Dune II

Also known as:

• Dune II: The Battle for Arrakis (Mega Drive/Genesis port)
• Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty

Background

While not the first real-time strategy game, per se (the first being Stonkers), Dune II established a genre that would be followed for years to come. As such, Dune II is considered the originator (or simply "the daddy") of the RTS genre. Striking a balance between complexity and innovation, it was a huge success and laid the foundation for Command and Conquer (which was nicknamed "Dune III" by fans and detractors alike), Warcraft, and other RTS strategy games that followed.

Story

The player takes the role of a commander of one of three interplanetary houses, the Atreides, the Harkonnen or the Ordos, with the goal of gaining control of Arrakis from the two other houses. The basic strategy in the game is to collect spice with harvestors from sand dunes, have it brought back and refined for credits, and to build and purchase military combat units with credits in order to fend off and ultimately destroy the enemy. In addition to enemy incursions, the player must also deal with periodic appearances of the sandworm, capable of swallowing vehicles and infantry whole, as well as and harsh weather conditions that can deteriorate the structures of the player's base.

Changes in version 1.07

Bug/error fixes:

• Fixed the "Frigate arrival in T-0" Starport bug.
• The numbers of units in stock at the Starport that are defined in each mission are now used correctly (there were some problems with it in v1.0).
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Carryalls that drop scripted reinforcements to get stuck at the border of the map.
• Fixed a small graphical glitch on the Atreides Mentat screen.
• Fixed a broken frame in the Gun Turret animation.
• The corners of the map are no longer revealed from shroud at the beginning of the mission.
• Fixed some minor errors in briefing texts.

Gameplay changes:

• The AI now rebuilds destroyed structures more actively and frequently.
• The saboteur is now visible to the player.
• The maximum number of saboteurs that can be present on the map at any given time reduced from 3 to 2.
• Ornithopter HP increased from 10 to 25.
• Troopers and Launchers are now able to fire at air units.
• The maximum number of Sandworms that can be present on the map at a time reduced from 3 to 2.
• The number of units a Sandworm will swallow before disappearing reduced from 4 to 3.
• Fremen units and Sandworms are no longer ignored by turrets.
• Building repair cost has been reduced.
• Palace repairs now cost nothing. This is actually a bug.
• Turrets are now able to fire at Carryalls (only in the European The Battle for Arrakis release).

Interface changes:

• The "Repair" button on the sidebar now starts flashing red when a building is below 50% its original HP (in v1.0, the button always flashes red regardless of the damage).
• Pressing the "A" key no longer can be used to issue a "Harvest" order.
• The wormsign is now announced for the Atreides player (in v1.0, the wormsign would only be announced if the owner of the sandworm was not Fremen, presumably because the Atreides and the Fremen are allied).

Miscellaneous:

• Added two more player ranks ("Chief Warlord" and "Emperor") to the scoring system.
• The Fremen colour scheme has been made a bit brighter.
• Removed several animation frames of the Heavy Factory, Repair Facility and High-Tech Factory.
• Removed two Mentat database entries: "Sardaukar" and "Frigate" (the corresponding image of the Frigate had also been removed from the files of the US patched version; it is still present in the European releases).
• Certain characters from the 6p font (used on the game sidebar) have been narrowed down by 1 pixel. These include C, E, F and L.

Credits

Produced by

Brett W. Sperry

Directed by

Aaron E. Powell & Lyle J. Hall

Designed by

Aaron E. Powell & Joe Bostic

Programmed by

Joe Bostic & Scott K. Bowen

U.K. Project Co-ordinators

Dan Marchant & Peter Hickman

Text by

Donna J. Bundy & Rick Gush

Art & Animation by

Aaron E. Powell, Ren Olsen, Judith Peterson, Eric Shults & Elle Arabian

Music & Sound directed by

Paul Mudra

Music & Sound by

Frank Klepacki & Dwight Okahara

Digitized voices by

Donna J. Bundy, Frank Klepacki, Glenn Sperry, Eric Shults & Julie Stainer

Quality Assurance by

Glenn Sperry, Jesse Clemit, Matt Collins, Pat Collins, Bill Foster, Mike Lightner, Michael S. Glosecki, Justin Norr, Eugene Martin, Darren Lloyd, Richard Hewison, Paul Coppins & Matthew Spall.

Artwork & Design co-ordinators

Andrew Wright & Matt Walker

U.K., Deutsch, Français & Italiano Manual design by

Definition (U.K.)

U.S. Manual design by

Lisa. A. Ballan

Manual edited by

Lisa Marcinko

See also

Dune II remakes