Dune: Spice Wars is a real-time 4X game where you look to oust rival factions for control of the planet Arrakis. It’s often mistaken for an RTS/4X hybrid and while there are pieces you could consider more on the RTS side with base building and combat, the scope of the game is such that these elements feel more aligned to 4X titles like Star Ruler 2, Imperium Galactica II, or Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain than a true RTS like Supreme Commander.

It’s been quite a ride since Dune: Spice Wars was released last year. There was controversy around the last faction, Ecaz, at launch. Since then, several large patches have reworked how harvesters gather spice and how the Landsraad works, not to mention a myriad of balance changes and improvements. In this article, we’ll dive into the basic mechanics, victory conditions, factions, and combat of Dune: Spice Wars.

Basics

Whether you are playing a Skirmish, Conquest, or Kanly Duel, your goal is to eject the other contenders from the map through one of several methods we’ll detail later. To win a match, you’ll need to expand your control of villages, develop them to grow your economy, and ensure that you have enough spice to fulfill your contracts, all while maintaining your army, keeping adequate supplies of water, effectively leveraging your influence in the Landsraad, and managing your espionage operations. While most of the systems covered here are well thought out and provide interesting mechanics, diplomacy is a standard quid-pro-quo style interaction that’s familiar to most 4X players and won’t be examined here.  

Managing Villages 

While some villages are mandatory for capturing, particularly your first spice field, you’ll want to be mindful of which villages you annex to ensure they provide good value through their resources and quirks. All regions have a wind strength value ranging from two to five, which will determine how effective it is at producing water. Some regions have special features like energy sources, minerals, or rare elements that boost the production of resources like plascrete or allow the construction of special buildings that improve your economy.

Other regions are considered special regions that give large hegemony gains and have unique bonuses applied to specific things like the Great Volcano, which boosts fuel cell production in the region and Freman Ceremonial Cave effects by 100%. Further, each village is given two random “quirks” that provide the owner with boosts. Most of these boosts have negligible impact but some, like those that allow duplicates of a particular building, or convert the production of plascrete to Solari, allow for regions to become economic powerhouses. 

It’s not enough to merely defeat the militia defenders of a village to take over the region. You’ll need enough authority to convert the village to your banner. The authority you need to take a village increases the farther the region is from your main base and the more regions you own. This ensures that most factions won’t take over every region on the map and regions that will be best at advancing your goals should be taken first.

With most factions, there is the option to pillage the village for an influx of Solari, but be warned that this will significantly increase the cost of annexing the village later. So, you should only pillage villages that you don’t plan to capture later unless you are playing Harkonnen. Because the authority needed to annex only goes up after a village is annexed, it can sometimes be advantageous early in the match to wait until two or three villages are prepared by defeating the militia and taking all at the same time. It provides an early boost but also makes the next village you take require much more authority, possibly blocking expansion if you don’t have a way to gain more quickly. 

Once you have the region under your control, you will be able to improve it using a range of buildings that are divided into Economy, Military, and Statecraft. All buildings require plascrete to build and have upkeep in the form of Solari and water. A few buildings have other resources that are used for upkeep. Buildings like Military Bases and Maintenance Centers boost all regions around the region they are built in. These should be used sparingly and where they provide the maximum benefit by covering multiple regions. How a village is built out isn’t permanent and may shift over the course of the match depending on your needs.

The village quirks give some guidance for this but aren’t a hard guide for what to build. A savvy player will find regions that provide huge boosts when built out correctly. For example, Corrino with a minerals region next to their base that has the “50% of plascrete output converted to Solari” quirk can produce significant amounts of Solari and plascrete with a Propaganda Office to boost production by 20% and an Investment office to apply the village quirks an extra time. By stacking with the effects of Administrative Consolidation, which adds an additional instance of the village quirk if the village is next to the Imperial Base, those quirks can be applied three to four times in the region, further boosting output. 

