Chaos_Storm

Additional points: 1> Regeneration - don't be afraid to run and hide to heal, then come back 2> Micromanagement - Ordos vehicles need a lot of attention for maximum effectiveness, especially the Laser Tank 3> Veterancy - Ordos vehicles have a relatively easy time getting veterancy, and they need it! 4> Rally points - have secure positions for your vehicles to run and hide in. Preferably use Kobras and a mix of infantry. 5> Saboteurs - don't be afraid to use them. They can be devastating if they pull that cord at the correct moment. Highly effective at quickly destroying windtrap farms. 6> Have engineers around handy. They can be used for defence as well as capturing buildings. 7> Dig dust scouts to amass a large force without being spotted. 8> Always use scouts to check out a spot before you set up your formation there. Keep those scouts around that formation and your base to watch for Infiltrators and Fremen. 9> Also watch out for Projections of Laser weapons - these are expendable to the enemy yet can wipe out shielded formations effortlessly. Get your scouts close to them to remove this threat. Anything else that I've missed?

Deviate the Mino. A Deviator is quite tough - it can stand a Missilte tank salvo. Just remember that you need to let it regenerate for ages afterwards due to its much higher max health and shields. The Mino is too slow to move out of the way of a Deviator rocket. PROVIDED THEY DON'T GET SHOT AT, lots of AA troopers/Sardaukar Elites can take down a single Mino quickly. You'll need a long distraction though and hope that a human player does not notice the infantry. Don't use this tactic unless you are desperate. 2,3 NIAB tanks can take down 1 Mino in a single salvo. NIAB tanks can take a huge amount of punishment from Mino fire. With Laser tanks, be more careful with your movements as you will die quickly. Train up a small (6?) group of Laser tanks to gain veterancy to make it easier - especially when they get the range bonus.

Also note are slow - both in moving and firing. AA mines do massive damage very quickly at the cost of self-destruction. AA mines are air units so don't need to worry about terrain or worms. True it's unwise to have a bunch of AA mines sitting around doing nothing as a suicide aircraft will take them all down with it. A few AA mines can boost your air defences though.

Guild Makers just might be the one of the most micromanagement demanding unit. Their shooting animation is WRONG as that electricity does not represent the area of attack. It's better if you vision a Maker shooting a shell that instantly arrives at its target and has HUGE splash damage. That's why Maker groups must never fire on targets too close to them. It might be better to force fire often with large Maker groups, just so that you know where they are shooting. Makers are excellent at taking down small buildings - i.e. Windtraps and walls. Other structures fall quickly too if packed together. Just try force firing near the a tight group of buildings instead of actually attacking a single target. Be sure to have repair vehicles near Makers and keep an eye on them. They can be useful against the AI, don't know how good they'd be online though.

I thought they pretty much had the same range.

Also note - enemy carryalls will not pick up a harvester if you assign your Adv. Carryall to pick it up, even if it has to reach it from the other side of the map.

If I really want to rush someone and we started with 30000 and no units (preferably with knowledge of where their base is as well - e.g. 2v2 games on 4 player maps), I'd build 3 factories (building an extra windtrap for power) before anything else and pump out vehicles really quickly. I'd get an early MCV, 2 refineries and an Outpost to follow up. If I didn't know where my enemy was, I'd send Dust Scouts to possible base locations to find them - they may not have the visibility of a Scout but they are fast and it's harder to kill them. Because the Dust Scouts would be coming out so quickly, I can afford to do this. Then it's time for the old Dust Scout and Laser Tank rush (but bigger and/or earlier). Alternatively, I could get APCs and AA troopers, load the troopers in the APCs and rush them to enemy spice fields whilst my Dust Scouts kill all resistance at the spice and then lay siege to prevent reinforcements from coming (by staying outside, you get the advantage of having space to attack anything coming out from many sides). Don't forget to build that 2nd Construction Yard early or you'll be behind in building up your base. 3 (or even 4) refineries are recommended if your rush failes. You will be stretched because of the sheer speed at which vehicles and structures will be built as well as having to command your rush.

