Few tips on conquest for most of the houses

[SV_Mallet]

I have finished 2/5 houses and nearly finished a third one in conquest, so I think I got the mechanics of every house except the house of IX, for some reason it seems way harder than others.

I'll start from the guides online. All of them say that Harkonen are the best house overall. I've completed their conquest and tbh they are more difficult and less fun than Atreides or Ecoz. Harkonen as an example are war oriented, which is good but their mechanics of oppression (increase resources) needs to be researched, and if you're doing your research gradually, you'll get there when you don't really need it. They don't have any significant bonuses with hegemony or Choam, so it's war all the way. THey have slight advantage in assassinations (three cells instead of two), but most of missions don't have this option. Out of all houses I'd put them at 3 place overall. I should mention that in order to destroy their house you'll probably need to clear out entire map (where every sector has 2 missile batteries, which is tedious, though not too difficult).

Atreides, a fan favorites. Probably the most balanced house of them all. Also IMO the easiest. Armies are incredibly balanced once you get mechanical ships, wardens and heavy\rangers. They simply wont die in battles as their ships save them. For some reason (maybe a bug) they manage to heal the fremen units if the ships are available. They have lanstaad bonuses, peaceful annexation and frement\authority bonuses, which helps enormously. Some missions, I conquered a map even before I engaged other houses. Maybe it's different in skirmish, but in conquest they are the easiest. I'd put them at joined first with Ecoz.

Ecoz, my personal favorite. Their mechanics of sanctuary and champions is excellent. They are Choam and resources oriented and you need to think what you conquer before you make a move. Overall I've had the most fun with them and it was easy and fun to finish their conquest.

Corrino. Didn't like them. Good ranged mechanical units and maybe Sardaukar, but boring to play.

Steps to do for every house in every map in conquest (except IX, which is different as they rely too much on Fuel cells):

- Conquer the closest Spice field.
- Get at least 2-3 flyer to explore the map to find valuable resource sectors and go for as much spice as possible. Second are Fuel cells and High wind sectors - 5 (for water and probably additional resources, whatever is there). Stone, Solari and the rest are next inline.
- develop militia line to get a better defenses and build two missile batteries on the borders with other houses.
- Depending on your advisors, start either conquering or liberating other houses sections. Remember that the more sectors you own, the more authority you'll need to conquer the next one.
- Focus on the goal of the mission. It's easier to beat the mission on CHoam or Hegemony than to beat their base, if possible.

As for tactics, for every campaign, focus on on of the houses till you destroy it (about 4-5 missions in). This will give you one the campaign goals and ease the pressure. After that it's easy to complete the conquest however you like.
As for between mission bonuses, try to get+5 agents and their recruitment speed and research.

As a last tip, if you're taking on an enemy base, use weakening operations on enemy's base and use the nuke to clear out everything, before sending out you maxed army. I should mention that I've encountered a bug that allowed enemy base to heal after the nuke, but it seems it was fixed. You'll suffer a Lanstaad standing but it matters very little toward the final push.

That's it. Hope it helps.

[Gin Kenshin98]

I've had the same progress as you in conquest, 2/5 done (really 3/5, but I still play even after I win to do the HQ missions and I enjoy the mode). I finished it with HK, CR, AR (and still playing) in that order.

I honestly disagree with most of what you suggested.

HK were by far the easiest, and I played them first with no experience in the mode. The mode heavily favors offense, almost all the missions require you to destroy the enemy Outpost or take villages, and the HK units are the best in offense. I've melted bases when the mission progression bar was at the half way mark. You really win very quickly with them.

I've really enjoyed using the HK units in the way they're intended. Went full hp drain and positives when hp is low gear, the whole shtick. You melt bases like I said. And the oppression mechanic isn't as bad as you say. The research is actually a thing you worry less about in conquest since there's buffs you can take that instantly unlock the first research nodes in a tree which really speeds up the game. I've only went full on oppression around the halfway point of the game where I can afford to have sufficient militia in every village. It's actually easier to get going and manage compared to skirmish thanks to the conquest-specific buffs. The only annoying thing is the constantly popping alerts about rebellions which will get annoying.

