victory. But I was at least able to train
up an army of Fedaykin warriors
powerful enough to stomp Baron
Harkonnen’s troops and destroy his
heavily fortified capital after an
extended siege.
That was satisfying, but you can’t
think too hard about how Spice Wars
has grafted Dune onto the
framework (and budget) of a basic
4X. You can place buildings on a
small grid within each territory, but
their location is mostly meaningless.
Outside of a few unique units and
tech tree differences, the Fremen
mostly play like the Atreides, who
aren’t all that different from the
Harkonnen, and so on. Should the
Fremen really be conquering
territories, manufacturing whatever
the heck plascrete is, and paying
spice taxes to the Spacing Guild?
Vidal knows there’s still work to
do there. “One of the things we
liked from the old board game from
the ’90s was the asymmetry,” he
says. “We thought it would be
interesting to have a game where
factions play very differently. Atsome point we wanted to push that- too much, to be honest. We’d have
one game per faction, almost... the
asymmetry of the factions was quite
important for us. We want to push
that further as we develop.”
I SPY
Early Access will give Spice Wars the
opportunity to root itself more deeply
in Dune’s universe, and Shiro Games
already has some ideas. Currently
when you start a game you pick two
councillors who give you certain
perks – House Atreides’ Gurney
Halleck unlocks a special military
unit, for example – but they’re more
mechanic than character, with no
dialogue or interactivity once the
game begins. Vidal wants to change
that, though this plan is still tentative.
“The plan right now is two of
them will be warrior-type
councillors, and they’ll be actual
units you can use in the game, so
you’d probably have Duncan Idaho
running into the desert and fighting
with his troops,” he says. “Two
would be unique agents you couldWASTELAND HAZARDS
The other factions aren’t the only
threat on ArrakisSANDSTORMS
Massive storm clouds roam
the map, destroying
ornithopters and armies
outside protective villages.DEEP DESERT
This stretch of sand will quickly
sap the supplies, and then
health, of any lesser warriors
attempting to cross it on foot.FREMEN SIETCHES
Independent Fremen communes
will send raiding parties at you
unless you form an alliance by
trading water.SANDWORMS
Leave troops outside a village
too long, especially in combat,
and a worm will arrive to swallow
your entire army.Gamenamexxxx
FEATURE