My two cents upon completion of conquest

[SV_Mallet]

As a Dune games veteran, I can say that I've played all (or almost all) of the games and completed whatever I played with an exception of Dune (1992) game. Ironically enough, I thinks that was the only game that provided with that particular world experience. It was back than, when creators didn't deviate from the books...

Never the less, Dune became the game for RTS genre and the rest is history.

This game is also RTS, modern style. You can't build limitless armies and sweep your opponents aside. You need to keep the balance between warfare/politics/resources. And it does a great job at it.

First tutorials. From the first mission, it's obvious that they are basic and the game doesn't hold your hand as what you need to do and figure out the mechanics along the way. Still it was fun discovering and it's not that big of a deal. I believe the best preparation for the game is conquest for any of the houses.

The mechanics. The game is designed for e-sport. Its goal is to keep the balance between warfare\politics\resources and (at least on skirmish battles) requires the player to invent their own strategies and stick to it, to win. It's a good thing, yet some part of developing grand armies is still missing from experience. I guess it's my bad, as I got used to winning this way in the past.

The single thing that annoyed me the most in the entire conquest play-through, was taking down enemy bases. It was difficult. Sometimes the enemy base regenerated and at this point I'm not sure if this was intended or it was a bug. The only way I could have beaten the bases in conquest was developing the entire research trees, maximizing the manpower and buying weapons at the armory, performing weakening spy operations and nuking them just before the grand assault. For the most part I didn't even managed to do that at first try and had to improve my positioning by conquering all territories around. It might be intended in the conquest, yet still it feels as a balance issue. The rest of the goals are easy enough.

Never the less the game is awesome! Highly advised to all fans of the genre.

[Robineus]

I really wish they'd change some of the missions back in conquest mode, they are the win by domination governor chaom shares missions and they take forever to complete.

[Katitoff]

The game is most certainly not balanced for e-sport in any way, shape or form.

Having all factions balanced against each other with unique strengths and weaknesses does not define e-sport balance, it defines good balance.

[Kōizumi Seishiro]

Thank you for sharing! Also not sure about e-sport balance part though.

[SV_Mallet]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

The game is most certainly not balanced for e-sport in any way, shape or form.

Having all factions balanced against each other with unique strengths and weaknesses does not define e-sport balance, it defines good balance.

I did not say it was balanced for e-sport, but it was designed for it. At least it was a feel. Balance feels off at this point yet it's doable against AI. Obviously Harkonen meant for warfare, Ecoz for Choam and Atreides for diplomacy. The peaceful solutions are much easier than warfare. Choam and assassinations are the easiest path to victory imo. Not sure if assassination would work just as well against human players, as the cost of intel is growing, and unless you've built some kind of intel empire, you'll need to trade for it.

[Kōizumi Seishiro]

I like the brave assumptions)

[Kknewkles]

Zerg main in Starcraft? :D

As for taking down bases in Conquest, unless something has changed in the last 3-4 months, you need 2-3 Demolition units with possibly increased changes of destroying armor, some meatier tanks to soak the Base's attacks, and micro the rest of the units to avoid the AOE damage.

[mN]

I have not yet played the game myself but judging from the multiplayer gameplay from youtube, DSW are definitely not an "e-sport" material game.

[emontyj]

taking down main bases is pretty annoying. I think it's probably best done with allies if one player is far ahead or about to get dune government win, you can tag team a main base in multiplayer XDDD

[Kōizumi Seishiro]

Try nukes , frigates and armour debuffing spec ops /troops?

[Trithne]

Bring units with armour shred. Lots of armour shred.
Prep a Sabotage Operation and use it when you start the attack.
Nuke the damn thing if you're confident you'll win shortly afterwards.

[Ice-Nine]

Originally posted by SV_Mallet:

It was back than, when creators didn't deviate from the books...

Except they did, but whatever.