Things you liked or disliked on Dune 2 and Dune 2000?

[Klofkac]

I already said several times Dune 2000 was my very first strategy game. Some time after I started playing it, during the time it was my most favourite game and I played it very intensively, I got to know about existence of Dune 2. It was again my dad who told me about it, explaining that it was actually a predecessor of Dune 2000. I was really excited about it and very interested in seeing how Dune 2 looked like and playing it, and imagining how it could be.

I even did not need to wait for it long time. To my surprise, we actually owned the game in our home. It was burned on a CD with collection of many DOS games, where actually some games I played earlier probably came from. So I just installed the game and gave it a try. My very first impression was that the game looked really old and the in-game graphics was very low-res (way more than I even imagined), and the gameplay and controls was far from what I was used to in Dune 2000. Nevertheless, I played it (even I had big problems in the beginning), and eventually beat the game with Ordos house (you remember, Ordos was my favourite for some time).

So I'd like here to comment what I liked and disliked on Dune 2, compared to Dune 2000. Don't blame me for criticizing Dune 2 way too much as you might consider it a legend game you spent best time with, for me it was just a step back from a modern game I was used to, so you can understand.

What I disliked about Dune 2 (most important things first):

- I could not mark multiple units at once and give them order by simply clicking on map. I could only mark one unit at a time, then select action in the menu (move, attack) and then finally select a place in a map. Sending 10 units to attack enemy base was insane and took extreme effort. I remember finding alternate ways to destroy the enemy, like building construction yard near their base and then spamming turrets on their base to kill all enemy units.

- The amount of units I could build was way too much tightly limited. I produced about 10 units and then got "Unable to create more" message. Ow, how much annoying it always was! Even worse when I could not build more buildings in my base.

- Unfair enemy. I noticed enemy had always exactly only ONE harvester, and even if I had several of them (usually 3-4), the enemy harvested as much or even more spice than me. HOW THE HECK THEY DID IT??? Evemy must have cheated pretty much and get several times more credits from a single harvester than players were getting.

- Repairing buildings costed extremely lot of credits. I observed repairing a building from red state costed even more than building a new building! So it was cheaper to let destroy it and build a new. How that was annoying too.

- The buildings got self-damaged over time, even if I placed them on concrete. When I played longer time, most of buildings ended up being on half health, I gave up repairing them again and again. The most annoying was that wind traps lose their power due to that, and my radar got suddenly deactivated. I had to build much more wind traps to compensate that.

- The spice in a map could be exhausted. Pretty self-explanatory. More that once it happened to me there was no more spice in a map, and I needed either to restart the map and try better. I also remember spending hours "breeding" spice by letting harvester harvest some spice and then destroy it, it would leave more spice on map than it harvested.

- Tanks could not shoot over buildings and damaging my own buildings. Crap.

- I could not sell buildings. When I wanted to get rid of a building I did not want, I needed to use a unit to attack it and destroy it. How it was annoying and it even counted negatively on the score.

- Starport getting bugged. I purchased some units, but when frigate arrived, I did not get anything, and when I purchased some again, the frigate did not even arrive. It made starport useless.

- Units revealing too narrow black space. When a unit was moving around map, it always revealed only one tile around it, and revealed more when it stopped on a place. Exploring maps like that was tedious.

- When my heavy factory got destroyed, all the upgrades were lost and I needed to spend lot of money building and upgrading new one.

 

And what I LIKED on Dune 2 (things I thought were better than on Dune 2000):

- The music. I was really mindblown by Dune 2 music (I mean the Adlib/Sound Blaster version). It sounded so atmospheric and fitting the game and theme. It was some sort of "retro" sci-fi style music. I prefer Dune 2 music over Dune 2000's orchestral music, I just love the sound of oldschool FM synthesizer. Much more memorable.

