Video Game / Dune: Spice Wars

The spice must flow.

Dune: Spice Wars is a 2022 Real-Time Strategy game with 4X and Grand Strategy elements developed by Shiro Games, previously known for Northgard. In-game you currently take on the role of one of the factions fighting for control of Arrakis and the planet's valuable Spice deposits. The game is based on the Dune franchise, with notable graphical influence from the 2021 movie adaptation. There are currently seven factions to chose from:

• House Atreides: A diplomatic faction with the ability to peacefully annex villages, better treaty mechanics and higher Landsraad Standing.
• House Harkonnen: A brute force faction designed for military conquest. Gets bonuses when oppressing villages and production bonuses from military garrisons.
• House Corrino: A diplomatic and military powerhouse boasting powerful infantry and heavy artillery.
• The Fremen^note unavailable for a Conquest game: A guerrilla faction that uses the sandworms and their knowledge of the desert to outmaneuver their opponents.
• The Smugglers^note unavailable for a Conquest game: An economic faction that relies heavily on covert actions to achieve victory.
• House Ecaz: A cultured artisan faction of noble houses able to dot the land with masterpieces and convert surrounded neutral villages into sanctuaries.
• House Vernius (DLC faction): A technologically advanced house from the planet Ix, who specialise in researching advanced technologies to rapidly buff their economy.

Currently there are five ways to win the game^note for "Battle of Arrakis" and "Kanly Duel" modes:

• Domination: Military victory. Destroy the capital bases of all enemy factions with your military.
• Governorship: Diplomatic victory. Get the Landsraad Council to vote your way for the Dune Governorship and hold onto it for 30 days.
• Hegemony: Highest score victory. First faction to achieve 25,000 hegemony wins the game.
• Economic: Economic victory. Own more than 50% of the shares of the CHOAM Merchant Guild.
• Assassination: Espionage victory. Successfully remove all enemy leaders with special operations.

Released as an Early Access title on April 26, 2022, the game received a full release on September 14, 2023.

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This game contains examples of:

• Adaptation Amalgamation: While most of the game's content is based on the first Dune novel, it also borrows elements from other parts of the series. For instance, Wensicia Corrino and her tigers come from Children of Dune. Also, House Ecaz and Vernius both originate from the Brian Herbert-Kevin Anderson's prequel series.
• Adaptational Heroism: Owing to the Alternate Continuity of the game Doctor Yueh is a loyal Atreides retainer in the game, not a reluctant traitor.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • In the novel, Paul Atreides is skilled in various fields, including personal combat. In the game, he's not a hero unit but a councillor and his field of expertise is diplomacy, though his martial prowess is mentioned in his flavour text.
  • Similarly, the Spice Wars version of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen isn't a hero unit but councillor whose abilities affect Landsraad's resolutions and grant buffs when villages are oppressed.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The Harkonnen Overlord frigate serves as one of these, carrying several small but powerful attack drones.
• Alarm SOS: An audible warning is made whenever there's Worm Sign, buying just enough time to get your units out of harm's way before a sandworm takes them out.
• Alternate Continuity: While it's much closer to the Dune franchise than the previous RTS games, Dune: Spice Wars setting still has notable deviations from the canon setting. In the novel, House Atreides are the new official ruler of Arrakis, House Harkonnen has left after losing that title, and the Atreides allied with the Fremen and Smugglers. In the game, the Harkonnens are still here, Houses Corrino, Ecaz and Vernius take a direct part in the war for Arrakis^note House Harkonnen then House Atreides ruled Arrakis because House Corrino granted the planet to them, then House Harkonnen destroyed House Atreides with House Corrino's approval and support, and House Corrino's return on Arrakis at the end of the first novel is the direct result of chaos caused by the Fremen's guerilla. Houses Ecaz and Vernius were invented by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson for their Dune prequels, and thus obviously had no prominent involvement in the events, and while the Ixians are a faction in the original novels they are ruled by a confederacy of oligarchs that stay neutral to the great houses, rather than a noble house, the goal is to compete for becoming Arrakis' ruler, and Atreides-Fremen-Smugglers are hostile to each other.^note  While the book does have battles taking place on Arrakis, the whole point is that, as the single most important planet in the universe because it is home to the single most important commodity in the universe, any ruler with a lick of sense will absolutely not permit it to become a battleground. Likewise, House Atreides and House Ecaz were allies in the prequel novels, while they're hostile in the game. The original book's plot about House Harkonnen wiping out House Atreides, then the surviving Atreides' heir joining the Fremen to get his revenge, hasn't been adaptated in the game (if playing as House Atreides, Leto remains the player's avatar for the whole game, and Paul is just an advisor^note Paul wasn't even in the game until the 2024 free patch released along the House Vernius of Ix DLC).