Spice and Water

Spice plays an important role, and being Dune, this seems appropriate. It’s a constant pressure as you expand because the spice required to fulfill your contracts will increase after each delivery. Fail to meet your contract requirements and you’ll lose standing with the Landsraad. Fill the contracts successfully and you’ll be rewarded.  However, beyond just getting enough spice to meet your needs, it’s also an important lever in your economy because you can sell excess spice to CHOAM for Solari. Each period the exchange rate increases or decreases and this can have a significant impact on your economy if spice sales make a bulk of your income. It also allows for some level of manipulation of the CHOAM share prices. Hoard spice and share prices will drop; sell more and share prices will go up. 

Arguably more impactful than spice is water in Dune: Spice Wars because it has a more direct impact on your expansion and military performance. Almost all structures require water upkeep making it easy to quickly reach a point where you have too little available water. Once that happens, you won’t be able to build any structures that require water, and your troop’s supply will be significantly impacted. While you are outside of your territory, your units will use up supplies. How much supply you have depends on how much positive water you have. When all of the unit supply is gone, they constantly lose health at an accelerated rate.

This is especially important because it takes time for troops to march to a village, kill the defending militia, and then capture or pillage the village. It takes even more time if you are attempting to liberate a village from another faction. While it’s true that more water is better, you should balance water production with your needs as you expand. If you have adequate water for your units to do their job, it may be better to focus on other aspects of your economy. 

Landsraad

The Landsraad Council can be a little weird at first, because it adds a semi-random element to the game, but it is important to understand how it works. Initially, the council vote happened in real time for all factions and closed after a period of time. But recent patches have changed that to serial voting by each faction with immediate results, streamlining the process. Good use of votes and influence here can be enough to shift the course of a game at the right moment. It’s also where factions will vie for control of the various charters and eventually the Governorship of Dune to win the match.

The new ability to affect charter priority with influence also gives a bit more control to factions seeking political victories by allowing them to get charters on the council agenda reliably. Each faction typically has some way of manipulating the vote. Whether it’s Corrino changing a resolution’s scope from a single faction to all factions, Ecaz using immunity to exclude themselves from a particular resolution that would damage them, or Smugglers offering Solari for each vote cast for a particular resolution, there’s a lot that can impact how you vote or even if you vote at all. Sometimes, it’s better to wait and have enough influence to force through an helpful resolution or charter in a later vote.

Every faction generates influence and has the capacity to store a fixed amount. Placing Listening Posts in villages and assigning agents to Landsraad slots on the espionage screen will account for most of the influence generated. But influence can also be generated from Political Agreements and traded as a resource through diplomacy. Different factions can further boost output through research, although the exact bonus changes depending on the faction.

Corrino, for example, gains boosted output from agents assigned to Landsraad while Freman would gain influence output from allied sietchs. Last of all, factions can increase the maximum influence they can store via extensions in the base and by becoming charter contenders once they meet the requirements for one of the charters. 

Charters are one of the most important parts of the Landsraad Council and gaining one is not only the precursor to the Governorship of Dune but also a means to provide your faction with significant leverage. In addition to the Governorship, there are four charters: Speaker of the Council, Judge of the Council, Water Seller’s Union, and Eye of the Council, and each affects a different aspect of the match. 

Speaker of the Council allows the elected faction to swap out one resolution per council session. This allows you to block resolutions that would be damaging, such as the Loss of Rights, which removes all charters from factions holding them. For anyone attempting a Political victory, removing Loss of Rights from the agenda makes military assault or assassination the only viable means to prevent them from winning. 

Judge of the Council is probably one of the least overtly useful charters because it allows for the training of Landsraad units by the controlling faction. These units are powerful and are usually granted in small quantities from spending enough influence or a particular resolution passing. However, since outright military force isn’t usually the most effective lever in Dune: Spice Wars, they provide limited benefits compared to the other charters.

Water Seller’s Union provides two Solari per positive water. If you have the capability to produce lots of water, this can provide your economy with a massive boost that is mostly insulated from outside influence, barring the use of military units to destroy your production facilities. It’s always helpful to have this charter if only to prevent another faction from getting it, but how helpful it will be is greatly dependent on the wind strength of the regions you control. 

