mission objective will be always the same: destroy every enemy unit/buinding in the map. First thing to do is to discover the enemy position. So, save the game, send your starting units to each angle of the map and, when you know where the enemy is, reload the previous saved game. The save/load trick is necessary because the enemy will attack you heavly when "discovered" in the map and this is BAD at the beginning of any mission. Put all your units in the direction of the enemy's attack (that is, the direction of the previuous discovered base) to have a good defense, but leave someone of them in other parts of your base; this is mandatory, because, at the beginning, the enemy will send flying cargos which will drop units randomly near your base. Build a windtrap power center and a refinery, followed by a radar and a light factory. If you play with Harkonnen, build a WOR to have strong troups in aid to your quads; Atreides and Ordos troups are quite ineffective, so it's better if you don't train them. Also, upgrade the light factory to build quads (trikes are weak); this cannot be done if you are playing with Ordos (infact playing with Ordos, these first missions are harder). Build a second refinery (this is a MUST in every missions: ALWAYS build at least 2 refineries, from the beginning) and store credits, while defending yourself from attacks. Your defence units should be placed very near each others (that is: in adjacent cells) to have more fire power against attackers. When you have stored enough credits (8000-10000) it's time to plan the attack. Build another light factory (one is not enough to send the reinforcements that you'll need in the attack) and build quads (and some troup if you want) until you reach the maximum number of buildable units. Group all your units on a rock near the enemy base, save, and begin the attack. Your primary objectives are: 1) The light factory 2) The construction yard If you destroy those buildings you win. Do not waste too many resources in fighting enemies units for now: put as many units as you can to destroy the buildings listed before. Once done, you should destroy the troup training building; after that you can destroy enemies units. Each time a unit is destroyed (yours or enemy's, it doesn't matter) start building a new quad in your base and send it IMMEDIATLY into the battle. In this way you should be able to win. ========= MISSION 4 =========#miss4 In this mission you can build the heavy factory and the walls. Walls are useless, exept in the direction from where the attacks will come, so don't waste your time building walls all around your base. From this mission you don't need troups any longer. They are obsolete. Build tanks and quads instead. As always, build two refineries; also build an addictionary harvester, using a heavy factory. To win this missions, you should procede in the same way as the previous mission: build the maximum number of units, wait to have enough credits for reinforcement and lead the attack. Before attacking, you should have one light factory and two heavy factories. Your primary objectives should be factories (both light and heavy) and the construction yard. Except for tanks, this mission is quite similar to mission 3, so you should win this. ========= MISSION 5 =========#miss5 This is the first non-easy mission. You have new buildings, such as light turrets, repair facility and high tech factory. New units are also available; they are the cargo and the rocket launcher. From this mission is very important to plan a good defence before begin any attack. So, quickly build 2 refineries and the light factory; keep all your units in defence, until you build 5-6 light turrets in the attack main path. Turrets should not be build in adjacent cells, but within a distance of one-two cells. While doing that, build some quad if enemy attacks are frequently. After building the turrets, you can build a heavy factory; with that you can make a new harvester. The repair facility isn't very useful (but it will became a MUST in the next missions), so you can avoid its construction. When your defence is ready (that means that enemy's attacks are ineffective), you can build the High Tech Factory to have cargos. Cargos are very useful, because they will transport harvesters from spice fields to refinery and viceversa: this means that you don't have to manage the resource collection anymore. Enemy will also attack using rocket launchers; it's easy destroying them using quads: simply move 1-2 if them in an enemy's launcher's adiacent cell and attack it. When you have enough credits (12000 at least) make another heavy factory and begin to build tanks. Also build 2-3 rocket launchers (you don't need more). Attack should be done in the usual way: build the maximum number of tanks that you can and lead a massive attack against the enemy base. Anyway, it will be hard to win in a single attack, since enemy defence is strong. Always remember that your primary targets should be the factories and the construction yard. Use launchers to destroy buildings beyond walls and use tanks to protect them from enemy attacks. If you see that you are loosing the battle, then retreat to you base: you will lead another attack after a while. Enemy turrets can be annoying: use 2-3 tanks to get them down quick; don't use quads or launchers to destroy them: they have too weak armors and launchers are more effective against buildings. ========= MISSION 6 =========#miss6 Ok, now things begin to be quite hard... First of all, note that you can build long-range turrets. They are extremly powerful in my opinion and the must be the key of your defence; also, they make light turrets obsolete, so don't waste money to build them anymore... As always, build 2 refineries, light factory (useful only to unlock other building construction, since from this missions you don't need quads anymore) and a heavy factory, which should be used to build a new harvester. Now think to defence. Place 5-6 (or more) long-range turrets in the attack main path, as explained in the previous mission. Enemy units will often target the heavy factory, so the key is that they must be under turret's fire while approaching to your buildings (and of course destroyed before they reach them). From this mission you can build the spacedock, and you can use it to buy cargos (so you don't have to build the High Tech Factory) and tanks, so that having only one heavy factory will be enough even during attacks. Repair Facility is now a MUST. Since you can can build the siege tanks from this mission, which are as expensive as useful, it's good to repair them, instead of building from scratch. If you are Atreides you can build ornitopter. They are useless, so don't waste your money. If you are Ordos, you can now have launchers, ordering them from the spacedock. When you have enough credits, it's time to begin the attack. From this missions, is a suicide to lead a massive attack to the enemy base, since it is well defenced. So you should use 1-2 launchers excorted by some tanks. Approch to the nearest enemy's turrent and use launchers to destroy it (this can require a lot of time) and the buildings in the surroundings. Use tanks to defend launchers when the enemy attacks (and you can be sure he will). Remember that you should do hit-and-run attacks, so if you think you are loosing, retreat. You should always proceed in this way: approach, destroy, defend, retreat. The more you approach near the enemy's base, the more units you'll have to fight with at the same time; this means that you should not approach too much, at least during first attacks. When you think that enemy has less units than you, lead a massive attack and finish him. ========= MISSION 7 =========#miss7 This mission is quite similar to the previous, except that each House can now build a new unit. Ordos can use the deviator, Atreides have now the sonic tank and Harkonnen have the devastator. Sonic tank is useful in defence (put it ahead your turrets) and in destroying the enemy turrets (it can do it faster than a rocket launcher). deviator is useful to steal enemy cargos, but I think that is not as good in battle. I don't use them very much. Anyway they are powerful when used by the enemy (I think their effect lasts longer in this case), so you should quick destroy them using tanks (put tanks in the deviator's adiacent cells). devastator is powerful, but it's also very slow, so it's not very good for hit-and-run attacks and I suggest to use them only in the last phases of the mission. However these new units are very expensive and weak (except the devastator which is heavy armored), so be careful and be quick to send them to the repair facility when they are damaged. There is not much to say for this mission: proceed in the same way as the previous. New units cannot do the difference (except that sonic tanks are useful to destroy enemy turrets faster), I think, so build only 2-3 of them and use them as you like.