- The artwork. Althrough from the beginning, I was not much impressed by the in-game graphics, I definitely like the introduction video and full-screen images of buildings, units, and also artwork of people (mentats, emperor, etc). I always loved that on Westwood's games, I played Legend of Kyrandia as well. I am just amazed what they made with technical capabilities of that time.

- I liked I could produce units in multiple factories at once. In Dune 2000, even if I built multiple factories, I could still only build one unit in one of the factories at a time. I did not like that. I also did not know that when I built more factories, the units would be built faster. That's one thing I forgot to mention on the other "What you did not know" thread.

- The previous point, but about palaces and houses superweapons. In Dune 2 you can use multiple palaces, so I for example built 4 Harkonnen palaces and had 4 times more missiles to annihilate the enemies.

- I like that in Dune 2, except missions 1 and 9, I can select from up to three different areas (mission "versions") to play. Althrough in Dune 2 all the maps look pretty same - only sand and rock here and there, so it is not much difference, it is something I would really appreciate to have in Dune 2000 - more missions having more than one "version" to be able to select from.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Klofkac

[Cm_blast]

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

My very first impression was that the game looked really old and the in-game graphics was very low-res (way more than I even imagined), and the gameplay and controls was far from what I was used to in Dune 2000.

First impresion on a game or another have more impact that one may think.

Dune 2 visuals make me love the game and the world presented instatly, if was because dune 2 visuals (and Arrakis, spice melange, the giant worm) that make me see Lynchs movie (and playing other dune games, of course).

But, for example on the Streets of Rage saga; people usually said the second it's the best overall game, but on my time I skipped that and went directly on the third. When I tried the 2º for the first time my first impression was "how clunky controls are", because SOR 2 was even slower than the first game (so a bit like your experience, coming to the slow dune 2 after the frenzy pace of dune 2000).

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

and eventually beat the game with Ordos house (you remember, Ordos was my favourite for some time).

Pour soul, you played the game on hard without noticing it xD.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

So I'd like here to comment what I liked and disliked on Dune 2, compared to Dune 2000. Don't blame me for criticizing Dune 2 way too much as you might consider it a legend game you spent best time with, for me it was just a step back from a modern game I was used to, so you can understand.

Yeah; I understand that; and just like I was saying before, to me, getting used to a Civilization type game, suddently having a war-game in real time blew my mind, and my love for the genre started there.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- I could not mark multiple units at once and give them order by simply clicking on map. I could only mark one unit at a time, then select action in the menu (move, attack) and then finally select a place in a map. Sending 10 units to attack enemy base was insane and took extreme effort. I remember finding alternate ways to destroy the enemy, like building construction yard near their base and then spamming turrets on their base to kill all enemy units.

Once I played Dune Legacy, The AI at that time behave like the original (I think you still can use an old AI, so won't build extra buildings, just the ones provided) and the strategy factor become zero with the multi-units control. I still like how in Dune 2 you don't need tons of units to win on a frontal attack but a few missile tanks and siege tanks from the back of the enemy base (that usually had only 1 or 2 turrets, while the front had 6) to decimate the enemy (of course, thanks for an dumb AI).

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- The amount of units I could build was way too much tightly limited. I produced about 10 units and then got "Unable to create more" message. Ow, how much annoying it always was! Even worse when I could not build more buildings in my base.

My biggest problem with the building limit it's on Harkonnen final map, since the AI has 8 rocket turrets on the map placed forming 2 squares; that's 8 less buildings to build your own stuff; you couldn't even deploy all the basic buildings.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- Unfair enemy. I noticed enemy had always exactly only ONE harvester, and even if I had several of them (usually 3-4), the enemy harvested as much or even more spice than me. HOW THE HECK THEY DID IT??? Evemy must have cheated pretty much and get several times more credits from a single harvester than players were getting.

As far as I know, AI don't get extra money for the harvester, just simply recuperate as many money the unit cost; so, if the AI has 1000 credits, will buy 1 siege tank, then 1 combat tank and maybe 1 trooper; when you kill the siege tank, that AI get 600 credits, so he can build another one and so on, but if you force him to reparations he still can get out of money.