CR I was naive when I picked them. I thought the game will change up some of the maps based on the faction I picked. For example, HK and AR play rather basic, but CR, EZ and IX play very differently especially when it comes to taking villages. I thought the game will adapt based on my CR choice since this faction prefers to take villages around the Base, but no. The game can straight up screw you over, starting you in a corner or only surrounded by 1-3 villages. This makes some maps have a very very slow start. It got better the more you play thanks to upgrades which I'll mentioned later, but yea. If you were gonna play the mode, do NOT start with them.

Having said that, they're the most fun to play with. You say they're boring but nuking an Outpost from a safe distance thanks to almost 10 cannon drones never got boring. You literally just attack order them (either from a nearby village you captured or in a mountainy area with no village), place your big ship on top of them for protection, and just go afk until they kill the Outpost for you. It's so easy and satisfying.

They also get some great faction-specific bonuses. Like you get a second base that you can deploy anywhere, which is on top of the bases you get when you KO a faction. It's just insane.

And just to talk about these faction buffs for a minute, they're the reason to play this mode imo. You get 3 major ones (out of a pool of 6+ I think?) each focusing on military, politics, economy...etc. And these are unique for each faction and could really change a playthrough if you play the same faction a second time and pick different ones. Tho some buffs are way better than others. You get to pick 1 out of 3 of them when you do the 1st, 3rd and 5th mission (It counts losses too, so you don't have to win iirc)

Then there's the small buffs you get after doing any mission and you can preview. These range from +10% X resource production (only intel, authority, and influence I think), to get 1 agent at the start of a mission (really good), to getting a dmg buff against a faction depending on the number of agents you have assigned to that faction (very good), to get 5 max agent slots (you'll rarely need more agent slots) and 50% agent recruitment (you mainly pick it for this, it's alright), to instantly unlocking research nodes (always always go for this), and then you have faction specific small buffs. AR for example get: military units get more hp / start with an experience lvl / gain 2 experience every day / less authority cost to peacefully annex / +2% power for every agent you own (!!!). These specific buffs save the AR for me.

And talking about the AR, they're also one of the worst starting factions and definitely shouldn't be played first. That's because conquest plays against the way they're designed; winning with politics and economy. Like I said, there's very few missions allowing you to win this way. It's almost always a military victory, and their early game military sucks. As an example, they're the only faction I failed a mission in because I just couldn't do enough dmg to the Outpost in time, and ran out of time. They're not designed to win via military, and will be bad at it until you get lucky with the small buffs to your units, especially the power ones.

Another tip is to never play against CR. The AI will always deploy the second base CR is allowed to deploy, and this basically doubles the time you need to finish a mission. I only played against CR once and I already hate this. It just drags on an already dragged on mode and missions that it becomes super boring and tedious.

One more thing about the 3 factions I played that's worth mentioning is that having access to ways to gain control over a territory far away is really good. AR and CR are the only ones with this, so you can claim a village or build a base near the enemy Outpost and then just descend your army on it. HK gets a down in that regard, but I can't recall I ever felt this is a negative. The game never puts the enemy ridiculously away from you that it matters that much.

As for the tips in points, they're okay I guess. The spice honestly doesn't matter that much considering the many bonuses you'll end up racking in. You almost never need to defend a village close to the enemy, especially with double turrets. I'm playing on Hard and the enemy rarely attacks my bases.

Liberating is never worth it, always just go for the Outpost. Liberate the village on the way to the Outpost, and then capture the village closest to the Outpost, build an airfield or military base or whatever you need, and then launch your attack. Having a village to go back to is really good.

Generally yea, it's much easier to beeline the mission goal, especially if it's your 100th 'kill enemy base' mission. Just get the military upgrades you need and slowly crawl towards the enemy. That really should be the mindset in capturing villages.

