This is a help file, giving a description of the game, and how to play this
demo version.
Setting the story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dune II is a strategy game based on the cult Frank Herbert book 'Dune'.
It is set in the future, with various 'Houses' (or clans) battling for supreme
control of the planet Arrakis (known as Dune). The planet is the only known
source of the spice 'Melange', a valuable commodity. The planet is mainly sand,
with pockets of rock, which are the only stable parts of the planet's surface.
The spice is mined from the planet's surface, using harvesters - large,
cumbersome vehicles with no on-board processing of the spice. They roam the
planet, mining as they go.
However, life's never that easy. There are other houses to contend with, and
they, too, want to mine the spice.
So, you will also have combat vehicles, ranging from a trike (3-wheeled cannon
fodder), to a sonic-wave tank (fires bursts of sound, so that the enemy falls
to bits).
In addition, you will have to create buildings, which will make the vehicles,
train troups, repair vehicles and even other buildings.
And finally, there are the planet's natural defences to contend with - Sand
worms. They are huge beasts, capable of eating whole vehicles in one gulp. They
are attracted to the vibrations caused by vehicles on sand.
Playing the game
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you start, you are presented with a screen which is split into 4 main
parts.
The bottom left square (which is very large) is the main display. It shows you
your troups, buidings and vehicles. The ground underneath the vehicles is also
shown.
If the ground is a yellow/orange colour, then it is sand. You cannot build on
this, but your vehicles may roam freely.
If it is dark grey, then it is rock. It is possible for you to build on this,
and also your troups can move quickly over rock.
If it is a dark brown, then it is a mountain. These can only be traversed by
infantry units. You cannot build on these.
If it is an orange colour, then it is spice. This can be mined by the
harvesters. It is useful to know where the spice is.
If an area is black, then you haven't visited it. As soon as troups move over
these areas, they are shown.
Buildings are displayed with a flag to indicate which house owns it. You are
the blue house (House Atreides - the good guys). The enemy are shown as red
(House Harkonnen - the very bad guys). Different buildings look differently.
Vehicles are also different, and each look like their name. A trike has three
wheels, a missile launcher has missiles, and a heavy-combat tank looks like
it's the business. Infantry units come in two sizes - single units, and triple-
units. Some may be armed with missile launchers.
You can select units and buildings by clicking on them.
The bottom right hand corner is the long-range map. This shows you your base, and your units coloured in blue. When you build a radar station, it will also
show you any enemy's units which are in range, and also the ground you've
visited.
The top bar gives information about the currentle selected unit/building, and
also allows you to set options and request information from your 'Mentat'. This
is the information window.
The middle right hand side of the screen shows you more information about the
unit/building you've selected. It shows damage status (top, right), the picture
of the building (top left), and the unit's orders, or the building's current
status (below). This is the status window.
In the beginning, you have 8 vehicles and a construction yard. The construction
yard is used to build buildings. It is the currently selected object, and it's
status is displayed in the status window.
The first thing to do is to get some power. In order to do this, you will need
to build a wind-trap. To do this, select your construction yard (unless it's
already selected) and click on the picture of the building (in the status
window). After a breif pause, you are presented with the list of buildings you
can build. This is a short list at the moment - a single slab of concrete and a
wind-trap.
You are presented with your first choice, at this moment in time. If you create
a building and you place it on bare rock, it will need repairing more often
than if you built concrete slabs, and placed it on these slabs. However, if you
build concrete slabs, you won't have your wind-trap as soon as you would if you
didn't build the slabs.
In order to get yourself into the game, I would suggest NOT building the slabs.
As you get more confident, and you learn how the game works, you can build
slabs to put the wind-traps on. Click on the wind-trap picture (on the left-
hand side), and then on "Build this". When the game continues, a warning will
be displayed, telling you that there's not enough concrete. Click anywhere to
ignore this message, and then click on the wind-trap picture, now displayed
underneath the construction yard icon in the status window.
The wind-trap is under construction. Now, it's advisable to find out about your
surroundings. Select a unit (by clicking on it), and tell it to move elsewhere.
To do this, click on "Move" in the status window. A cross-hair cursor is shown.
Click on either the long-range map to move it to that position, or on the main
display. It will acknowledge thism and then move to that location. You can send
your troops everywhere, if you want, but note that the enemy is somewhere, and
can open fire on your troups.
By now, the wind-trap should have been constructed. If it hasn't then click on
the construction yard. It will tell you how far it's got. When it shows 100%,
it is finished.
If it says "Build", then you can click on it to start construction. If it is
finished, it will say "Place it". Click on the wind-trap icon to place it. You
can then move to the main display, and place it. Note that it is only possible
to place it adjacently to any other building, so place it next to the
construction yard. You cannot place it ontop of any units as well...