• Animal Motifs: Atreides have a hawk motif while Corrino have a lion motif, both motifs that have stuck with the houses across continuities (including the Westwood games). The Harkonnen griffin (from the book)/ram (from the Westwood games) is missing from the game however.
• Anti-Air: Most units that can attack aircraft have an armoury upgrade designed to specifically counter aircraft. In addition, the Fremen replacement for the Attack Drone is a mobile anti air turret and the Smuggler and Fremen aircraft are designed to attack other aircraft.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: There are limits to the number of military units you can have operational at any given time and how many militia units you can garrison in the villages.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: In keeping with the source material, a good chunk of the infantry units are melee fighters.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Certain attacks ignore half or all of enemy armour, or partially reduce them. Explosives tend to lessen armour, while sniper units ignore.
• Ascended Extra: Lots of them, as most of the councillors and Hero Units represent actual named characters from the Dune franchise.
• Attack Drone: Each faction except the Fremen has one, these cost energy to maintain instead of manpower.
• Bald Head of Toughness: Captain Aramsham, House Corrino's Sardaukar Hero Unit, is depicted as bald and is one of the strongest single fighters in the game.
• Bald of Evil: Due to being based on Dune (2021), both Baron Harkonnen, Glossu Rabban and Pieter de Vries are depicted as bald. Due to the game pre-dating the second film, however, Feud-Ratha averts this and has the red hair he is described with in the books.
• The Berserker: The basic Harkonnen melee attacker is called the Berserker, and has a trait that gives them increased attack speed as their health starts dropping. The Harkonnen Cerberi are described in-game as fanatics raised from birth to value the mission over their own lives, and also throw themselves into battle without restraint.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: House Ecaz is described as this in the game's lore snippets. On the surface, they are a peaceful house that is into patronage of the arts, resort-building and preserving local flora, fauna and culture in sanctuaries for tourism. They present themselves as noble in thought and deed, their warriors taking on the trappings of a Knight In Shining Armour. Underneath their refined surface however, they are every bit as vicious as the Harkonnen and Corrino when defending their interests, and can play the assassination game almost as well as the Harkonnen and Smugglers can.
• Command & Conquer Economy: Nothing gets built unless you order it. However, all resources harvest automatically once the appropriate structure is built with the exception of Spice. Harvesters must be manually deployed.
• A Commander Is You: Each faction, thanks to their faction bonuses, faction drawback, councillors (you pick two out of four), and their unique technologies, have some things they're better at and some things they're slightly worse at.
  • House Atreides: A Balanced/Diplomat faction that favours Governorship or Domination wins but can reliably take any victory condition. The Atreides have nothing they're particularly bad at, save that their ban on pillaging neutral villages nerfs their money income early on. Their ability to peacefully annex neutral villages anywhere on the map for an extra Influence cost mean they can expand on multiple fronts without having to move armies around, their bonus to Landsraad standing opens up the path to a quick governorship, and their stacking economy bonuses from Landsraad resolutions makes their economy extremely powerful later on. Depending on their councillors, the Atreides can reliably ally with Fremen sieches (Paul Atreides), force other factions to leave them alone (Lady Jessica), boost their knowledge production and unit regeneration (Dr. Wellington Yueh) or play a builder/espionage game using money (Thufir Havat). Their Hero Units are Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho, both powerful melee warriors who improvide different aspects of the Atreides' Elite Army (Gurney boosting armour, XP gain and movement speed, and Duncan Idaho boosting offenses and the power of allied/mercenary units).
  • House Harkonnen: A mixture of Brute Force/Berserker, Espionage and Spammer that favours Economic or Assassination wins. The Harkonnen have a naturally nerfed economy, which they buff using their unique Oppression ability and by adding militia garrisons, and can sacrifice agents to immediately finish espionage missions. Their later bonuses grant them disposable agents and intel used for operations by killing people. The Harkonnen playstyle depends upon frequent use of pillaging neutral and enemy territories using masses of cheap, disposable units and strategically using Oppression to supercharge their economy before using operations to finish off their opponents, but their heavy dependence on Manpower for both these strategies can leave them in a lurch. Their councillors either aid further in using Oppression to boost their economic build-up (Cron Vatia and Feud-Ratha Harkonnen), buff their military recruitment speed and provide a synergy between offensive operations and military invasions (Umman Kudu), or buff their later-game operations game (Pieter de Vries). Their Hero Units are Glossu "The Beast" Rabban and Lakin Nefud, the former of which aids in Oppression and buffs himself by feeding combat drugs to his army and the latter of which aids the Harkonnen in compensating for their rapid turnover rate.
