OK, well, initial impressions are actually more positive than I was expecting. I've only played for about 50 minutes so far so tip of the iceberg and all that...
It feels like Northgard meets Endless Space. Unless I'm mistaken, there are significantly more resources in Dune and lots of things to keep track of. I didn't play Northgard a great deal but what I saw of it was very much on rails, but Dune seems more free and open in comparison. Lots of units, agents, vehicles and buildings have various traits which all affect a surprising array of stats elsewhere, and I can see a game getting pretty complex, but in a pretty good way.
It feels pretty good to play. Unit selection and orders are simple enough. Map control is fine, and it does that modern thing of zooming out to a certain level unless you "force" it and it zooms out to show the whole map. Units behave well and have decent pathfinding and have nice little speech files that play when you tell them what to do (reminiscent of Dune 2000 actually).
Criticisms so far: when units are fighting it's way too hard to see how the battle is going. Most of the information is either in the unit's banner or on the info box you get by clicking a banner - but in the melee all the banners cluster together making things very confusing. Also I rarely say this but the soundtrack is too understated. What I heard of it sounded alright but it's so quiet. I want it louder and a bit more dynamic to give a game based on Dune the pomp it deserves.
Also the map at first glance seemed small, however it does look big enough to accommodate a large number of regions so I might be jumping the gun there.
Anyway, pretty pleasantly surprised so far! I'd say if you're a fan of Northgard or the Endless games, or a big fan of Dune and real time strategy in general, this is worth getting. I'll post more detailed impressions later.
Topic: Dune: Spice Wars (Read 17500 times)