I've just realised a flaw with Guild Makers. Their shooting animation is misleading. The damage area is NOT the electric field - that only shows the maximum range of the Makers. It helps if you imagine the Maker firing some sort of instant hit cannon that has a HUGE splash damage area. Try this: 1> Get a Maker and some expendable infantry as targets. 2> Put the infantry in a single line parallel to the direction the Maker is facing, starting with right in front of the Maker and trailing off just beyond the Maker's range. 3> Tell the Maker to force fire on the ground right next to the closest infantry. 4> Rebuild the line of infantry targets. 5> Tell the Maker to force fire at its maximum range. You will realise that infantry die in the vicinity of where you force fired. The electric field you see does not kill the infantry - you can kill beyond it. I've come to realise that though they are incredibly weak and slow for their price, they have a deadly weapon. Try having a group (about 5) of Makers fire on Structures - Windtraps and Walls get blown away instantly in a wide area. I've realised that Makers are brilliant demolishers with their wide area of effective damage. They are good against infantry too and light vehicles if enough shoot at the same time. You need to micromanage them heavily if you don't want a large group of Makers being destroyed by their own fire. If the target moves too close to the Makers, lots of them will die. So I suggest you try using them with force fire orders (don't forget to cancel that order sometime!). You must protect them from vehicles, aircraft, Kindjal and Mortar though - NIAB tanks are excellent for the vehicles but you'll have to rely on non-Guild units to take care of the other threats. And they ought to change that shooting animation!

I'm not saying Harkonnen infantry are not effective. I love their light infantry, flamers can wipe out lots of Anti-Vehicle infantry rapidly and Troopers are a cheap way of getting Anti-Air power. But they're all so slow, especially the flamer and there is no real long range unit. The trooper fires too slowly and has too short a range to fight vehicle groups (similar with AA troopers) without sustaining heavy casualties (e.g. being run over). I suppose it's just me that's not suited to commanding Harkonnen infantry very well. I can have mixed infantry cells on infantry rock that can survive quite a bit with Ordos and Atreides, but with Harkonnen I sustain too many casualties. Perhaps I haven't found the right way of using Harkonnen infantry.

Is it possible to summon more than 1 worm at a time to ride?

Woa, that was long. Put simply, try to survive the rush stage of the game so that you can gain experience against humans in the later stages. With experience, you'll become better and start having fun at winning with better planning and/or micromanaging.