I notice this on 1 map that no more spice was present but the Imperor was sendming 1 unit of troopers, only 1, died on my turrets, train another, send to died, train another and so on. At some point I though the Sardaukar were free, but not, they just wast getting and using the same money all the time.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

The buildings got self-damaged over time, even if I placed them on concrete. When I played longer time, most of buildings ended up being on half health, I gave up repairing them again and again. The most annoying was that wind traps lose their power due to that, and my radar got suddenly deactivated. I had to build much more wind traps to compensate that.

From what I was told, that's a bug. Buildings withouth concrete should decay, on concrete don't, but this only works on mission 1-2 and that's it. I used to play withouth using concretes whatsoever unless the 2x2 concrete that speed things and I prefered a bit of money and time in exchange for a 100% HP building.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

The spice in a map could be exhausted. Pretty self-explanatory. More that once it happened to me there was no more spice in a map, and I needed either to restart the map and try better. I also remember spending hours "breeding" spice by letting harvester harvest some spice and then destroy it, it would leave more spice on map than it harvested.

I never mind this; true, once I dragged a map for 6 hours as Atreides (final mission) and another time 8 hours (Ordos, final mission), but I feel that make me not killing my units on pointless attacks and making them really important. Doing orders on a heavy discount as needed, not just building for the sake of building (like you may do in dune 2000; although coming from dune 2000 it's easy to understand you may think the same).

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- Tanks could not shoot over buildings and damaging my own buildings. Crap

Oh, come on, that happens with combat tanks and turrets too xD,

But... you don't ever know how many times I destroyed the enemy CY or HF by making the AI doing more damage to himself that my lonely trike/quad.
It's much worse when the Missile launcher attack an enemy unit and he damage your own buildings... or even destroying it!

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- Starport getting bugged. I purchased some units, but when frigate arrived, I did not get anything, and when I purchased some again, the frigate did not even arrive. It made starport useless.

Fortuntally, my version (which was 1.06, also european, dunno if much different) didn't have that starport bug; maybe at some point something weird happen, but for the most part worked fine with me. They only annoging was when keep saying "no units available" for several minutes (but that was probably the unit limit).

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- When my heavy factory got destroyed, all the upgrades were lost and I needed to spend lot of money building and upgrading new one.

Yeah, well, multiple factories means multiple queues, so makes sense having separated upgrades too.
If I am not wrong, it's the same on the KKND game; you can have multiple copies of a factorie to produce 5 tanks at once, but you still need to spend money on the upgrades.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- The music. I was really mindblown by Dune 2 music (I mean the Adlib/Sound Blaster version). It sounded so atmospheric and fitting the game and theme. It was some sort of "retro" sci-fi style music. I prefer Dune 2 music over Dune 2000's orchestral music, I just love the sound of oldschool FM synthesizer. Much more memorable.

All I had was the computer internal speaker; it's one thing I never miss xD. A few games sound decent, but otheres, huh.
Dune 2000 soundtrack it's a mix of remake of Dune 2 and lynch's movie; like Robotix being inspired from "Robot fight".

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- The artwork. Althrough from the beginning, I was not much impressed by the in-game graphics, I definitely like the introduction video and full-screen images of buildings, units, and also artwork of people

I like the animations on the factories and stuff like that; I also used to read what the mentats say, because Harkonnen praise the Trooper while the Atreides praise the light infantry more; or how the siege tank it's a double cannon vehicle but in game I prefered much more the visual of the combat tank. but it's true that the siege tank at least looked much more bulky.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

I liked I could produce units in multiple factories at once. In Dune 2000, even if I built multiple factories, I could still only build one unit in one of the factories at a time. I did not like that. I also did not know that when I built more factories, the units would be built faster. That's one thing I forgot to mention on the other "What you did not know" thread.