  • The Smugglers: A mixture of Guerrilla, Espionage and Economist, the Smugglers favour the Assassination and Economic victories. They can install Underworld Headquarters in opponent’s villages; allowing them to leech off their opponent's economy or provide mutual benefits. They pay no extra cost to annex villages anywhere on the map but are heavily penalized the more villages they annex, making it imperative to seek out particularly valuable regions no matter where on the map and selectively pillaging the rest to fuel your economy. In the lategame, the smugglers become powerful enough to join the Landsraad as its own faction, and eventually install major underworld headquarters in the bases of any factions still left standing. Of their councillors, Staban Tuek and Lingar Bewt buff the Smugglers' Underworld Headquarters by providing additional Solari or Water production, Lashon Hara buffs your information gathering and political ability by granting influence by running operations, and Stakkanov buffs smuggler villagers who are not connected to any other smuggler territories. Their Hero Units are Bannerjee and Drisq, the former a powerful melee warrior that aids in the smugglers' ability to fight outside their territory, and the latter a sniper who gives discounts on operations and detects stealthed units at range.
  • The Fremen: A mixture of Brute Force, Guerrilla and Gimmick faction, the Fremen are almost exclusively geared towards the Domination or Hegemony victories and outright ignore several gameplay elements used by the Great Houses. Lacking heavy industry, the Fremen collect spice using harvesting teams that are immune to sandworms and can operate in neutral territory, and ride sandworms using thumpers instead of shuttles. Their units are lightly armoured but powerful and often have stealth. They (unsurprisingly) have huge diplomacy bonuses with neutral Sietches and can ally Sietches outside their own territory (and Sietches allied to other factions), but also have no influence in the Landsraad and have no way to ally with the Spacing Guild. Lategame they can gain powerful faction bonuses by building headquarters buildings in allied Sietches, but they also suffer from one less building slot in their villages and their home base has the lowest district count in the game outside of House Corrino. Their councillors either support the Fremen in their Water production (Shimoom), boost their military units and aid in liberation of territories annexed by others (Jamis), allow the Fremen to manipulate the Landsraad by making certain resolutions cause planetwide rebellions if they pass (Mother Ramalllo), or immediately reveal all Sietches on the map (Stilgar Ben Fifrawi). Their Hero Units are Otheym, a support sniper who uses a rocket launcher and buffs your units at range, and Chani Kynes, a melee support assassin who detects other assassins (protecting the Fremen from Assassination) and gives you intel for every faction unit you kill.
  • House Corrino: An Elitist Powerhouse Turtle faction that favours the Economic, Governorship or Domination win conditions. Opposite to the Smugglers, House Corrino pays triple cost to annex villages further away from their imperial bases, making them a quintessential "tall" faction that benefits from taking and holding a small core of territories in a ring around their main base that they can build up to become extremely valuable. In the later game they can deploy a second main base, and benefit from singling out a single rival while making truces with the others: Destroying their rival's main base provides even more base destruction, while aiding factions in a Truce gives Influence. They can also use Imperial Mandate to lend out Sardaukar to other factions to support one side or another in a conflict. Their councillors support different playstyles, with Irulan Corrino doubling down on their industrial ability by letting House Corrino build doubles of a single building in each village and doubling the crew available in spice harvesters, Zum Garam improving the Imperial Mandate, Gaius Helen Moiham doubling House Corrino's Landsraad power on specific votes, and Hasimir Fenring allowing you to interact with Discoveries outside your own territory, making your lack of reach less crippling. Their Hero Units are Wensicia Corrino and Captain Aramsham, the former an imperial princess who boosts House Corrino's basic conscripts and the latter a powerful melee tank who boosts their elite Sardaukar forces.