With scouts, wait until they are cloaked. Then when you select them and move the cursor to give them the order to move, when the cursor is close enough, the cursor will change to have some white arrows as well. This means the scout can get there without revealing himself (provided he takes the shortest route possible). Eventually you'll get a sense of distance but the cursor really does help. Hmm, my build order? I don't really stick to one - I do whatever I feel I want to do. Usually it starts with something like these 2 (assuming you start with 30000): 1> Windtrap, Barracks, Factory, Factory, Windtrap, Outpost, Refinery, Windtrap, Refinery... 2> Factory, Barracks, Windtrap, Outpost, Factory, Refinery, Barracks, Windtrap, Refinery... I just like having an early Outpost to go with early scouts. You may wish to build other things first. The Build order you posted is good for games starting with about 15000, but with 30000, you're building the refineries too quickly. I may be wrong, but I prefer spending until my money is down to about 12000, then I worry about money. To stop that rush without rushing, you'll have to be either Atreides or Ordos. I don't know about Harkonnen if you go for an early 2nd, even 3rd Factory (then a refinery before the barracks as you'll be spending money so quickly). Use the splash damage, artillery units - Kindjal, Mortar, Minos, Kobras. Early 2nd Barracks and/or Factories should help you build enough of these units to stop a rush. Don't forget to guard your spice from a rush as well! Artillery should pound light vehicles (Sand bikes, Dust scouts, Buzzsaws) very quickly if they have too many and aren't moving them around much (you can't when rushing). Either that or counter rush, but don't take that rush to his base. Instead, target the Harvesters then continue developing as normal, except he will be slowed down a bit. After the Early game, it's time to start thinking - sub-house structures? More Factories and Barracks? Go for Hangars, Starport and Palace(s)? Generally, you'll be trying to control the spice and protect your base in the Mid/Late game. If you are going for 3+ Factories, then think about a 3rd refinery. If you then have 2 Hangars, some sub-house structures and 3~4 Barracks as well, get a 4th refinery and build some extra harvesters and carryalls. Build units generally so that when you need something, it's there and not waiting to be built. If space is limited, you do need to make a decision on either lots of low-tech units or some high-tech units (i.e. Hangar and Starport units). Then you need to build sustainable defences for your base and your spice fields. Harass the enemy a bit so that their forces/attacks don't grow out of hand. Then you need to make the decision to expand or to attack full-scale with what you've amassed. To expand, secure that place with some units first, then send the MCV, preferably along a route that you can easily defend. Then you'll need some good defences for that expansion - preferably as much as your first base so that you have somewhere to run away to if that gets destroyed. Build extra refineries as you feel necessary. If you expand successfully, you'll have a huge advantage with extra money, building facilities, room to maneouvre, potentially several palaces (this speeds up superweapons a lot until you get to about the 5th palace) and an extra life. Try starting with Atreides - you don't need as much micromanagement with their units and they are versatile. Once you get a feel for the game, think about Ordos and Harkonnen. They require a different psychology to win - Ordos need more micromanagement to put speed and regeneration to work, Harkonnen need micromanagement for combined arms. But with any house, you need to use space wisely, guard your spice, control the map, know your enemy and bring about favourable fights, removing counters for followup units (e.g. Minotauruses versus enemy Snipers, then Light Infantry/Snipers against their Kindjal). The best players are microing macroers. Meaning they know how to tactically win fights and strategically win the battle. Tactics is about using the right units in the right place in the right formation to beat the enemy group. Strategy is about spice economy, building space economy, building and bringing enough reinforcements, predicting how enemy forces will move/react and deciding whether you want to control the majority of the map to pressurise him and then kill him, or ambush him, perhaps with an air drop followed up by a conventional attack from his front door (which should have less units defending if your air drop was successful). Good luck Dezertfish, I hope you get a victory through strategy and tactics soon.

I'll say one thing in favour of Atreides Light Infantry: Speed. Harkonnens keep up their tradition of being slow even in their infantry and a lack of an APC. It is so annoying that Harkonnen don't have any long range infantry. I guess its their attitude: Harkonnen: Go in and kill them first before they kill you. >:( Ordos: Terminate cost effectively. :( Atreides: Hit them before they get too close. ;)

The worm's size is deceptive.

Harkonnen seem to have gone for machines than men - e.g. the ADP is more versatile than the AA mine or the Air Drone. They don't have an APC which says something about their attitude towards infantry (thinking they are worthless, I don't blame them with so many infantry genocide weapons). Instead, they have an arsenal of vehicles that need combined arms to cover for their weaknesses - meaning they'll need space and micromanagement, i.e. suited to meeting the enemy in no-man's land rather than in the base. I'd say the Harkonnen either need some way of repairing vehicles more easily (maybe make regeneration available at Lv1, or give a repair pad, or let Engineers be able to repair slowly - made more expensive though); or they need to do something for infantry. Maybe a heavily armed and armoured (yet slow) APC that infantry can take shelter in, or letting infantry be better (I must say if the Harkonnen Light Infantry had more health, it would be the ultimate versatile unit, though slow). The Atreides have the Kindjal for making quick work of vehicles (instant shooting with more range, as opposed to a Trooper locking onto the target and the rocket actually reaching the target) and the Ordos have Mortar to help against large rushes. The Harkonnen don't have any long-range infantry.