On dune 2000 I knew when I used the "eenginer to capture enemy structure and then building extra barracks on the inner", when I had three I realize how fast that was; and yes, I probably at some point tried to have 2 facts thinking I would produce 2 vehicles at once.

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

The previous point, but about palaces and houses superweapons. In Dune 2 you can use multiple palaces, so I for example built 4 Harkonnen palaces and had 4 times more missiles to annihilate the enemies.

oooh yeaaaas, the swarm of Fremen winning the map for you!!!! 10 palaces at once; I remember deploying MCV on other land just to expand more and more palace; but you used so many energy on them... but hey, their reparation was for free!!! place it at the front on your base and let the AI to try to destroy it while taking damage, and you repair for free.

The Ordos, as usuall, are the only limited, only 2 sabeturs at once; As Atreides you could swarm the enemies with 20 troopers attacking from any direction, but poor ordos...

15 hours ago, Klofkac said:

I like that in Dune 2, except missions 1 and 9, I can select from up to three different areas (mission "versions") to play. Althrough in Dune 2 all the maps look pretty same - only sand and rock here and there, so it is not much difference, it is something I would really appreciate to have in Dune 2000 - more missions having more than one "version" to be able to select from.

Yeah, also maps have 0 goals, just destroy enemy buildings (except turrets), but the layout of the enemy base change a lot and, since a frontal assault (with the 1 on 1 control of units) wasn't an options just depending of the territory selected the approach will be different; But to me, mission 8 where you have an enemy on top and another on bottom it's the hardest of the whole game, even more than mission 9 (assuming you don't get destroyed by a DH).

And let me tell some things on dune 2 I would like in dune 2000 to have:
*Damage buildings do whatever thing worse. a factorie produce slower, the CY takes forever to build a concrete if low of HP; this affect the repair pad and even the refineries gets credits slower if building at 50%, do that on dune 2000 and nobody will skip concretes anymore.
*Units on yellow shooting only 1 shoot instead 2, giving importance to protect the health of your units; also spawning an infantry at random, just having the driver of the vehicle being alive it's a nice touch.
*Infantry from the buildings destroyed spawn with random HP and even random amount of infantry, sometimes the windtrap creates 4 infantry with almost 100% health, sometimes only 2 at red, you'll never know!
*Carryalls and ornithopters actually crashing on the game; when shooting, you can see the carryall/thopter going in a straign line (not turning as they usually do) for several tiles until you see the unit crashed; on Dune 2000 they explode in mid-air (at best you have some tileset with carryalls/thopters crashed into the sand).
*Carryalls fast as ligthing. Compare them to Dune 2000.
*If the factory it's surrounded by other buildings, walls or just other vehicles, a carryall appears, pick the unit and drop it elsewhere; I used to have fun just looking carryalls doing that (scripted carryalls, you didn't need to build them).

Dunno if you were interested, but you may want to try the genesis version of dune 2. The game has the same controls, but for examply you can create a sort of "group" to move more easily (since using a controller it's worse than the mouse); when you order a unit to move at the position into another, it will follow that unit.
Besides that, the game plays the same, Harvesters are really fast, like a raider or so. There are less enemies to destroy in general (or smaller bases) and some buildings are merged. Both factories, HTF with Ix centre, Barracks with the WOR. Although 1 only palace; but in the genesis Ordos are even more harder, AI attacks sooner if you play as Ordos.

However that game has less variety, only 1 version per mission; and you cannot save, but that's why buildings are merged and units/buildigns take much less time to be produced.

Pd: You didn't talk about harvester not going auto into the mining area; you need too keep sending manually unless you had enough carryalls, which they do the job for you; and they were insanelly fast!

Edited September 27, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Klofkac]

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

Dune 2 visuals make me love the game and the world presented instatly, if was because dune 2 visuals (and Arrakis, spice melange, the giant worm) that make me see Lynchs movie (and playing other dune games, of course).

