Tips for Dune II
This is a selection of gaming tips and strategies for the Demo level of Dune II that was on an Acorn User CD. The tips get progressively more useful, making the game easier, but maybe spoiling some of the fun too.
1) Ways the computer cheats
2) Miscellaneous tips
3) Advanced hints - general
4) Advanced hints - Harkonnen strategy
5) Advanced hints - Harkonnen base
Ways the Computer cheats
- His base is already fully built when you start the game.
- His vehicles can drive right over a sandworm without disturbing it
(and if already disturbed the sandworm prefers your vehicles anyway)
- Infinite supply of Harvesters
- Can rebuild buildings on top of your vehicles
- Harvests as much spice as you, despite you processing 90% of the
play area (you'll see!)
Miscellaneous tips
- The bumps in the sand contain spice. To get at it have a vehicle (quad or trike are best) *attack* it. It will burst spraying spice around. Set the vehicle to guard now as further shooting destroys spice. They also burst if one of your (apparently blind) vehicles drives into one whereupon it disappears into the sand to be lost forever, so keep an eye on vehicles you send off if there is a bump in the general line of travel.
- Vehicles don't always/often take sensible routes to get to their destination. This is especially true of harvesters or if you've clicked on retreat. If you do this when the vehicle is near the enemy base the vehicle suddenly *does* take the most direct route often moving towards the enemy base to do so. Hey presto, smoking wreck!
- You may find vehicles sitting around near your base that you hadn't noticed before, in particular two siege tanks. These are brought from parts unknown for reasons unknown, but get them in the defensive line pronto.
- Buildings built on concrete slabs have no damage initially.Those built on ground have half damage initially. Power can fail because although you have sufficent windtraps some are damaged. Ditto for storage silos/refineries.
- Splat infantry with tank treads!
- Your own men can obstruct vehicles/prevent building placement, so feed them to sandwor..er move them out of the way.
Advanced hints
- Buildings can be repaired while still under attack. Simply click on a building under fire and choose repair.Your building will undergo continuous repair and unless there are about three attackers will never get destroyed.
- Rocket turrets don't shoot at enemy rocket turrets or buildings, only mobile targets.
- Harkonnen cannot see spice in bumps so leave these until all visible spice has been mined and they're all yours.
- Sandworms never roam the bottom half of the screen.
- When you've destroyed a rocket turret don't cover the area with one of your own as it will defect.
- The computer rebuilds destroyed turrets in the same place so don't leave anything too close.
- If your repair centre or heavy vehicle factory is surrounded on all sides the carryalls will take damaged vehicles to and from the repair centre and deposit newly made vehicles near the factory. This is very useful as damaged vehicles get returned to the point they were collected from ie back into the action, but at full strength!
Advanced hints - Secrets of the Harkonnen
Harkonnen always attack behind your base very early on, but this is the only time it will happen. Therefore have a launcher and tank round the back ready. As soon as it's happened move them round in front of the yard. Harkonnen always seem to head for the same bit of your base ie. the area level with your yard, so protect this the most. Buildings significantly lower down can be safely built and left unguarded e.g. spaceport. Build four or five rocket turrets in front of your base so the yard is covered and you can almost ignore Harkonnen attacks as they'll never get through (even siege tanks). Prime targets for attack are your mobile rocket launchers so make sure they're behind a front line of tanks. The most tempting target is the repair yard followed by the heavy vehicle factory and at some stage a Harkonnen rocket launcher will attack one or both so send the tanks for it straight away and be ready on the repair icon. Infantry can be a pain, but don't bother attacking them - just run over them! When you've destroyed loads of their vehicles they suddenly become chicken and hide in their base.
Secrets of the Harkonnen 2 - The Harkonnen Base
The base is packed to the nines with rocket turrets so only send in rocket launchers to destroy them (with a tank or two for protection). There are walls all the way round and lots of siege tanks tucked away. Use trikes or quads to zip around the space surrounding the base to get rid of as much black as possible and hopefully a) flushout some of the vehicles b) find the important buildings. Be ready on "move" as the rocket turrets have a long range and are deadly accurate. When you've constructed lots of tanks and rocket launchers mass them above and below the base a safe distance away and use your rocket launchers on the rocket turrets. Once you destroy all the Harkonnen weaponry you win. You can go one better by destroying all the buildings as well, but to do this you'll have to leave one tank alive until all the buildings are gone. Then destroy the tank
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