31 January 2007

By: Silviu Stahie
Emperor: Battle For Dune - Gameplay Hints
Imagine the unimaginable.
Emperor: Battle For Dune was the sole game that stayed true as much as possible to the books, feature underlined by the presence of real actors in the cutscenes. It wasn't much of a revolution in terms of gameplay, imitating a lot from the Command and Conquer franchise. Emperor: Battle For Dune gave us the opportunity to witness real time the imperial struggle for the control of mlange on Dune and for the first time, we could see the giant worm with our eyes. For those of you that can't get enough science-fiction, here are some gameplay tricks to make your life a little easier:Harkonnen: Easy win against the CPU: Build four or more Harkonnen Devastators and four to eight Advanced Carryalls. You may need to build more than 4 when first attempting this trick -- for beginners start with eight to twelve. Number the Devastators group "1" and each Carryall a number after that (such as 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). Collect all your Devastators and then Transport them to the best location in the enemy's base. If they do not have a weak point, you can attack by way of the front door or make a suicide run for the Construction Yard and Factory. If you take the front door approach, just keep your team close, and concentrate firepower on one unit at a time. Remember to take out Laser Tanks and missile-type enemies first. You may go full force, but the CPU is dumb and will send all units to attack -- do not worry, they will be slapped down with ease. If you take the suicide approach, just go for the Construction Yard and then the Factory. Better yet, if the Refineries are close to each other, take them both out and the CPU will sell all structures 90% of the time. Then, all you have to deal with is the last of their units.Harkonnen: All House units:Capture a Construction Yard of a different House. Make sure you have a Advanced Carryall near and select the Construction Yard. Then, select somewhere else on the map. The Construction Yard will undeploy and turn back into an MCV. At this point, you can grab it with the Advanced Carryall and take it back to your base, where you can then redeploy it and build the entire army of your enemy. In this manner, you can have every unit (except SubHouse) in one game. With this flexibility, you can have the ultimate army.Harkonnen: Steal Harvesters:Get some Advanced Carryalls and you can steal the enemy's Harvesters. Make sure you do not get too close to your own forces. If you do, then your own Carryall may be damaged or destroyed as your own units try to kill the Harvester. In this way, you can keep them out of the game without alerting the enemy that a unit has been lost (if playing human player). The CPU may or may not make a new one, and this way, you can slow them down. This trick also works for stealing any other unit, however it is dangerous because it won't pick the unit up immediately. It takes a few seconds to become airborne, and while on the ground, any weak unit can take a pot shot at you.Harkonnen: Attacking enemy bases: When you attack an enemy base with Harkonnen, use Gunships if possible. They are very powerful. Atredes: Stopping sieges with Minitowers: The Atredes Minitower unit (huge four-turreted mech) is extremely powerful. Use the following trick to stop the AI's siege with those Minitowers. Get several cheap AA units and an Advanced Carryall unit to pick up the Minitowers, which the AI never escorts. Place them carefully near the AA troops. That will keep the troops from hitting your Advanced Carryall. The Minitower will not be able to fire. This works best for the Ordos. If your Carryall is hit, then it will repair itself. Sardukar: Using the Sardukar Elite against enemy shielded units:Their laser guns will interact with the shields and blow up both the shielded unit and the Sardukar Elite unit.Extra resources:If you are running low on money, send a few units to search for wrecked vehicles such as Sandcrawlers, Harvesters, and Dune Buggies. Have your units destroy these. Each one you destroy will drop a crate that is worth $2000.Destroying powerful enemy units: The CPU always has something powerful

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available. The CPU usually sends at least eight to ten powerful units at a time. It is important to keep the way enemy units get into your base blocked. To do so, either block it with many infantry, a decent amount of vehicles, or a decent amount of both. Note: Do not use these units to invade enemy territory -- make a certain area where you put those units. Attacking bases:When attacking any base, destroy the Construction Yard, and then destroy the Refinery. That will take out their money supply and there units. They cannot rebuild the two buildings because they are co-joined. If you destroy the Construction Yard, the Factory will make a MCV that can rebuild it. If you destroy the Factory first, then the Construction Yard can make another one -- however, if they have a hanger, destroy that as well. When you launch an attack on an enemy base, regardless of your House or what forces you use, destroy (or take over with Engineers) any enemy Turrets. It will now be easy to attack the rest of the base. In your next attack, destroy (or take over) any Construction Yards, MCVs, Factories, or Starports. This way, the buildings that you destroy will be impossible for the enemy to rebuild. Because you destroy the Starport and Factory, MCVs can no longer be produced. Without MCVs or Construction Yards, no buildings can be built. An additional bonus to this is that no more Tanks can be produced. If you can, after doing these things, you should destroy the Barracks. You should now concentrate on destroying the rest of the base. As the Harkonnen, you can send Defense Platforms to the enemy base to attack any remaining troops. This seems odd, but works well. With any House, you can take any Tank capable of running over Infantry to destroy the rest of the base. Leeches: When you pick up any enemy Tank, with an Advanced Carryall, drop it next to Tleixau Leeches in your base. You will get a free Leech and you will not have to worry about the Leeches dying because your other forces will attack the enemy Tank. Leech enemy harvesters, but do not destroy the Harvesters. You will find out where the enemy base is located, and if you are lucky, enemy units will be leeched.
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