  • House Ecaz: A Diplomat/Pacifist faction, the Ecaz are naturally suited for the Governorship and Hegemony victories and their House bonuses are almost laser-focused on those two. House Ecaz can turn neutral villages into 'sanctuaries' by annexing all the land around them, with each sanctuary buffing the entire faction. Sanctuaries cannot be attacked by any other faction without removing House Ecaz from the surrounding regions first. House Ecaz can also build 'masterpieces' in their own villages, which are almost free art installations that provide synergy with village traits. In return, the Ecazi cannot betray a non-aggression treaty (only nullify one with Influence), making it difficult for them to backstab anyone. In the lategame, House Ecaz gains free votes in the Landsraad, significant Influence gain, and money income scaled to their current Hegemony levels. Their councillors support House Ecaz's Sanctuaries, Masterpieces or Champion units, with Sanya Ecaz using Masterpieces for economy buffs, Rivvy Dinari making House Ecaz's Champion units free upkeep-wise, Ibbo Vipp using Masterpieces to increase the House's Landsraad standing, and Mesa Ecaz allowing you to refund Authority by returning villages to a neutral state and thus allowing you to selectively paint the map to maximize Sanctuary placement (and thus Authority production). Their Hero Units are Whitmore Bludd, a powerful swordmaster who boosts your Champion mechanic, and Ilesa Ecaz, a ranged hero who improves House Ecaz's ability to fight on their home ground and particularly around their Masterpieces.
  • House Vernius: An Elitist Powerhouse Gimmick faction, House Vernius has no innate bonus towards any particular win condition, depending upon their superior research ability to pick a favoured win condition by researching appropriate developments and using their Patent and Obfuscate abilities to block other houses from going down the same avenues of development. House Vernius uses a Nodal Network to connect their units and villages together, and suffer heavy penalties when they are not tethered to their appropriate nodes, and their headquarters, the S-Vault, has unique synergies in district development not available to other factions. Their councillors similarly tend to buff either research, nodes or the S-Vault itself, with Bolig Avati focusing on S-Vault development and re-development, Bronso Vernius making it easier to spread the Nodal Network, Cammar Pilru using Knowledge to boost Influence and the Landsraad, and Tessia Vernius to boost Intel and espionage.
• Color-Coded Armies: Atreides are green, Harkonnen are red, Smugglers are blue, Fremen are yellow, Corrino are white, Ecaz are pink and Vernius are purple.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Leto Atreides, Liet Kynes, and Vladimir Harkonnen's portraits are based on their actors from the 2021 film. This is not the case for the other faction leaders^note Esmar Tuek is in the original novel but is Adapted Out in Villeneuve's films. Armanda Ecaz and Rhombur Vernius are nor in the films neither in the original novel. The free patch adding House Corrino predates the second movie (Shaddam Corrino IV's actual appearance onscreen) by almost one year and a half., the councillors, or the hero units (for instance, Thufir Hawat is portrayed as a clean-shaved white man with long white hair instead of a black bald man with a beard and short gray hair).
• Construct Additional Pylons: You're going to have to keep building plascrete factories and maintenance centers to build and maintain your infrastructure, find and exploit Spice deposits to pay your taxes and boost your economy, build multiple recruitment centers to increase your manpower pool in addition to having to keep expanding your borders in order to have enough space for all those buildings and acquire more resource deposits.
• Corrupted Character Copy: A faction-wide example with House Vernius, which is a deconstruction of House Ordos from the Westwood games. The Ordos's use of technology deemed forbidden by most other Houses wasn't touched on beyond characterizing them as opportunists, while House Vernius is distrusted and persecuted against for using forbidden technology. On the flip side, an alternate read is that they're an inversion, or rather that the Ordos were a corruped copy of the Ixians — Ix develops tech deemed forbidden in part because they genuinely think technological progression is a good thing and not just because it's profitable, despite the hatred and distrust this leads them to face.
• Cyberpunk: House Vernius's theme. Their leader is a cyborg, most of their units are robotic drones and it really shows up in their base design.
• Cyborg: House Vernius of Ix's ruler Earl Rhombur Vernius was turned into a cyborg after surviving an assassination attempt. Ilesa Ecaz is a downplayed example, having a cybernetic arm and eye due to an assassination attempt.
• Cultured Warrior: Ecaz's theme. Combat units are named after heroic story archetypes, and their units' voice lines lean into this archetype heavily.
• Deadly Gas: A specialty of the Smugglers, who have three units that attack using gas weapons that deal Damage Over Time. As can be expected, they are good weapons against enemy infantry but ineffective against buildings, giving the Smugglers a natural handicap if they want to win a Domination victory.
• Death by Adaptation: Completing a rival ruler's assassination mission can result in the death of Shaddam Corrino IV or Armanda Ecaz, two characters who canonically survived the events of the first book.