[Gin Kenshin98]

Oh, and I wanted to make this its separate comment since it's hilarious, broken, funny, and makes the mode a complete joke.

When you get the chance to do the mission that unlocks flying units for you, do it asap. Besides unlocking the flyers which are very good, the mission can be completely busted. When you start this mission, the game gives you 2 flyers of your faction (2 harpies for HK for example). You then take these 2 and scout until you find the enemy base. Then you start harassing the enemy constantly.

You do this by attacking their units which can't shoot up, preventing them from capturing villages. Thus they don't gain resources and spend everything on building more units that you'll kill.

You basically neutralize your enemy in the first 5min of the game(!!!).

The first time I did this I was honestly stunned. It's insane how nobody thought of this in the dev team.

Do note that in this mission, there's variations. For example: When I first played HK I played on normal, I started with 2 flyers but the enemy didn't start with any. When I played CR on hard, the enemy started with 2 flyers of their own. You can still do this cheese but you need to micro more incase the enemy flyers destroy and chase your flyers. And when I played the AR, there were 3 factions on the map instead of just one. So this mission is very inconsistent to say the least.

You can do this cheese on any mission btw. Build 2-3 of your flyers and take them to your enemy base to hunt down their military units. They usually always send them to the same village so you only need to manage one area of their territory. This prevents them from further expanding or doing anything really. If you see the enemy trying to take a base, which they will do, they'll just fly off some of their units to another side of the map, just chase them with your flyers and attack the raid and stop them from capturing it. The AI is really dumb in that aspect. They'll always let go of attacking the neutral village and either flee or agree to your flyers.

I played like this on Hard and it's basically easy mode.

[Shogun]

corrino always were the strongest faction and even after a big nerf are even stronger than ever, and after some changes are fun.

they can get up to 80k+ solarii per council vote with the major bonus giving 20 solarii per vote, and the councillor to double the votes, combined with the saudakar that can now farm influence per kill. and statecraft buildings in the home base to get extra votes, you can get 800+ normal votes plus 1200+ influence cap and doubled thats 4000+ votes = 80k solarii, at that point you can buy all the choam which can also mean 0.5% damage per choam %

the fact that you can drop a base almost anywhere on the map, even right next to an enemy base, and have up to 4 of them, with far more slots to build and all the bonuses, also double buildings in special regions or high water regions, and they can stack village buffs like ecaz in a more reliable way. or triple missile buildings in one region for defence.

i just destroyed a base on insane diff in 10 seconds normal time with a stack of flamers that each add 1% damage buff per hit, you dont need to do the boring long ranged mechanical units cheese to destroy a base anymore.

the most solarii income, the best utility on buildings and bases, the fastest base destruction. i recommend trying them again properly.

also the best minor bonus to take is usually the one best faction bonus, for corrino its 50% authority cost reduction around bases, and then stack 2% damage per agent, you should rarely ever need more than 15 agents or even reach that cap.

[SV_Mallet]

Originally posted by Gin Kenshin98:

I've had the same progress as you in conquest, 2/5 done (really 3/5, but I still play even after I win to do the HQ missions and I enjoy the mode). I finished it with HK, CR, AR (and still playing) in that order.

I honestly disagree with most of what you suggested.

HK were by far the easiest, and I played them first with no experience in the mode. The mode heavily favors offense, almost all the missions require you to destroy the enemy Outpost or take villages, and the HK units are the best in offense. I've melted bases when the mission progression bar was at the half way mark. You really win very quickly with them.

I've really enjoyed using the HK units in the way they're intended. Went full hp drain and positives when hp is low gear, the whole shtick. You melt bases like I said. And the oppression mechanic isn't as bad as you say. The research is actually a thing you worry less about in conquest since there's buffs you can take that instantly unlock the first research nodes in a tree which really speeds up the game. I've only went full on oppression around the halfway point of the game where I can afford to have sufficient militia in every village. It's actually easier to get going and manage compared to skirmish thanks to the conquest-specific buffs. The only annoying thing is the constantly popping alerts about rebellions which will get annoying.

