Dune: Spice Wars

I stayed away from this for awhile based on the mediocre reviews, but within the first 20 minutes it was pretty obvious what the problem was...and it has nothing to do with the game. It was really mis-marketed, because well, there's really no way to market this game. They're selling it as an RTS, and people are expecting SC2 on Arrakis, but it is most definitely not that. It's best described as a very complex pausable real-time board game...and it was marketed wrong because it's difficult to market things that haven't existed before. "The mechanics suck" ...no, the mechanics are not what you expected, because you didn't bother to play the tutorials or read any guides. "The pacing is too slow and I can only speed up time 2x" ...yeah, unless you've got like 20+ hours under your belt, and understand every mechanic and every subtle minutiae of every individual territory on the map, you should be in pause mode most of the time. If you're thinking about build lists and clicks per minute, you are miles off from ever winning a match.
This is a watershed game, and one of the very few truly fresh ideas I have seen in video gaming in decades. Don't sleep on this one, just understand it is NOT Starcraft on Arrakis.

Overall I feel this game deserves better reviews than it has and I don't think you'll regret getting this if you like the Dune universe and want a casual/fun strategy game.
It's a good solid RTS. If you like playing the board game catan; it's kind of similar to that in many ways; provinces offer unique perks, the trading, and you have to mentally calculate what buildings are best positioned where (it's way better than catan though because you have units to fight with and the addition of your special agents is dope.)
I really enjoyed playing as the Harkonnen in the campaign. I feel like they got the feel of the dune universe right and the unique play style's between the different houses are cool (note there are different strats to win the game too which is really good imo).
My only gripe playing with the Harkonnen's is the sound ping when a sandworm appears that's attacking your harvester and/or the oppression sound ping when rebels rebel is kind of loud and obtrusive. I looked for a way to turn this sound down/off because it disturbs what is a chill game - it's also kind of pointless because you can put your harvesters on safe mode, and your rebels are always crushed by your militia units anyway - which eliminates the need for the ping.
And because I love to oppress the hell out of those filthy fremen PEASANTS the sound goes off ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME.
So if any dev reads this, if you could please provide an option to turn that sound off for all the deluded megalomaniacs like myself out there that would be great.
I probably won't bother playing the other factions in the campaign; I feel like I've seen/experienced everything the game offers - which is quite a lot but it gets a little repetitive after 40 hours or so.
What ideas could you implement into the game that would be cool? That is tough, it feels like a complete game in all honesty.. BUT:
- I really loved the Campaign perks for taking territory, really nice. However, the game at times felt a little repetitive - maybe you could colour a little more personality into the campaign missions. An example would be with the option where you can choose to have 5 extra agent slots - maybe you have to find the agents in a village individually? I dunno, I just felt the missions could do with some more uniqueness to go with the perk system.
- The fighting animations is a bit on the bland side. When I first saw it in game my inner voice said "This is so shit" but then I got kind of used to it eventually and accepted it. But I mean, come on, it could be cooler if you see some actual brawling like in the total war games. Or at least some of your units are dead when the unit reaches half health. I didn't understand why this part seemed kind of lazy when everything else is so well thought out.
- Make your own dune faction - that would be the TITS - since the models look like they are kind of easy to modify. I realise that would probably never happen but some element of customisation - maybe in the ships? It would give the player's some level of ownership that goes above and beyond.
This is the longest review I've ever made. I'm going to stop there. Thanks for reading :)

Dune: Spice Wars is exactly what you'd want out of a Dune video game: Chaos, secret plans within plans, and radically asymmetrical factions that grab you by the face and force you to pay attention to what other people are doing. You, too, can live your dream of assassinating the head of House Atreides because they're just too strong to face head-on in a military contest and their political standing is untouchable.
Fair warning: Everything requires planning. This is a strategy game, NOT a tactics game. If you go in head empty hoping to respond to things as they appear, you will be outmaneuvered and outclassed.
That said, multiplayer is ABSOLUTELY worth doing. Everything you thought you were good at? Nope, you were only good at doing it while everyone while politely stopped and waited for you to go. Now do it all in real-time. DELICIOUS.

Once upon a time, when I was a kid, I played an RTS called "Dune 2000" and I thought it was awesome. This game feels like a spiritual successor, but it's as if it has grown up and matured along with myself. It's fair to say the two don't really have much in common, aside from being the same IP and both being RTS games, I know I'm just getting that nostalgia hit - because Dune: Spice Wars is superior in every way.

For fans of Frank Herbert's Dune, or even just more casual sci-fi fans, this game really inhabits the setting; I love that there are multiple ways to win; politics, economics or just plain old violence. The Imperial Tax on Spice (one of the, if not the most, crucial resources in the game), the ability to buy shares in CHOAM (the company that controls all galactic trade), the Landsraad (political body), the diplomacy system, assassination, intelligence operations - the game has an incredibly immersive amount of complexity that enables you to develop your own play style. If you want, you can win without firing a shot.

I actually played it on Gamepass Ultimate on Xbox Series X for most of a campaign and liked it so much I bought it on Steam.

the most boardgame-y feeling real-time game I've ever played, with a astonishingly well-designed balance of systems. Every path to victory feels tenable, and every win-condition has some resource or two that supports it.

good game plays like it says good atmosphere and gameplay ,being an old fossil its single player only for me active pause and time control make it a chilled experience.i was worried about the specs my pc also a fossil ,(fx 8350-gtx1060 6gb)but runs nice and cool at 60 fps in 1080p.

I played this in Early Access and liked it quite a bit, but, at the time, you started running out of mechanics to engage with in the late game.
This is no longer the case.
Depth has been added to all aspects of the game to the extent that there are now multiple paths to victory. You can "work" various systems to obtain advantages that will be more or less particular to your circumstances, but all of which you will need to pay at least some attention to lest an opponent blindside you.
Which is nice, especially when you're the one who does the blindsiding of an opponent
I also appreciate that, unlike many RTS games where you essentially spam armies at an enemy, you can win by engaging in little combat but score political victories instead.
I also appreciate that the military side of the game forces you to consider terrain, and the way in which territory is captured and controlled forces you to consider choke points, how to cut an enemy off from resources, and where to set up defensive bastions to prevent the enemy from breaking into your soft economic base and killing your dudes.
It is well worth playing and is a different and interesting take on the RTS genre that keeps revealing more depth as you play.
You should play it.