• Death from Above:
  • House Corrino is a very artillery heavy faction compared to the others, having more choices in the way of long-ranged firepower.
  • The Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino and Ecaz field fighter-bombers that can be used to attack ground units from the air (the latter two can only attack ground units). Finally, the frigate, the 'ultimate unit' for each faction (which costs 100 guild favour or spare parts) is always airborne and usually capable of attacking both air and ground units with missiles or drones. Building one of the latter nets you the Achievement "Bringing A Spaceship To A Knife Fight."
• Demoted to Extra: Due to the Alternate Continuity, if playing as House Atreides the main character is Duke Leto and Paul Atreides, the main character of the original book, is just an Atreides advisor. Due to how advisors work (choosing two out of four at game's start), he may even no appear at all.
• Drone Deployer: While most factions have attack drones of various capabilities, House Vernius specializes in the use of drones.
• Easy Logistics: Nope, units suffer attrition outside of friendly territory and carry limited supplies. Marching through the deep desert is a good way to lose a lot of manpower; unless you are the Fremen who have ways to negate this.
• Elaborate Underground Base: The Smugglers have this as one of their unique buildings. In addition to making their main base more resistant to atomic attacks it also gives them a free demolition militia unit at every village they control. The Fremen have a less elaborate version called Ceremonial Caves which can only be built in regions with Geothermal Energy or in certain Special Regions. It increases the combat power of all Fremen units but reduces Spice income.
• Elite Army: House Atreides have the most expensive basic infantry in the game, with their units costing on average 10 manpower and 1 more supply than the other factions and having the statline to show for it. They also lack an Elite Mooks unit, with their Wardens being simply a more defensive version of their basic Trooper. House Atreides units are not quite the equal of the other factions' late-game Elite Mooks individually, but they will win early-game conflicts with the other houses with ease. Their units also have synergy with each other and gain additional bonuses from gaining experience levels, encouraging you both to keep individual units alive and to keep a balanced roster of different units.
• Elite Mooks: All non-Atreides factions unlock their elite infantry when reaching 10,000 Hegemony. There are also the neutral House Guards and House Judges that can be obtained through certain Landsraad interactions.
• Fictional Currency: Solari.
• Fictional United Nations: The Landsraad Council. The Council is important/influential due to the Governorship victory condition; the Fremen and Smugglers have a disadvantage here as they must secure every vote by spending Influence or (in the Smugglers's case) Solari by bribing others to vote their way, while the Houses have 100 votes to use before the need to spend Influence. The Smugglers later get 50 votes in the Landsraad, while House Ecaz get 30 free votes on every resolution up for voting.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Most infantry units in the game have this look due to Arrakis's harsh environment.
• Gender Flip:
  • The books' counterpart of House Ecaz's ruler Armanda Ecaz is a man named "Armand Ecaz".
  • Liet Kynes is a woman in this version of the setting (like in the 2021 film).
• Gradual Regeneration: Units will slowly heal when out of combat and near a friendly village.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Color scheme of House Corrino, fitting for the rulers of the known universe.
• Great White Hunter: House Ecaz musketeers are drafted from gamekeepers in Ecazi nature reserves. They carry large-calibre rifles intended to kill unruly wildlife, and in one of their voice lines express a desire to have a worm-hunting safari.
• Guide Dang It!: In Conquest mode, one of the conditions for victory is to befriend the Fremen, but the game doesn't tell you how to do so. To earn points with the Fremen, the player must ally sietchs in the various scenarios and not pillage them.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Explosive attacks (which come from most missiles and grenades) hit all units in a radius, allowing a single attack to damage multiple units. The Fremen Feydakin unit also deals damage to all units within melee range, meaning one or two of them can destroy an entire army if they're not focused down immediately.
• Hero Unit:
  • Hero Units were previously unique units who only appeared in Conquest Mode, and represented an already existing councillor. They were added to all factions in the march 2024 update, with each faction getting two of them. You are given the choice to hire one once you reach 10,000 Hegemony.
  • House Ecaz also has the ability to promote one of their units to a Champion, which is automatically given max experience level, additional armour and attack power, immunity to execution attacks, and gives House Ecaz 100 Hegemony every time it lands a killing blow on a unit belonging to another faction.
• Hired Guns:
  • You can recruit Mercenaries once you own a 10% stake in CHOAM. Most of the Smugglers units also qualify.
  • House Corrino can use Imperial Edict to lend out Sardaukar as hired guns to factions they are not at war with, allowing them to back sides in conflicts they're not directly involved in.
