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I got Dune2000 when I was about 10 years old. The game was in english, and in that age, I barely understood some very basic english. I started playing the game along with my father, and I had no idea what the game was about - it was the very first strategy game I ever had so the gameplay and everything was completely new to me. Without any manual and with some help from father, who understood english a little bit, we were figuring out ourselves how to play the game and how some game mechanics work. There were many things in the very early times, which I simply did not know and was not even able to figure out myself, and furthermore, there were places (in all three campaigns) which I simply could not get past, because I just did not know what to do there. After some time period, my father finally found and downloaded a czech translation for the game. That was the greatest milestone in Dune2000 playing for me, because I could finally read and understand what different buildings and units do, and finally managed to get through places I was stuck in. In this topic, I'd like to share my earliest experiences with the game (which was the best time) and steps how I learned how to play it. - I thought concrete was pointless. Well, I actually understood when reading through the briefings, that buildings needed to be placed on concrete otherwise they would be damaged from the unstable environment. And during the very first play time I was even using it. However, soon I believed that building concrete was pointless so I built all the buildings directly on rock, because I saw the buildings were still working and did not collapse. Paradoxically, sometimes (remember doing that in O4V1) I covered all my base (rock area) with concrete, except the places where were placed buildings, so it was exactly the opposite what I should do. Later, I noticed myself, that I needed to repair my buildings even if they were not hit by enemy. Also noticed that the construction yard, which was placed on concrete, did not need that. And eventually noticed that whenever I placed a building, it had only half the health. Then finally my brain realized that using concrete is really wise thing. - I did not know I could upgrade buildings. In mission 3, troopers and quads appeared, but I was never able to produce them myself. The enemy was sending troopers and quads in mission 3 and 4 against me, while I was attacking them only with light infantry, raiders and combat tanks. I was thinking that the enemy thought I was stupid, hehe. I remember my dad even once told me to click Upgrade button, so I tried that, but then I saw barracks and light factory icon, so I just said "I do not need another barracks and factory" and did not care about that. Oh, how dumb I was. Then, finally later, I tried to upgrade a building, and I was mindblown as I could finally build those mysterious troopers and quads. And in mission 4, I could suddenly even build a repair pad, MCV and engineers. I had absolutely no idea what they were about because I did not saw them before (the enemy was not using them). - Figuring out purpose of a MCV and engineers was another short, but funny story. In briefing, we could understand that MCV can somehow turn into a construction yard. But I could not figure out how to use it. I somehow assumed that a construction yard is 3x3, so well, "I need 9 of them to make a construction yard". So I produced 9 MCVs and sent them out on another free rock area in the map, but it did not work. Finally, I randomly picked just one MCV which was on a clean area and cliecked on it, then construction yard appeared out of nowhere, I was mindblown and I still remember that feeling of satisfaction. - I did not know I need wind traps and have enough power. From the very beginning, I never built more than just one wind trap in a mission. I assumed it was a pointless building which was just needed to allow me build more types of buildings. I did not care about the power indicator or did not even notice units and buildings were produced slower. I also thought that a radar outpost was a pointless building, because it did not do anything. So I simply did not build it. Then later, after I finally figured out what was the purpose of MCV, and because I got stuck in H4V1 as I did not know how to win it (destroying sietch), just for fun because of being bored, I built a construction yard on ruins of destroyed Atreides base, and started rebuilding their base with my own buildings. I tried to mimic exact position of all their buildings, so I built all the wind traps and a radar outpost and... believe or not... the radar minimap suddenly appeared! I was mind blown again. Funny fact was, that I had lot of buildings in my own base, but the amount of wind traps in enemy base produced enough power to power both bases. And I was always wondering why enemy was so dumb and built so many wind traps.

As much as much people trash talk at translations or dubs; I am glad that here, in spain, they took the time and efford to actually release the game in spanish. They even tried to keep the similar type of voice for the mentats, and (in my opinion), enhanced it the best they could (Hark mission 8 intro, were the voice said "Soon Ordos will be extinct"; on the spanish it is say with like a kind of joy, you know, they Joy a Harkonnen may feel for annihilate his enemies). But; I totally understood you; change Dune 2000 for Civilization 1 (much more complex) and that's it, you have no idea what are you doing; but you end learning how the "bronce working" gives you the "Phalanx", the "wheel" gives you the "Chariot" and the "gunpower" gives you the "musketeer"; If I ever played Civ 1 in spanish I would feel a bit lost XD (but I'll probably would read much more the civilopedia menu). Same with Dune 2; but again, spanish release, even if the game hasn't voice effects whatsoever, just some texts in mid-game to warm about sandworms, harversterse release or enemies approaching. Although we had the "manual" (fotocopy from, who knows who had the game originally); but in this case because the anti-piracy system; a question on missions 2 and 8. I eventually learn what armor have the vehicles or that the MCV had 15 units driving it; but when the game asked how far, in KM, the DH can reach... well... time to search the manual. Although not Dune 2000, but on Tiberian sun, the first time I used the concrete for... you know, place buildings on top of it XD; took me a while to understand it's just to block those digging vehicels and force them to deploy elsewhere. But now that you mention; I would like to have the Dune 2 behaviour for Dune 2000; not the decaying HP (which happens in Dune 2 whatever you do, concrete or not, but I think it's a bug, and buildings on concrete weren't suppose to have any decay), but, in dune 2, buildings loose efficiency the more it's damage. A 50% factory produce units slower (I don't know values, but saying that a tank takes twice as much it's not too insane); heh, a red-HP CY takes forever to produce concretes... Outpost doesn't give 100% accuracy information (number of enemy and allies on the radar), repair pad repairs slower, and even the refinery transfer the spice into credits slower. Again, not dune 2000, but on the KKND game I didn't know you could do upgrades on buildings; same as you "wow, the enemy it's using much more variety than me". That's funny man, a very expensive vehicle but you actually produced 9 xD. Luckily in Dune 2, with the manual commands per unit the MCV had a "deploy" command. Play Dune 2 then; enemy AI barely have windtraps to sustain their bases (at least in mission 9), but that's more about the item limit of the game itself. That's something I would like to have today, a limitless dune 2 version with Ai's having the correct amount of windtraps required (and the IX, feels so wrong not seeing enemy special tanks used against the player, except for the early enemy reinforcements). Oh; and recovering from the previous quote; I cannot imagine the amount of time you took to actually build 9 MCV with low power... 20 min at least of gameplay there XD.