CR I was naive when I picked them. I thought the game will change up some of the maps based on the faction I picked. For example, HK and AR play rather basic, but CR, EZ and IX play very differently especially when it comes to taking villages. I thought the game will adapt based on my CR choice since this faction prefers to take villages around the Base, but no. The game can straight up screw you over, starting you in a corner or only surrounded by 1-3 villages. This makes some maps have a very very slow start. It got better the more you play thanks to upgrades which I'll mentioned later, but yea. If you were gonna play the mode, do NOT start with them.

Having said that, they're the most fun to play with. You say they're boring but nuking an Outpost from a safe distance thanks to almost 10 cannon drones never got boring. You literally just attack order them (either from a nearby village you captured or in a mountainy area with no village), place your big ship on top of them for protection, and just go afk until they kill the Outpost for you. It's so easy and satisfying.

They also get some great faction-specific bonuses. Like you get a second base that you can deploy anywhere, which is on top of the bases you get when you KO a faction. It's just insane.

And just to talk about these faction buffs for a minute, they're the reason to play this mode imo. You get 3 major ones (out of a pool of 6+ I think?) each focusing on military, politics, economy...etc. And these are unique for each faction and could really change a playthrough if you play the same faction a second time and pick different ones. Tho some buffs are way better than others. You get to pick 1 out of 3 of them when you do the 1st, 3rd and 5th mission (It counts losses too, so you don't have to win iirc)

Then there's the small buffs you get after doing any mission and you can preview. These range from +10% X resource production (only intel, authority, and influence I think), to get 1 agent at the start of a mission (really good), to getting a dmg buff against a faction depending on the number of agents you have assigned to that faction (very good), to get 5 max agent slots (you'll rarely need more agent slots) and 50% agent recruitment (you mainly pick it for this, it's alright), to instantly unlocking research nodes (always always go for this), and then you have faction specific small buffs. AR for example get: military units get more hp / start with an experience lvl / gain 2 experience every day / less authority cost to peacefully annex / +2% power for every agent you own (!!!). These specific buffs save the AR for me.

And talking about the AR, they're also one of the worst starting factions and definitely shouldn't be played first. That's because conquest plays against the way they're designed; winning with politics and economy. Like I said, there's very few missions allowing you to win this way. It's almost always a military victory, and their early game military sucks. As an example, they're the only faction I failed a mission in because I just couldn't do enough dmg to the Outpost in time, and ran out of time. They're not designed to win via military, and will be bad at it until you get lucky with the small buffs to your units, especially the power ones.

Another tip is to never play against CR. The AI will always deploy the second base CR is allowed to deploy, and this basically doubles the time you need to finish a mission. I only played against CR once and I already hate this. It just drags on an already dragged on mode and missions that it becomes super boring and tedious.

One more thing about the 3 factions I played that's worth mentioning is that having access to ways to gain control over a territory far away is really good. AR and CR are the only ones with this, so you can claim a village or build a base near the enemy Outpost and then just descend your army on it. HK gets a down in that regard, but I can't recall I ever felt this is a negative. The game never puts the enemy ridiculously away from you that it matters that much.

As for the tips in points, they're okay I guess. The spice honestly doesn't matter that much considering the many bonuses you'll end up racking in. You almost never need to defend a village close to the enemy, especially with double turrets. I'm playing on Hard and the enemy rarely attacks my bases.

Liberating is never worth it, always just go for the Outpost. Liberate the village on the way to the Outpost, and then capture the village closest to the Outpost, build an airfield or military base or whatever you need, and then launch your attack. Having a village to go back to is really good.

Generally yea, it's much easier to beeline the mission goal, especially if it's your 100th 'kill enemy base' mission. Just get the military upgrades you need and slowly crawl towards the enemy. That really should be the mindset in capturing villages.