• Home Guard: The militia units defending each village are little more than local civilians armed with blades, guns, explosives and whatever they could get their hands on to defend themselves. While individually weaker than most standard faction troops, groups of them can deter enemy raids and hold the line long enough for reinforcements to step in.
• Intimidating Revenue Service: How the Spacing Guild currently operates in-game. Every 25 days the Guild will demand some spice and the amount you owe increases each month. It is a good idea to make sure you meet your monthly quota. Failing to do so three times could bring the Sardaukar down on your head.
• Instant-Win Condition: The Hegemony, Economic and Governorship victories will instantly win you the game when the conditions are met, regardless of the status of the other factions still left in the game. While the other factions can slow down all three (Hegemony depends on your territory, so it is vulnerable to hostile factions conquering it from you, Economic can be slowed down by other factions buying CHOAM stocks to drive the price up and certain Landsraad interactions and Governorship requires you stay alive for a month after winning a Landsraad vote), they cannot be stopped except by destroying you first. By contrast, winning a Domination or Assassination victory requires the defeat of the other factions.
• Invisibility Cloak: Fremen and the Smugglers are fond of stealth units, having unit upgrades, operations and developments that cloak their units under specific conditions. The Harkonnen Attack Drone can also be stealthed with an armoury upgrade.
• Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Landsraad Judges are special ranged units that deal increased damage to low standing factions. You can recruit them if you hold the position Judge of the Council.
• Kill It with Fire: House Corrino can deploy flamethrower wielding infantry called Incinerators. Their attacks ignore enemy armor.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: In addition to melee, each faction has accessed to various ranged weaponry, from conventional firearms to missile batteries. Further justified by how, much as in the source material, Holtzman Shields don't hold up too well in Arrakis's harsh environment (and really annoy the Sandworms).
• Knight In Shining Armour: The Ecazi knight, their Elite Mook. They work best when partnered up with the Ecazi squire, and their armoury upgrades are wows of fealty they can take to boost their abilities.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Atreides Wardens wear large, old-fashioned shields into battle. They are slightly less effective offensively than the Atreides Trooper, but are much harder to kill and can shield nearby friendly units with the right upgrades.
• Motivated by Fear: The Harkonnen have an Instill Fear exclusive development that reduces the Authority cost of taking a village if it was pillaged by them. It also makes it cheaper to take back villages that were previously owned by them.
• Mythology Gag: Wensicia Corrino fights as The Beastmaster, using a pistol and a pair of tigers to attack foes. In Children of Dune she attempts to assassinate Leto II and Ghanima using a pair of tigers.
• Nuclear Option: Nuclear silos are a late-game building that can be used to attack enemy headquarters directly as opposed to using ground forces. Given the Landsraad's stance on the use of atomics in warfare, especially on the surface of Arrakis, it should be of little surprise that using one will instantly turn the player into a pariah. They are also not available to the Fremen due to the Fuel Cell requirements.
• One-Hit Kill: The Assassin unit will insta-kill any non-Hero Unit it attacks, and then immediately disband. Being attacked by a Sand Worm is also instantly lethal.
• Opposing Combat Philosophies: Almost all the faction militaries vary in small, but subtle manners (due to unit and available development differences) that gives you an indication on how their units should be mixed and how their combat works. This is especially noticeable in their choice of Attack Drone units, each of whom is a microcosm of the whole faction: The Atreides, being an Elite Army, has an expensive medical drone that rescues almost-dead military units and allows you to evacuate them safely but is in itself not much of a combat unit. By contrast, the We Have Reserves Harkonnen drone is a cheap and easily disposable assassin drone that can be upgraded with stealth or to self-destruct on death. The Smugglers, who avoid open combat and prefer going to war specifically in order to profit, has a drone that loots nearby corpses for their equipment and sells it back at Smuggler villagers, greatly increasing money gain but also taking a large amount of Supply to field and thus limiting your human forces. House Corrino, preferring unsubtle, straight offensives supported by overwhelming firepower, has a deployable artillery piece that bombards opposing forces to smithereens from a long distance. House Ecaz, fitting into their 'noble knights and artists' image, fields a support drone that inspires nearby Ecaz units with heroic propaganda while debuffing enemy units (it also has a grenade launcher, the only Ecaz unit to carry explosive attacks as their infantry prefer more 'civilized' weapons). The Fremen, finally, have no drone as they lack the heavy industry necessary to make fuel cells for mechanical units.
• Pacifist Run: House Atreides has an achievement for winning a match without ever attacking a neutral village.
