Could Someone Guide me for Improving Strategy in Dune 2000 Campaigns?

[clausesalvator]

Hello there,

I have recently started replaying Dune 2000; and I am really enjoying the nostalgia trip. Although; I have noticed that my skills are a bit rusty; and I am struggling to progress through the campaign missions; especially in the later stages. I was wondering if anyone could share some strategic tips or general advice for both base-building and combat?

I am having trouble managing resources effectively while also defending my base from enemy attacks. I often find myself either running out of credits or being overwhelmed by enemy forces. Are there any particular build orders or unit compositions that you find effective? Also; how do you prioritize your spending between defense; offense; and tech upgrades?

Another challenge I am facing is map control. The AI seems to have a knack for expanding quickly and securing resources. How do you deal with enemy expansion; and whats the best way to scout and secure new areas without spreading your forces too thin?

Also, I have gone through this post; https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/28466-revamp-summers-solstice-campaign-power-bi/ which definitely helped me out a lot.

Lastly; I would love to hear your thoughts on which house you think has the most advantage in the campaign and why. Do you have any house specific strategies that could help a returning player like me get back on track?

Thanks in advance for your help and assistance.

[Cm_blast]

I am not sure if you are refering to vanilla campaigns or custom campaigns since you mention summer's solstice.

The difficulty on custom campaigns will heavily varied, but summer's solstice is not too hard, the thing is that the modder rebalanced the whole game so you cannot apply any strategy from that campaign into regular campaign.

For vanilla missions (and I mean the original campaign, but also custom campaigns that has no modders features), the common start is to deploy a windtrap, then a refinery, then it depends. If overall you feel the Ai is a slow attacker but send lots of units, go for a 2º and a 3º refinery (and if possible, put the refineries as close as the spice). If the enemy seems more aggresive, then after the refinery you put the barracks and train enough troopers, since they deal with most of the vehicles except for siege tanks, and then you go for the 2º, and 3º refinery.

After that, you can either go for a 4º ref (not counting more windtraps to sustain energy) or the heavy factory first, and build combat tanks. Troopers and combat tanks are the two overall better units in the game. Later you can mix a bit with sieges, missile tanks and other units, including light vehicles. It is better to deploy 1 combat tank than 2 quads (which cost slighly more), plus combat tanks can go over enemy infantry/troopers easily.

Turrets are a great help, if you can line up 5 rocket turrets, and then 2 siege tanks behind them they will deal with the majority of the enemy waves, but those require other structures, so that's it. Another solution (which also depends on the mission) can be rushing the enemy harvs or even the base. There is a few missions (like Atreides 9) that if you use all your units against the enemy base, you can destroy their 2-3 core buildings so you face 1 AI less.

Later on more refs if you have the room, or more harvs, or both. You will have +8000 credits that you won't be able to spend faster enough.

For houses. It is bewteen Atreides and Harkonnen. Online players uses either of the two. Tecnically the devastator counters the sonic tank, but that's a such high end tech so it is more important getting the advtage early and there both sides have the same tech, with the only difference is a combat tank slighly faster for Atreides and with some more health for the Harkonnen version.

If by any chance you were talking to summer's soltice campaign, then I will call the author for specific tips since he altered pretty much everything.

Also, just to take in consideration. At what speed you are playing the game? I am guessing you are into the max speed, since that's what most people play nowadays and downloads come at that speed by default, but the original game didn't run that fast by default. You can consider checking on the menu and moving the slider 2 times to the left. That's the speed I play on (I am not a pro player), and I call it the "real time speed"; which means that if you play a mission that sais "in 20 minutes, you will get reinforcements", 20 real life minutes will be needed to reach that timer to 0. On the maximun speed the game runs 2.5 times faster, so 20 in game minutes is just 8 real life minutes. Reacting to that big enemy wave in 20 minutes or in only 8 makes a huge difference, even if it is just deploying your base more efficienly.

[Fey]

17 hours ago, clausesalvator said:

Hello

hey there  thanks for checking out my campaign!

underneath the spoilers in its thread, which I see you've found already, there are videos and written strategy guides for each map ^^ for clearing a specific map, I'm not sure there can be better advice than referring to those! however, I can offer some general tips:

Dune 2000 is a high-economy RTS. economy is the name of the game! see how many Refineries or Harvesters you can build before being overwhelmed. how greedy you are in the early game determines how quickly you get to the late game. generally, building just 2-3 Refineries and a few Harvesters per each one will be enough to sustain good production for the average macro-heavy campaign mission

try to actually use the economy you build up too. if you hear, "Silos needed!" get into the habit of tabbing over to the Starport, clicking on the MCV 5 times and then right-clicking on it. why? because it depletes the Silos, allowing you to store more funds. this is not a thing that works in Summers' Solstice; cancelling your order will actually refill the Silos, so you'd need to dump funds by placing an order. other than that, remember that building 3 of a certain factory will max out production speed for related units. infantry can be tough to build diligently, but they DO make a huge difference if used carefully!

if you can get used to being greedy and building units with the funds you accrue, then you'll wind up with a lot of units. that alone can guarantee victory against most AIs, but being efficient with them helps too. use Siege Tanks or Sonic Tanks against masses of enemy infantry, send Troopers in on Gun Turrets or Rocket Turrets before your vehicles get closer as well, prioritize important enemy infrastructure like Wind Traps, Refineries, production structures... or even just their Harvesters outside their base, if you can't crack into the base itself. vanilla AIs can be very defensive and stockpile lots of funds, so the Harvester thing might not be a good tip for vanilla maps, but it definitely works in some custom campaigns

if you need more specific advice for or have questions about a certain Summers' Solstice map that the strategy guides don't cover, feel free to ask  I'd be happy to help. otherwise, good luck and have fun!