There are a lot of points to respond, so I'll try not to miss:
- Corrino conquest for me wasn't fun. I got the mechanics, but just didn't like it. The concept of second base is pretty great, but IMO pretty useless in conquest. There is no scenario where you must have it to enhance your overall strenght. Just go for the goal and meanwhile increase in your authority bonuses to capture key sectors.

- Atreides (which I also completed) are the easiest in conquest IMO. It's true that there aren't too many maps that allow you to win on Hegemony or Choam, but they are also designed to ally with fremen (as one of the compaign goals) and can actually heal their units. Once you progress with the missions and keep on allying with them, you get a big army of 8 units right from the get-go, where feydakin are fully leveled. Additionally there are maps and bonuses where they will send you reinforcements, all of which doesn't count into your command points. which allows you to create huge armies. Add couple of wardens, 3 drone ships and 5-6 heavy\rangers, you become unbeatable. It's rare for them do die, unless you're attacking the main base. They also have bonuses to the amount of agents (between missions) and a very cool perk which gives you 2% power per agent. Which means that on fully maxed missions with 3 opponents you can get a bonus of 42% for everyone, which is significant as they are designed for armor. Choose your maps to develop these initial perks and complete it easily. I've finished the game by eliminating HK and allying with fremen. Controlled only 6/8 territories.

- Ecoz. The most fun mechanics of them all. You actually utilize these map border sections for authority and additional bonuses. Their sanctuaries can't be attacked so you can build your defences focused on your key sectors. Their bonuses include getting leveled troops when you recruit them, so at the end you can get maxed troops once you recruit them, which makes them extremely powerful. Tbh, All I used was a couple of their mechanical ships, knights and musketeers.A bit squishy heroes compared to Harkonen and Atreides, but everything else is very powerful.

That's a shame that there is no conquest for smugglers and fremen. Smugglers have interesting mechanics of underground, but other than that, they don't feel as good and balanced the the others. Fremen on the other hand, are very powerful in skirmish. Their Feydakin ignores half an armor which makes crazy amount of difference. Additionally you can get bonus units from everywhere and basically never worry about water as Dew collectors are twice as good as usual water collectors.

I will say a few words about House of Ix. Tried it couple of more times and I still don't get them. I understood the intended mechanics, but it still feel absolutely unbalanced and weak compared to the others. First they are 90% depend on fuel cells sectors. If there are none or very little on the map, they are screwed. Secondly, they have extremely weak armies. Even with all the bonuses of connected sectors and their engineers healing the drones mid-battle I have either lost completely or at least half an army in major battles. Patent mechanics is useless. Every other house easily pays that 500 solari fine. Blocking the development is also pretty useless, as the opponents armies and bonuses are simply too strong at that point of 10k hegemony. Perhaps I'm missing something with their tactics, but it feels as they need to be reworked for the better to compete,

[Gin Kenshin98]

Originally posted by SV_Mallet:

Originally posted by Gin Kenshin98:

I've had the same progress as you in conquest, 2/5 done (really 3/5, but I still play even after I win to do the HQ missions and I enjoy the mode). I finished it with HK, CR, AR (and still playing) in that order.

I honestly disagree with most of what you suggested.

HK were by far the easiest, and I played them first with no experience in the mode. The mode heavily favors offense, almost all the missions require you to destroy the enemy Outpost or take villages, and the HK units are the best in offense. I've melted bases when the mission progression bar was at the half way mark. You really win very quickly with them.

I've really enjoyed using the HK units in the way they're intended. Went full hp drain and positives when hp is low gear, the whole shtick. You melt bases like I said. And the oppression mechanic isn't as bad as you say. The research is actually a thing you worry less about in conquest since there's buffs you can take that instantly unlock the first research nodes in a tree which really speeds up the game. I've only went full on oppression around the halfway point of the game where I can afford to have sufficient militia in every village. It's actually easier to get going and manage compared to skirmish thanks to the conquest-specific buffs. The only annoying thing is the constantly popping alerts about rebellions which will get annoying.