• Purple Is Powerful: Color scheme of House Vernius. Considering they are one of the more powerful Houses out there, the most technologically advanced House and the one most opposed to the current government and culture of the Empire it fits them quite well.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Instead of taking over or liberating a village, the winner of a siege can choose to loot it for money. Doing so makes the village produce much less for its owner (if it is owned) or makes it impossible to annex for a time (if neutral). It also makes it a lot more expensive to annex for the looter. House Atreides cannot loot neutral villages, while the Smugglers and House Harkonnen can research technologies that lets them annex looted villages without the additional cost.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Harkonnen color scheme is red and black and they are probably the most ruthless and brutal of all current playable factions.
• "Risk"-Style Map: The map is divided into provinces with villages, resource deposits and various other factors like wind strength.
• Sand Worm: Of course. They pose a threat to non-Fremen harvesters and all land units, requiring you to either head to the rocky areas around the villages or to move your troops to another region entirely. Fremen can, of course, ride them, while their harvesters do not attract worms.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!:
  • Smugglers can bribe the Landsraad to vote the way they want them to by putting a 'bounty' on a resolution, benefiting anyone who votes for the smugglers to benefit from it.
  • The economic victory is framed as this: Once you are the majority stockholder in CHOAM, you control spice distribution and none of the other Houses can stop you.
  • House Vernius of Ix have explicitly joined the battle for Arrakis due to this: Their use of machines already put them on thin ice as regards to the human-wide Ban on A.I., and obtaining the monopoly on spice production would fix that because no-one would dare challenge them.
• Siege Engines: House Corrino's Artillery Drones.
• Single-Biome Planet: Arrakis is pretty much all desert and this has big impact on your supply lines.
• Spared By Adaptation:
  • Ilesa Ecaz died in the prequels before the events of the first novel. Here she is still alive, albeit having lost an arm and an eye to the assassination attempt that killed her in the original timeline.
  • Similarly, Rhombur Vernius died during the prequels' novels, a couple years before the events described in the original Dune.
  • Due to the Alternate Continuity not featuring the Harkonnen/Corrino plot to eradicate House Atreides, Leto, Duncan, Yue, Tuek, and Kynes' early canon death don't happen. Relatedly, Paul won't join the Fremen, which results in him not killing Jamis in duel, and the lack of Muad'Dib guerilla means Rabban won't die when the Fremen attack Arrakeen, Vladimir won't be killed by Alia (who isn't even in the game), and Paul won't kill Feyd in duel. Also, Umman Kudu and Pieter de Vries are not killed by Leto's poison gas tooth.^note Faction leaders can be killed, but as part of the espionnage gameplay instead of mandatory story events. Due to the alternate continuity, as well as assassination missions being difficult to pull out, if it ever happens, Leto, Tuek, and Kynes' assassinations won't happen in the same context as the canon, and would likely be not happen early.
• Status Infliction Attack: Fremen units have a tendency to specialize in putting debuffs on enemy units.
• Storming the Castle:
  • Defeating a faction by military force requires you to blow up their headquarters through direct assault, a process that can take minutes and usually requires a combination of good military units and the right operations to debuff the headquarters. You will also likely need to clean up most of the enemy faction's territory beforehand as well.
  • Eliminating a faction from Conquest Mode similarly requires you to storm their home province and destroy their planetary headquarters.
• Stuff Blowing Up: House Corrino is particularly fond of explosives, with three of their lategame units (the artillery drone, their air fighter and the frigate) all having explosive attacks. They also have a unique operation that bombards a region from space.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The DLC faction House Vernius to House Ordos, being a faction with higher Ixian tech than anyone else (though the Ordos got it through trading with the Ixians while House Vernius is from Ix).
• Tech Tree: Divided into four different branches with each faction getting access to some unique faction specific techs.
• Timed Mission: Indirectly. You have to pay fees of Spice to the Spacing Guild every so often. There is a maximum amount of Spice that can be stored, and the Guild will request increasing amounts nearly up to this limit. Eventually, it will get all but impossible to generate the Spice they demand quickly enough. Failing to pay the Guild isn't an immediate game over, but will make things increasingly difficult, so better hope you're on the cusp of victory.
• To Win Without Fighting: House Atreides can peacefully integrate villages rather than having to resort to force. They're just as capable of fighting, however, if push comes to shove.
