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Author Topic: Dune: Spice Wars  (Read 17032 times)

Martok

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Reply #45 on: June 25, 2022, 09:57:44 PM
I really appreciate the write-up/early impressions, Huw.  Your words encourage me and no doubt I'll be buying it very soon.

FTFY

Heh, we'll see.  I still suspect the smaller scale and limited number of playable factions will keep this from making my all-time list, but at least now I'm starting to think I won't have regrets whenever I do get around to grabbing it. 



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bob48

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Reply #46 on: June 26, 2022, 06:08:48 AM
I think the main thing for me will be to see how well it holds up against the old original game, which was a blast to play. The limited number of factions really I don't remember as being an issue since the play was challenging enough anyway, but we'll see.

“O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days.”

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Huw the Poo

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Reply #47 on: June 26, 2022, 06:52:02 AM
It's not really comparable to Dune 2000 to be honest. It's a bit more boardgamey, whereas 2000 was a pure RTS. This game very much revolves around the regions into which Arrakis is divided. You capture a region then have an arbitrarily (but expandable) limited number of buildings to build there.

So for example, say you need more armies but you're running out of manpower. You conquer a neighbouring region then build a recruitment office there which increases manpower. Regions have natural bonuses too, so one might give a bonus to manpower production while another might have a plascrete bonus for example. And some have spice of course! It's up to you to exploit them or not.

Balancing resources is fundamental to the game. Many of your decisions are driven by resource shortages, because the resources limit your armies, ornithopters, buildings etc.



Huw the Poo

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Reply #48 on: June 26, 2022, 02:39:27 PM
Some further disorganised observations.

I've restarted a couple of times due to being steamrolled because I haven't learned the game well enough yet. Evidently this is a bit of a rush game. You can't really turtle. At the start of a game you're pretty limited in the types of buildings and units you can make, and only through research and gathering resources can you get anything decent. Therefore the number one spot on your list of goals is permanently occupied with "expand". The slower you are, the bigger the advantages your opponents will have over you. For example, in the game I just abandoned my closest opponent came at me with a group of 7 or 8 armies, which I simply couldn't counter because my maximum was 4 and my only defensive structure was a missile battery which frankly doesn't really do a lot. Research can get you higher unit caps as well as better units, so it's incumbent upon you to rush up the tree to keep up with your opponents.

There seems to be a number of options available to you in general. You can invest in four different research types, only one of which is military, and I've seen more than one building providing similar bonuses, so hopefully that means you can tailor your approach to suit your playstyle somewhat. Crucially though, I don't have the experience yet to say whether you can significantly achieve victory by focusing on espionage rather than military might, for example. In fact I don't know how you even win at all - the game hasn't bothered to explain that to me.

In fact that's a criticism in general - lack of explanations. I've learned a lot of what I know by carefully examining tooltips and following breadcrumb trails. There's no tutorial at all. Since it's in early access I'll give it some latitude here but if this doesn't change by 1.0 I'll be pretty disappointed.

Another criticism is the lack of strategic zoom. Yes you can zoom in and out easily using the mouse wheel, but it doesn't follow your mouse cursor. This one is unforgivable; we've had that since, what....the original Supreme Commander? It's not a dealbreaker but it annoys me constantly and I really hope they fix it.

One final criticism for now is that all things military needs to be fleshed out a fair bit in my opinion. There's no control over armies except telling them where to go, no formations or anything like that. So once the order is given they just move in a blob, and combat occurs when one blob meets another. It's pretty graceless. And my earlier point about it being difficult to see how combat is going still stands. There's a Paradox-style outliner on the right of the screen in which you can monitor unit health, but 1) that's only your units, and 2) if you are using any more than one group of units this gets much less useful, obviously.

Overall though I'm still enjoying it, and it's still better than I expected it to be. I really need to take a game to completion, or at least a lot further than I've done until now, so that I can comment more on the fairly complex set of Landsraad intrigues, espionage, and the deeper parts of the research tree. Stay tuned!



bob48

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Reply #49 on: June 26, 2022, 03:15:52 PM
I have to say that at this point, its not calling to me as much as I hoped it would :-(

“O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days.”

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'


Martok

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Reply #50 on: June 27, 2022, 02:01:45 AM
Thanks, Huw.  I'd read about needing to "rush" for resources (which isn't my preferred style of play), as well as about the lack of strategic zoom, but I'd forgotten about them until now when you said something. 

To me, Spice Wars continues to feel like a game I'd pick up when there's a decent sale, but not otherwise. 



"I like big maps and I cannot lie." - Barthheart

"I drastically overpaid for this existence." - bbmike


Huw the Poo

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Reply #51 on: June 27, 2022, 04:20:07 AM
Yeah, there's definitely more to the game than I currently realise (espionage seems to be a whole minigame in itself and I've barely scratched the surface), but there's no getting away from it being a rush game. You simply get trampled if you rest on your laurels at all. I definitely understand why that's off-putting, in fact that's usually a deal-breaker for me too. But there's a lot to enjoy about the game and this style of gameplay at least means you should get to finish more games than you would in the more languorous strategy games. By the time the devs finish adding features and implementing community feedback this could even be a top-tier game (of its type).