Now, you can build more exciting buildings. The next building to construct is
the spice refinery. This holds spice (or credits), and is the home of the
harvesters. A harvester is given free with every refinery built.
If your units have stumbled across any enemy units in the meantime, you can
tell them to attack these units, by selecting your unit, then "Attack" on the
status window. With the cross-hairs, click on the unit you wish to attack.
It's normally hopeless to attack a vehicle of higher strength, so you can tell
your units to run away - or Retreat. If it is in "Guard" mode, then it will
stay put, and attack any passing enemy unit.
Once you're spice refinery has been built, you can tell your harvester to go
somewhere and harvest the spice. Select the harvester, and click on "Harvest"
to select somewhere to harvest. Click on any spice field (orange on the main
display). If you haven't found any spice, then you can move your harvester
about until it does find it.
If you've found a sand worm, then the advice is to get your units onto rock -
the sand worms can't move on rock. If any of your vehicles are unfortunate to
be eaten, tough - you've lost them. Sand worms usually go away after eating a
certain number of vehicles, so to get rid of them, you could offer a
"sacrifice", and send in your weakest vehicles...
The next building to construct is usually a radar station. This will warn you
of approaching enemy units, and give you a much better display of the land.
Note that if you do not have enough power, your radar display fails. To remedy
this, build wind-traps.
Once you've built that, then you can build even more buildings. Or you can
upgrade your construction yard to build even more! It's probably wise to have
more than one spice refinery, so you can mine and hold even more spice.
You'll probably need some more vehicles at some stage - Light vehicle
construction yards, heavy vehicle construction yards and high-tech factories
build vehicles. This is achieved in a similar way to the construction yard's
building facilities.
Defending your buildings can be achived with gun turrets and rocket turrets.
As soon as you've built a sizeable base, it's time to approach the actual
mission - wipe out the enemy. I'll leave you to your own devices at this stage.
However, one hint is to create as many vehicles as possible - there is a limit,
and send the en-mass to the enemy...
Breif description of vehicles/buildings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Concrete slab - used as roadways and building foundations.
Walls - Stops all attacke, except missile launchers, from
passing
through.
Construction yard - build buildings/concrete slabs.
Wind-trap - Provides power for your base.
Spice refinery - Converts spice to credits. Special offer - free
harvester!
Spice silos - Stores spice. Each refinery and silo holds 1000 spice
units. If you have too much spice, it will be lost.
Radar outpost - Displays more information on the radar map.
Gun turret - Simple defence structure. Attacks nearby enemy units
Rocket turret - Larger range of the gun-turret, and can fire over
buildings.
Barraks - Produces and trains light infantry units.
WOR - Produces and trains heavy infantry units
Light vehicle factory - Produces trikes and quads.
Heavy vehicle factory - Produces tracked vehicles, such as tanks and harvesters
High-tech factory - Produces flying vehicles, such as carryalls.
Repair facility - Allows you to repair vehicles.
IX research centre - Gives a technology upgrade to your base.
Starport - Provides an intergalactic trading service, so you can
order new vehicles and airbourne units - usually
cheaper than building them yourself.
Harvester - Mines the spice. When full, will automatically return
to a refinery for processing.
MCV - The Mobile Construction Vehicle is a mobile
construction yard. When deployed, it will turn into a
construction yard.
Infantry - These are foot-soldiers, with light armament.
Troopers - These are heavily armoured foot-soldiers, with missle
launchers.
Trike - Three wheeled light armoured vehicle
Quad - Four wheeled light armoured vehile
Combat tank - Medium armoured tracked tank
Missile tank - Mobile version of rocket turret, but larger range, and
frequently inaccurate.
Seige tank - Heavy-duty battle tank.
Carryall - Transports vehicles to/from the repair facility, as
well as harvesters to/from spice refineries.
Ornithopter - Flying missile-launcher, very fast, but with light
armour.
Sand worms - Indigenous life form to Dune. Extremly heavy armoured.
Hints :
Missile tanks can easily take out rocket turrets, but are useless at short
range...
Try to find out about the enemy base, by creating trikes, and sending them in a
swarm to the enemy base...
If you want a breather, click on Options...
This demo version
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is level 5 of Atreides. You cannot save your current position, nor can you
change your house. If you do select to change your house (on the options menu),
then you will restart the scenario. Saving will ask you for a name, but it
won't save it.
If you complete the mission, you'll start it again. It won't save your name to
the high-score table.
The full game
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The full game has 72 different scenarios, starting very simply, and ending in
a finale with the Emperor himself! You can also play whatever house you want.
It is available from Eclipse on 01243 531194, or :