• Truer to the Text: The previous Dune RTS games (Dune II/Dune 2000 and the Emperor: Battle for Dune sequel) were mostly a very loose adaptation of the Dune franchise set in an Alternate Continuity, every named character (the Emperor, faction rulers, mentats...) is either original or an expy of an actual Dune character, and their plot was about a large scale war between three major players (two canon factions and a Canon Foreigner^note House Ordos shares its name with a minor house mentioned in a third party source (which canonicity has later been revoked), but that's literally the only thing its has in common with its namesake). Dune: Spice Wars is much truer to the novels: the additional playable factions beside Atreides (who now bear their canon color^note While green is a color associated with the house, in-universe, they are most commonly referred to as the red hawks, and their house emblem is a red hawk on a green-black shield) and Harkonnens are canon (and there are no House Ordos), characters from the novels can be interacted with, and the gameplay is much truer to the setting (small skirmishes, sabotage, espionage, political intrigues, and water management).
• Variable Player Goals: There are multiple ways to win the game (for "Battle of Arrakis" and "Kanly Duel" modes) and each faction has a choice of which one they wish to pursue. In "Conquest" mode, there are usually multiple locations on the map for the player to choose. However, once a location has been chosen, there is only one way of winning the scenario; fulfilling another condition completes a bonus objective which gives additional rewards.
• Warrior Poet: Gurney Halleck. Not only does his unit quotes sound like he's reciting poetry, his special ability is a marching song that lets nearby Atreides infantry cross distances faster when they're not actively in combat.
• We Have Reserves:
  • Harkonnen military units and spies use this. They can sacrifice an agent to speed up missions, and military units and upgrades provide bonuses on death, gain combat power from low heath, losing health, or having units (friendly or enemy) die nearby. One advisor has units return resources when they die. It all fits with the Harkonnen's generally dark themes.
  • Atreides, the friendlier faction, reverses this. Their units and abilities revolve around healing and supporting each other in all sorts of ways, keeping soldiers alive as well as possible.
  • House Corrino has an unusual variant of this ; their Conscript units can heal each other in combat by sacrificing their own health as long as it is above half, representing the Corrino leadership shuffling Conscripts between formations as they weaken to keep them functional. Wensicia can also heal nearby conscripts by directly using Manpower to restore their formations, ignoring the normal logistics of healing units while doing so.
  • Played With in the case of Corrino. Befitting the Imperial House, they can deploy throngs of military units and have enough left over to loan Sadaukar troops to those in the Emperor's good graces. On the other hand, as there are much more significant penalties in expanding further away from their main headquarters, they're forced to be more cautious with how many units they could support at any given time.
• Worker Unit: Harvesters, which gather Spice. Non-Fremen harvesters are vulnerable to Sand Worm attack.
• Worm Sign: Burrowing sandworms are visible as distortions on the desert surface, units will also notice when it starts occurring on the ground they are standing on.
• Yellow/Purple Contrast: Solaris and Spice, respectively. Spice is colored purple (in a departure from it normally being shown as deep orange or orange-brown), solaris are gold. A slider in the upper right corner controls how much spice you're stockpiling and how much you're selling: all purple you're hoarding it all, all yellow you're selling it all.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: The game has a bunch of resources required for you to build up and expand.
  • Authority: Used to annex Villages.
  • Fuel Cells: Needed to build military vehicles and also required for their upkeep.
  • Influence: Used for buying votes at the Landsraad Council. Critical for the Fremen as this is the only way they can gain votes at the Council; Smugglers can at least spend Solari to bribe others for votes.
  • Intel: Required for spy operations.
  • Knowledge: Research points.
  • Manpower: Needed for training militia and military units. Also used to add crews to spice harvesters to increase production.
  • Plascrete: Sci-fi concrete. Every building costs plascrete.
  • Spice: Used to pay your monthly taxes, conversion into Solari and for trading with other factions.
  • Solari: Pretty much gold. Needed to recruit military units, build base expansions and to pay for the upkeep of everything you own on the map.
  • Water: Needed for building upkeep and to supply certain units; units which need supply start taking damage when their supplies are depleted.
• Zerg Rush: House Harkonnen are a classic example of this trope, able to use cheap but disposable basic infantry to rush down opponents. House Corrino, meanwhile, can buy upgrades to their basic conscript forces (requiring them to take a development in the military branch) that reduces their supply use to 2, allowing them to use lots of basic infantry as Cannon Fodder while their more elite units (Incinerators, Artillery Drones, Hammers and Sardaukar) finish off their opponent. Adding Wensicia as a Hero Unit makes this even more effective as she can heal Conscripts outside Corrino territory by directly expending manpower.

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