I continue to be surprised that I'm enjoying it as much as I am. Maybe I should revisit Northgard...



Huw the Poo

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Reply #52 on: June 28, 2022, 04:16:39 AM
So apparently there's a way to set victory conditions, AI difficulty, map size etc. It's a half-dimmed settings button right next to the very large and bright "START GAME" button so I will forgive myself for not noticing it sooner.

Restarting on easy then, just while I learn my way around, the AI is definitely less aggressive. What is not less aggressive though, is the constant raids on my bases by the locals. This happens all the time - it's a common complaint I've read elsewhere - so unless you're prepared to spend staggering amounts of gold and manpower fully equipping every conquered village with militia units, you're constantly playing whack-a-mole with your armies.

This well put most of you off even more, but I'm finding Dune: Spice Wars rather stressful to play. Besides the raider whack-a-mole you have to be on constant lookout for worms. If a worm appears near a harvester you have (I'd estimate) no more than ten seconds to realise - not easy when you're busy - and recall your harvester[1]. Similarly, worms will appear in the deeper desert too, always suspiciously right underneath my armies. Thus you lose armies for no good reason on occasion. It's not a particularly common occurrence but very bloody annoying when it does happen, especially since in early game at least it's very expensive to hire and maintain armies and they're slow to get where they're going too.

To add to the stress, you never have enough of things. With four distinct research paths, eight different ways you can split your spies, etc it's all too easy to be jack of all trades and master of none. You never reach a point - at least I haven't yet - where you can say your economy is ticking along nicely. If you're in positive rates for all your resources, you'll undoubtedly want to hire more armies which will deplete manpower, but you don't have the plascrete to build another recruitment office, and so on. It's never ending.

To a certain kind of player this is probably bliss. It probably would have been for me 20 years ago too. All I can say is there's never a point where I can just sit back and watch my empire. You have to just expand expand expand expand expand. If you want more plascrete for example, what are you going to do - research some tech that gives +1 production in each village, or conquer the next region which will give you a flat +40? And if you don't, your opponent will.

It's a conquest game really, and I'm willing to bet that even if you choose some other victory condition it won't make a lot of difference. Expansion is by far the best way to grow your empire.

[1] Actually you can set your harvester to auto-recall, but that decreases its productivity for some reason. This is silly. You can attach an ornithopter to a harvester but all that does is increase productivity - why doesn't it act like a spotter instead? You know, just like in the lore. Especially considering you can also add crew to harvesters which - yep, you guessed it! - increases productivity! Seems to me that if you're willing to spare a precious 'thopter slot on a harvester you should get the auto-recall for free. Gamifying it such that you have to keep a constant eye on it in readiness to hit "recall" with seconds' notice is lame.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2022, 04:19:38 AM by Huw the Poo »



bob48

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Reply #53 on: June 28, 2022, 07:05:22 AM
Thanks for that Huw, its very informative.

Its made me more determined to hold fire and see if the devs address some of these issues.

“O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days.”

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'


Undercovergeek

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Reply #54 on: June 28, 2022, 08:03:36 AM
Thanks for that Huw, its very informative.

Its made me more determined to hold fire and see if the devs address some of these issues.

hes able to work all this out by ignoring his next PBEM turn  ;)



Huw the Poo

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Reply #55 on: June 28, 2022, 08:33:14 AM
Oh shit I thought I was waiting for you! Sorry! Will send later.



Undercovergeek

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Reply #56 on: June 28, 2022, 08:35:37 AM
 :ROFL:

It’s cool buddy - I just thought you were busy



Huw the Poo

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Reply #57 on: June 28, 2022, 08:38:45 AM
It's because I'd read your email but then forgot to mark it unread again, making me think I was up to date. Whoops!

Bob: Yeah I've tried to balance my impressions with good and bad, but ultimately what I'm trying to demonstrate is that it's a specific kind of game for a specific kind of player. I still maintain it's generally a pretty good game, but there's no getting away from its build and rush nature, so I wanted to make sure everyone was clear on that.

I'll finish my current game and report on anything else I find, then I think I might put it away until the next major update, or even until 1.0.



Martok

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Reply #58 on: June 29, 2022, 04:39:41 AM
Well, shoot.  After that most recent write-up, Spice Wars is starting to sound like it might not be for me at all, at least not in its current form.   :-\  I echo Bawb's sentiments in hoping that the devs will address (at least some of) the issues you've mentioned. 

Thanks again for sharing with us your thoughts & impressions, Huw! 



"I like big maps and I cannot lie." - Barthheart

"I drastically overpaid for this existence." - bbmike


bob48

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Reply #59 on: July 05, 2022, 10:55:06 AM
And now they are going to add House Corrino, which could be interesting.

“O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days.”

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'