Well, I can say, in the end, today I actually like Dune 2 graphics (in-game visuals of units and buildings etc), as I realized how impressive that must have looked back in 1992 when the game came out. Even when I play the game nowadays, the graphics make sense and is quite well - made.

I also played a Czech clone game of Dune 2 - Paranoia, which was a bit more modern than Dune 2, but I feel the graphics is not as much impressive, even through the game had double resolution. Here's some video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28rDx5CbImA) and link (https://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/paranoia/download/7343/)

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

I still like how in Dune 2 you don't need tons of units to win on a frontal attack but a few missile tanks and siege tanks from the back of the enemy base (that usually had only 1 or 2 turrets, while the front had 6) to decimate the enemy (of course, thanks for an dumb AI).

Yea there are many different ways how to win Dune 2 without doing direct frontal attack, like you would usually do in Dune 2000. I remember using several tricks, like:
- shooting enemy harvester with infantry, it would run over it and then stop harvesting
- building turrets in enemy base, in some missions mine and enemy's rock area was even connected together so it was enough just to build concrete path to it
- using deviators and ordering enemy unit to shoot their own buildings
- letting enemy destroy their own buildings by their missile launchers chasing my trike around their base
- spamming fremen
- spamming missiles
- etc

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

My biggest problem with the building limit it's on Harkonnen final map, since the AI has 8 rocket turrets on the map placed forming 2 squares; that's 8 less buildings to build your own stuff; you couldn't even deploy all the basic buildings.

Yes, 9th mission suffers from this problem especially, as there are 3 enemies to fight against and they have lot of buildings. I needed to destroy some of their buildings in order to be able to extend my base first. Luckily you can build a Harkonnen palace and destroying enemy buildings with a missile is piece of cake.

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

As far as I know, AI don't get extra money for the harvester, just simply recuperate as many money the unit cost; so, if the AI has 1000 credits, will buy 1 siege tank, then 1 combat tank and maybe 1 trooper; when you kill the siege tank, that AI get 600 credits, so he can build another one and so on, but if you force him to reparations he still can get out of money.

Oh... now my view on playing Dune 2 is completely different. So that's the whole trick for all the time!!!

Well, I kind of noticed the same thing myself back then. I made enemy run out of money, so it could not produce any new units or repair buildings. Once I destroyed one building, the enemy suddenly gained money out of nowhere and started repairing other buildings or even building new units! I thought they were dirty cheating. Now the mystery is solved, they seem to recuperate money from both destroyed units and buildings.

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

From what I was told, that's a bug. Buildings withouth concrete should decay, on concrete don't, but this only works on mission 1-2 and that's it.

Yes, I feel it was not happening in early missions too. But I am just wondering, how the heck Westwood studios could even release the game with such serious and noticable bug? They did not have proper QA testing or what? They must have playtested that during development for all the time, they should have noticed.

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

But... you don't ever know how many times I destroyed the enemy CY or HF by making the AI doing more damage to himself that my lonely trike/quad.

Yeah, I'm abusing this trick too, it makes destroying the enemy much easier, but still, I hate when that happens to me at the same time.

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

All I had was the computer internal speaker;

Poor you, you missed half of the whole experience of the game. I hope you got a soundcard some time later and could hear the music.

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

The Ordos, as usuall, are the only limited, only 2 sabeturs at once

Well, to be honest, while playing Ordos, I did not even use palace and saboteurs. I once tried to build a palace and use a saboteur, but I got disappointed about how it was useless. It was invisible on map so I thought it was cloaked like in Dune 2000, but still, when it approached enemy base, the enemy turret or unit killed him instantly. Furthermore I could not control him, he was moving on his own. But maybe I missed something about saboteurs in Dune 2, or it was really that bad? (that's probably another point I disliked I forgot to mention)

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

Dunno if you were interested, but you may want to try the genesis version of dune 2.

