I never played any of the Dune games (C&C games were the only Westwood RTS games I touched), but I loved the novels.

Can you like play as the Atreides-led Fremens and like use Worms in battle?

You can build Fremen troops in both Dune 2 and 2000 playing as Atreides. They were however useless and weak, respectively. In Dune 2000 multiplayer games you may produce Thumper and lure worms but you cannot control them directly.

I don't remember how it was with Emperor: Battle for Dune because I didn't spend so much time on that

The Fremen troops were ok in Dune 2. They had rocket launchers!!! and i think they were free or
something?

I wanna play this game now.... best not to i guess, hence this whole thread

Yes, there were for free but it didn't really matter because Dune 2 had very simple mechanics: more firepower kills faster. Period. It was 2000 that introduced some diversity so a trooper with rocket luncher was dangerous for combat tank (rockets vs heavy armor is good, projectile weapon vs light armor is bad). You had to use siege tank to efectively wipe out infantry. In Dune 2 infantry was only useful at the beginning of the game until you can produce tanks. So I still think Fremens were pretty much useless

Yea, HoMM 2 and forward just has a lot more to offer of everything, and that gives the player more strategic options.
And this is the problem with making a sequel for a game of this type too similar to the original, it means that there basically no reason to play the original.


As for Civ, I partially agree. Civ 1 is mostly pointless these days, as Civ 2 does everything it does, but a lot better, but as for Civ 4 vs 5, I think there is a large enough difference between the two to still make both wortwhile games to play.

In Dune 2 you can get Fremen as a special ability from the Atreides Palace. They are free, but are under the control of the AI. In large numbers they can become quite strong, but don't expect too much of them.

In Dune 2000 you can train Fremen and fully control them yourself, but they aren't that good.

In Emperor: Battle for Dune the Fremen are at their best. They come with camouflage. As long as they don't attack (or no infantry is near) they are invisible. The regular Fremens are deadly against enemy infantry. The Fedaykin, however, are where the real fun begins. They can use thumpers to call sandworms and ride them, and in groups, they can make short work of enemy vehicles and structures with their weirding modules.

The biggest downside is, however, that all of the Dune games are primarily based on the movie. Westwood also took some very big liberties with the Spacing Guild, Tleilaxu, IX and others in Emperor ('Bi la kaifa' doesn't mean 'long live the fighters').

If you are interested in playing a Dune game, then try to get a hold of Dune 1 from Cryo Interactive. It is also based on the movie, but, unlike the Westwood-games, actually follows the story (to a degree). The only bad thing I can say about this game is, that Duncan Idaho looks more like Londo Mollari from Babylon 5 and has been turned into an accountant.

While 1 may seem clunky in comparison to 2 and 3, the music was still charming, as were the monster graphics/animations. The gameplay was a lot shallower, obviously, since upgrades didn't kick in until 2. I think the charm factor was still in full effect over 2 & 3, as the graphics seemed more...hand drawn, versus the more cartoony 2 and 3's more realistic styles. Gameplay wise, yeah. 1 IS boring in comparison.

Personally, althouth that can be up for debate, the best Dune game was "Emperor:Battle for Dune". Which also gets closest to what you want. Or Dune 1.
It was only after the introduction of the right mouse button, that RTS games became playable. Not that I didn't waste hours on Warcraf 1 and Dune 2, but I can't go back anymore.

I can play RTS games without RMB only if the have hotkeys. I can press A and click to Attack, I don't have much problems with that.

without hotkeys, well... It's another story.

But with them, well. People complained about SpiderWeb Software games for having outdated interface. I never noticed that, because I played mostly with my keyboard using mouse only to move and point at enemies. Keys you have to press are constantly visible, so it's a piece of cake to play that game.

*crying sound*

How can you say that - it matches the table top game pretty close and that is what makes it truly awesome, even today.

I've never played Epic, so I can't comment on how close it is to its tabletop counterpart, but the AI is moronic, the balance is poor and even though there are a lot of unit types in the game, it still starts to feel rather repetitive after a short while.

I thought you said you'd never played epic?

First I've gotta say that for me it's surprisingly often the other way around. There's a few games that I have replayed ages later only to fully appreciate some of the originality and cleverness put into the design that had not occurred to me when I first played them (even if I already liked those games).

But those games that in retrospect aren't as great as I recalled them... well, there's Syndicate for one. It was one of my favourite games in the late 90's, I replayed it a couple of years back and was shocked by how bad it is. There's no reason to shoot manually or for interesting tactics, basically you just have to use the "panic mode" (activated by pressing both mouse buttons at once) whenever enemies are nearby. I recalled the game as being deep and challenging but with massive use of the panic mode I got through the whole campaign almost effortlessly.

Then there's obviously the Ultima games. I never played them before I got the GOG versions but I can imagine what they felt like to others when they were newer. I've beaten the first three so far and they are terrible in every possible aspect. Really, there's no arguing with that. If you don't see it your mind is already so heavily infected with nostalgia that you should seek professional help immediately!

Also I replayed Splinter Cell rather recently and couldn't believe how terrible it is. I mean, I never was a big fan of the series but I could find some joy in these games. Now at least Splinter Cell 1 and Pandora Tomorrow feel like awful low-budget garbage. The gameplay is incredibly dull, especially the mission and level design are utter crap. I hope at least Chaos Theory will remain as great as I recall it. :P
True, they were useless in Dune 2 but actually I used them quite a lot in Dune 2000. IIRC they were pretty powerful compared to other infantry units and you get them for free - I remember summoning big and powerful groups of them. And didn't they also use camouflage or something? Although I must admit that my memory is a little vague in case of this game for some reason. o_O

I have not. I do own a handful of Epic Ork vehicles that I picked up used, with the intention of starting an Epic ork army at some point, and I have quite a lot of 40k experience, but I've never actually played Epic, or even read the rules (I know that they can be found on GW's website these days, for free, but I've just not got around to read them).
But I have played through Final Liberation.

The Ultima series gets started with 4, the first 3 are just Richard Garriott learning how to make games. 4 is still crude by today's standards, but you can see what direction the series is about to take. 5 is another big step in the right direction, in terms of storytelling. 6 I did not like, at all (I hate the engine) and 7 is a masterpiece.