CR I was naive when I picked them. I thought the game will change up some of the maps based on the faction I picked. For example, HK and AR play rather basic, but CR, EZ and IX play very differently especially when it comes to taking villages. I thought the game will adapt based on my CR choice since this faction prefers to take villages around the Base, but no. The game can straight up screw you over, starting you in a corner or only surrounded by 1-3 villages. This makes some maps have a very very slow start. It got better the more you play thanks to upgrades which I'll mentioned later, but yea. If you were gonna play the mode, do NOT start with them.

Having said that, they're the most fun to play with. You say they're boring but nuking an Outpost from a safe distance thanks to almost 10 cannon drones never got boring. You literally just attack order them (either from a nearby village you captured or in a mountainy area with no village), place your big ship on top of them for protection, and just go afk until they kill the Outpost for you. It's so easy and satisfying.

They also get some great faction-specific bonuses. Like you get a second base that you can deploy anywhere, which is on top of the bases you get when you KO a faction. It's just insane.

And just to talk about these faction buffs for a minute, they're the reason to play this mode imo. You get 3 major ones (out of a pool of 6+ I think?) each focusing on military, politics, economy...etc. And these are unique for each faction and could really change a playthrough if you play the same faction a second time and pick different ones. Tho some buffs are way better than others. You get to pick 1 out of 3 of them when you do the 1st, 3rd and 5th mission (It counts losses too, so you don't have to win iirc)

Then there's the small buffs you get after doing any mission and you can preview. These range from +10% X resource production (only intel, authority, and influence I think), to get 1 agent at the start of a mission (really good), to getting a dmg buff against a faction depending on the number of agents you have assigned to that faction (very good), to get 5 max agent slots (you'll rarely need more agent slots) and 50% agent recruitment (you mainly pick it for this, it's alright), to instantly unlocking research nodes (always always go for this), and then you have faction specific small buffs. AR for example get: military units get more hp / start with an experience lvl / gain 2 experience every day / less authority cost to peacefully annex / +2% power for every agent you own (!!!). These specific buffs save the AR for me.

And talking about the AR, they're also one of the worst starting factions and definitely shouldn't be played first. That's because conquest plays against the way they're designed; winning with politics and economy. Like I said, there's very few missions allowing you to win this way. It's almost always a military victory, and their early game military sucks. As an example, they're the only faction I failed a mission in because I just couldn't do enough dmg to the Outpost in time, and ran out of time. They're not designed to win via military, and will be bad at it until you get lucky with the small buffs to your units, especially the power ones.

Another tip is to never play against CR. The AI will always deploy the second base CR is allowed to deploy, and this basically doubles the time you need to finish a mission. I only played against CR once and I already hate this. It just drags on an already dragged on mode and missions that it becomes super boring and tedious.

One more thing about the 3 factions I played that's worth mentioning is that having access to ways to gain control over a territory far away is really good. AR and CR are the only ones with this, so you can claim a village or build a base near the enemy Outpost and then just descend your army on it. HK gets a down in that regard, but I can't recall I ever felt this is a negative. The game never puts the enemy ridiculously away from you that it matters that much.

As for the tips in points, they're okay I guess. The spice honestly doesn't matter that much considering the many bonuses you'll end up racking in. You almost never need to defend a village close to the enemy, especially with double turrets. I'm playing on Hard and the enemy rarely attacks my bases.

Liberating is never worth it, always just go for the Outpost. Liberate the village on the way to the Outpost, and then capture the village closest to the Outpost, build an airfield or military base or whatever you need, and then launch your attack. Having a village to go back to is really good.

Generally yea, it's much easier to beeline the mission goal, especially if it's your 100th 'kill enemy base' mission. Just get the military upgrades you need and slowly crawl towards the enemy. That really should be the mindset in capturing villages.