Eye of the Council is the last of the four charters available. This charter grants you two extra agents that function exactly like your own, but have the Council trait. This can be a useful charter if you find your speed of recruitment a bit low or if you have reached the maximum agents allowed when it can provide you with extras. Unless you need the agents immediately or it’s the first charter up to vote on and you’re aiming for the Governorship, it’s probably best to hold out a bit before taking this one. 

Espionage

It wouldn’t be Dune without intrigue, and espionage is one place where that happens. The core of espionage in Dune: Spice Wars revolves around recruiting agents and using them to gain information levels, from one to three, about opposing factions and the four more general categories of Arrakis, Spacing Guild, CHOAM, and Landsraad. Unlocking these levels gives you access to operations you can perform to buff you or debuff opponents. Each operation requires a certain amount of Intel and sometimes Solari as well to prepare. Preparation takes a bit of time before the operation can be used. Once ready, it can be deployed on a valid target to perform the action. 

The operations themselves are pretty straightforward and vary a bit depending on faction. It’s wise to look through them carefully and identify what will be most useful for your situation. Supply Drop will keep your troops from losing supply in a region which makes military operations easier if your water supply is low. Decoy Thumper is also critical because it calls a sandworm to the region that will eat troops and prevent reinforcement while your forces are engaged. 

Agents and their assignments require a bit of management. Agents can be assigned to a rival faction to gain information about their resources and eventually unlock assassinations. They can also be assigned to counter-espionage to gain a chance to detect enemy operations earlier and capture enemy spies. Finally, agents can be assigned to one of the four general categories to provide access to specific operations and to generate additional resources. 

Each agent is given a trait that can boost the global production of Solari or Intel, or provide other boosts and maluses. Some of these traits are tied to the information level so placing them in a category with level three information can provide a greater boost to resource production. If an agent has a poor trait, you can dismiss them and recruit another. 

Victory on Arrakis

There are four victory types for each match, Domination, Hegemony, Political, and Economic, outside of the campaign which adds secondary conditions. A fifth, Assassination, is effectively a means to win by Domination but it has enough depth to count as a separate condition. While all factions can win by any of the victory types, which one you attempt depends on factors like which faction you are playing, what the regions around you are like, and what your opponents are doing. You may find it necessary to change direction and go for a different condition as the match progresses. 

Domination

Probably the most basic way to win in a 4X game: destroy all opponents. However, just because it is basic, doesn’t mean that it will be easy. Enemy bases have between 30,000 and 40,000 hit points,  20 armor, and powerful missile attacks that make them difficult targets on their own, to say nothing of any army that might be nearby to defend them. Compare this to the average unit that may have closer to 400 hit points and under ten armor. Thankfully, bases won’t heal on their own, so it’s often necessary to gradually wear the base down with multiple attacks, withdrawing to heal and resupply between assaults. 

To successfully pull off a base kill, first, you’ll want to upgrade your forces using the armory to kit them out to quickly destroy the bases’ armor and armor your units against the area-of-effect weapons on the base. This will allow you to do significantly more damage to the base itself. Next, you’ll want to prepare Defense Breaches and Defense Sabotage missions to weaken the base and increase the damage you do against it. Last, you’ll probably want a Supply Drop mission since you’ll be outside of your territory and your army’s supplies will be depleted long before the base dies unless you’re adjacent to them or have high water production. If you play your cards right, a good base attack can end an opponent who may be pushing for a CHOAM win or is close to Hegemony win.

Hegemony

Hegemony wins are one of the more common and less aggressive ways to win a match. All factions acquire hegemony points for various actions and the first faction to reach 30,000 points wins. That sounds like a lot but over the course of the game, the number jumps up pretty quickly. It needs to advance rapidly since reaching certain hegemony thresholds unlocks various aspects of your chosen faction. Hegemony points are gained in a variety of ways but every faction will see the initial gains from annexing regions.

Annexing special regions on the map will grant you 1,000 hegemony points, so a late annexation could be enough to push you past an opponent and win a match. Further gains come from successfully completing spice contracts and make up the bulk of your hegemony. Landsraad resolutions can also provide hegemony points if they pass. Passive hegemony is gained by building Craft Workshops in special regions to generate additional hegemony points. 