Well, I never played or owned any gaming console. Just a PC. I personally prefer playing with keyboard and mouse, I cannot imagine the consoles had just controllers or joysticks witch a bunch of buttons. How games which are naturally played with mouse (like Lemmings) could be played on them.

On 9/27/2019 at 1:27 AM, Cm_blast said:

Pd: You didn't talk about harvester not going auto into the mining area; you need too keep sending manually unless you had enough carryalls, which they do the job for you; and they were insanelly fast!

Heh, another thing I wanted to mention but forgot. Too many points to remember, easy to miss one, heh.

Edited September 28, 2019 by Klofkac

[Cm_blast]

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

I also played a Czech clone game of Dune 2 - Paranoia, which was a bit more modern than Dune 2, but I feel the graphics is not as much impressive, even through the game had double resolution.

Oh yes; I tried that game! There is another clone, a Chilean one, don't remember the name. some tanks looks totally like the siege tanks; I manage to finish one mission but the next seems the same (Starting with tanks and stuff).

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- building turrets in enemy base, in some missions mine and enemy's rock area was even connected together so it was enough just to build concrete path to it

Yeah, totally this, I remember doing back in the day xD.

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

- using deviators and ordering enemy unit to shoot their own buildings

In my case, game was on "very fast" on options and, as far as I read; the faster the speed, the less the duration. Deviated units only las for like 5 seconds or so; you still could use a Harkonnen vehicle to attack an Atreides building, which they still follow the order even when returning to normal.

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Yes, 9th mission suffers from this problem especially, as there are 3 enemies to fight against and they have lot of buildings. I needed to destroy some of their buildings in order to be able to extend my base first. Luckily you can build a Harkonnen palace and destroying enemy buildings with a missile is piece of cake.

I would like to have a dune 2 version without that problem, I don't mean a tribute or anything like that, just Dune 2 but without building limit; mostly because I remember doing maps with dune legacy and adding more buildings end creating a non operative building (if you remember, when you place a building there is an animation of a generic stuff before the building itself; well, appear that other frame); you cannot destroy it and there is nothing on it.

Also, same reason only the Imperials have windtraps; The left base also may have 2 windtraps, but most for show, has no purpose, same with the right base; I doub even the imperials have a positive energy with 4 windtraps; heh, they don't have the Ix centre, thus no special enemy vehicles on the last mission.

But, you know, the first time I played, my trike (or quad or whatever was) I send to scout and went on the middile of the map, due the position of the turrets and the missile  tanks (revealing a small part of the map) on the minimap looked like a crown (a classic kings type crown). Was interesting since Imperials were strong on this map with his DH and siege tanks and tons of turrets, nothing more fearsome than that.

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Oh... now my view on playing Dune 2 is completely different. So that's the whole trick for all the time!!!

I notice something fishy when I did some changes on some maps, like making Atreides with 4 barracks, then mercs with 2 light facts, then Harkonnen with 2 heavy facts, only 1 refinery and making Ais to attack quickly and the attacks never stopped; I was "yeah, I give to them 20000 credits, but, come on, I've killing siege tanks for a while now.

And then remember an early map with enemy Merc, only barrack, like 1000 credits and sending infantry worth more than that amount; at that moment I though "they are sending more units than money? nah... maybe I am wrong... they were near 0 but I was impantient", but learning the trick made sense.

they also said about gaining money per building destroyed, also, what about the AI building on top of you, killing whatever units you had there? XD.

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Yes, I feel it was not happening in early missions too. But I am just wondering, how the heck Westwood studios could even release the game with such serious and noticable bug? They did not have proper QA testing or what? They must have playtested that during development for all the time, they should have noticed.

I always think in these cases being near the time limit. If you are given X months to finish you game you will rush; and that's not even the buggest bug; I played once v1.02 by mistake (I didn't patched it right) and the bottom-right corner was revealed in every map; AI's had a starport, which make yours to be "no units available" the whole game until you take it down and I think AI didn't cheat or cheat worse, since his attacks were so bad that I was thinking "there is something wrong".