There are a lot of points to respond, so I'll try not to miss:
- Corrino conquest for me wasn't fun. I got the mechanics, but just didn't like it. The concept of second base is pretty great, but IMO pretty useless in conquest. There is no scenario where you must have it to enhance your overall strenght. Just go for the goal and meanwhile increase in your authority bonuses to capture key sectors.

- Atreides (which I also completed) are the easiest in conquest IMO. It's true that there aren't too many maps that allow you to win on Hegemony or Choam, but they are also designed to ally with fremen (as one of the compaign goals) and can actually heal their units. Once you progress with the missions and keep on allying with them, you get a big army of 8 units right from the get-go, where feydakin are fully leveled. Additionally there are maps and bonuses where they will send you reinforcements, all of which doesn't count into your command points. which allows you to create huge armies. Add couple of wardens, 3 drone ships and 5-6 heavy\rangers, you become unbeatable. It's rare for them do die, unless you're attacking the main base. They also have bonuses to the amount of agents (between missions) and a very cool perk which gives you 2% power per agent. Which means that on fully maxed missions with 3 opponents you can get a bonus of 42% for everyone, which is significant as they are designed for armor. Choose your maps to develop these initial perks and complete it easily. I've finished the game by eliminating HK and allying with fremen. Controlled only 6/8 territories.

- Ecoz. The most fun mechanics of them all. You actually utilize these map border sections for authority and additional bonuses. Their sanctuaries can't be attacked so you can build your defences focused on your key sectors. Their bonuses include getting leveled troops when you recruit them, so at the end you can get maxed troops once you recruit them, which makes them extremely powerful. Tbh, All I used was a couple of their mechanical ships, knights and musketeers.A bit squishy heroes compared to Harkonen and Atreides, but everything else is very powerful.

That's a shame that there is no conquest for smugglers and fremen. Smugglers have interesting mechanics of underground, but other than that, they don't feel as good and balanced the the others. Fremen on the other hand, are very powerful in skirmish. Their Feydakin ignores half an armor which makes crazy amount of difference. Additionally you can get bonus units from everywhere and basically never worry about water as Dew collectors are twice as good as usual water collectors.

I will say a few words about House of Ix. Tried it couple of more times and I still don't get them. I understood the intended mechanics, but it still feel absolutely unbalanced and weak compared to the others. First they are 90% depend on fuel cells sectors. If there are none or very little on the map, they are screwed. Secondly, they have extremely weak armies. Even with all the bonuses of connected sectors and their engineers healing the drones mid-battle I have either lost completely or at least half an army in major battles. Patent mechanics is useless. Every other house easily pays that 500 solari fine. Blocking the development is also pretty useless, as the opponents armies and bonuses are simply too strong at that point of 10k hegemony. Perhaps I'm missing something with their tactics, but it feels as they need to be reworked for the better to compete,

Can't speak to Ecaz since I haven't done their campaign yet.

For AR, I get your points and that power per agent buff is really great. I think I got like 4 of them at the end of my run. And I dunno about you but the Fremen always end up being allies, did it with HK and CR too. So AR getting the support from them isn't only an AR thing (tho the allied Fremen did seem slightly more aggressive, but that could be me).

AR does indeed get stupidly good later in a conquest, but that's every faction I played so far. It doesn't change how their start is still not great unless you're lucky with early missions being not-elimination based.

I am just playing the Ix and I'm seeing your point about them. Played like 2 missions and can feel their units not being as tanky. The organic dudes are more fodder than HK troops which is weird. I'm basically just relying on machines at this point. I don't think the engineers help either since you can just recruit the engineer hero and that's a better engineer fighter. The other hero seems fine too but doesn't play that well with the machines, at least compared to the other hero. The buffs you get for them seem to hone in on their research specialization. Haven't seen any combat supporting buffs so far.

Overall I think they are the hardest faction to play in conquest for sure. For the reasons both of us mentioned. Tho some of the maps in conquest lend themselves to the network mechanic, and some do not (I dread that map that uses manpower instead of spice and every village is tucked in close. That's gonna suck).