And you don't even know about the "team bug", you see how infantry and troopers actually group before attacking; AI was suppose to group wheeled vehicles (light ones) and tracked (heavy ones), but they wrote "wheeler" and "tracker" (or maybe was the other way); but the point it's, look how the AI send his units 1 by 1.

There is a fixed version on the game on the net, which I also played and totally, recieving 5 combat tanks (pre-turret state) makes the maps much thougher).

Or the troopers on the Atreides final mission (since they don't train them), or the Trike for Harkonne (same). And Ornithopters were suppose to be able to be purchased from the starport.

Also, on the european version of the game AI Ordos use the orni, but the last time I played the US version (to record it to a channel) they didn't; heh, on that play I was even rushinga few turrets to counter that, but never happened.

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Poor you, you missed half of the whole experience of the game. I hope you got a soundcard some time later and could hear the music.

I may want to try the game on dosbox using the speaker, now I feel curious, I still remember a bit the speaker (that I don't missing anyway); well, at least I played the genesis version so some kind of good music was there.

Monkey Island 1 theme sounds very good, honestly; I mean, for the speaker.
Similar as Xenon 2, sounds also very good (that's until you hear the amiga one and my jaw dropped).

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Well, to be honest, while playing Ordos, I did not even use palace and saboteurs. I once tried to build a palace and use a saboteur, but I got disappointed about how it was useless. It was invisible on map so I thought it was cloaked like in Dune 2000, but still, when it approached enemy base, the enemy turret or unit killed him instantly. Furthermore I could not control him, he was moving on his own. But maybe I missed something about saboteurs in Dune 2, or it was really that bad? (that's probably another point I disliked I forgot to mention)

Well, on my game you could controll them, just by ordering them to move, but sometimes when you order them to move to a specific tile, they explode... they think you order to attack!!! if you keep the "saboteur" option it's when they go against the building they want.

The best way it's placing them in a straigh line of a turret; then it's just pure luck (or using 2 at once).
Mission 8, where Atreides are at the rear and Harkonnen infront it's the best place to use them; CY from both sides are to the right, so saboteurs do a fantastic job taking that primary building quickly (and from there taking out some turrets from time to time until I can move and use a line of siege tanks and ordering some missile turrets, since you cannot build them.

3 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Heh, another thing I wanted to mention but forgot. Too many points to remember, easy to miss one, heh.

That happens when you talk about a game as detailed as this one.

Oh... and I didn't mentioned how:
A) game crashed on the deviator mentat (missing an entrance, I guess).
and
B) never-ending credits, just sound like the first 5-10 seconds of the credits and then a loop over and over... I don't remember if you could skip them or were forced to restart your computer (msdos era, no other way and... not the first time that force you to restart it).

PD: You may want to play my dune 2 tribute for dune 2000; the design of the terrain itself differs a lot (only the player's main land and enemy main land are similar, the rest changes to help the game), but the position of the enemy bases and stuff like that are as close as possible (not easy since It's required more windtraps that in the original), but some maps, like mission 9 and all the missions 2 and 8 are the most closes possible to the original, even for the terrain.
For mission 9 I went overboard and tried to emulate the most close possible to the original, although of course, both left-right Ais now have 9 windtraps, so you can imagine that I needed to add rock area for those buildings, and to imperials I give to them double windtraps to avoida player going to the right zone, destroy a few windtraps and thus negating all the turrets around the palace that easily.
just look at this final part of my video (but you can watch everything if interested).
https://youtu.be/IBMMsLXY9TQ?list=PLVcGNu5UmBZaDAI-JAru5JkgTq_RH6ine&t=148

Edited September 29, 2019 by Cm_blast

[X3M]

The only thing that I disliked in Dune2.
My nuke misses, while the ai always hit.
 

The only thing that I disliked in Dune2000.
The money felt infinite. Especially in practise mode.