These gains can be augmented further with the Research Center upgrade for your main base which grants a 15% bonus to every gain. Last of all, factions may provide specific ways to gain hegemony or boost the production of points, as is the case with an Ecaz champion or Corrino building the Emperor Monument to gain +15 hegemony per day and double the effect of a Research Center. For example, a Corrino player may see passive hegemony gains of over 100 per day with the right combination of buildings, advisors, and upgrades to their base. Countering a Hegemony win can be done by eliminating the faction or liberating regions they control to reduce the overall hegemony they have. Target the special regions under the faction’s control if possible to reduce passive hegemony gains too. 

Political

To win a Political victory, your faction must acquire the Dune Governorship and retain the post for 30 days. To be eligible, you’ll need to acquire at least one other charter in the Landsraad Council and have a standing of over 450 with the Council. Because of this, it’s fairly rare and it usually shows up late game. With the ability to use influence to increase the chances of a charter coming up for a vote, it’s much less random than it was at launch. Winning factions can expect to see opponents pile on to assassinate them, destroy their base, or vote for the “Loss of Rights” resolution in the Landsraad Council to strip them of the Governorship. Because most factions have a base of 100 votes, significant influence production and storage is necessary to outvote everyone voting against you when attempting to acquire the Governorship. 

Economic

Economic victories are won by acquiring 50% or more of the available CHOAM shares. Factions looking for economic victories will need strong Solari production and strong spice production as well as starting to acquire shares early in the match. It’s usually beneficial to get some shares as every faction because they provide bonuses when you reach the 10% and 30% thresholds and can be sold for quick cash if needed. Shares also allow you to benefit from several Landsraad resolutions that come up for a vote from time to time.

While each purchase drives share prices up and CHOAM value generally trends upward through the course of the game, it does function somewhat like a real stock market. The more Spice sold to CHOAM by the factions, the higher the share value. The opposite is true, the more Spice that is stockpiled, the lower the share value. There are also limited numbers of shares available for purchase at any given time but more are released at regular intervals after the conclusion of the current spice contract. 

Countering a faction pushing for a CHOAM win requires constant monitoring to see who is buying CHOAM before they hit the 40% mark. It can be very difficult to catch up in the market itself if a faction has a sizable lead, if not impossible, so it’s best to look for other ways to counter the faction before they hit the 50% threshold. Destruction of an opponent’s base or outright assassination are two options but can be difficult to pull off. 

Instead, a more asymmetrical approach can be more effective at blocking a CHOAM win. To do that you will need to find ways to force a faction to sell shares or prevent them from buying new ones. This can be done directly if you have a strong economy by buying up available shares so there aren’t enough in circulation to reach the 50% threshold. While this will slow down progress and drive up share prices, it may not get prices high enough to prevent a win.

Targeting harvesters to reduce income and prevent completion of contracts can be a better option, especially if you don’t have as strong of an economy to dump into buying CHOAM. This has the added benefit of reducing Landsraad standing for each contract missed, which will increase the prices of shares for that faction and could eventually push them into a Pariah status where the Landsraad will attack their base every 20 days. Similarly, liberating those regions can have a more durable effect because there is a timer that prevents immediate recapture. 

A last option would be to fight using the Landsraad itself. Targeting the faction with resolutions that increase the cost to purchase shares or reduce the exchange rate of Spice will help to limit their ability to continue purchasing CHOAM. Hopefully, the increased prices will buy enough time for you to win via another path or catch up to them in shares.

Assassination

One of the more flavorful aspects, assassinations, seems very fitting for a game like Dune: Spice Wars. It’s also a unique way to make espionage potent, even against an opponent who may be hard to reach due to distance or economic power. Technically it’s a win by domination, but with more style. That’s not to say an assassination is easy to pull off because they are a multistep process and take a good deal of time to set up. To successfully assassinate an opponent there needs to be a minimum of seven agents, three on the target faction and one on each general information category.  

This translates into a minimum of level one for Arrakis, Spacing Guild, CHOAM, and Landsraad and level three with the target faction gained by using infiltration cells operations to increase the number of agent slots on the target. Once these pieces are in place the actual assassination operation becomes available. After preparing the operation and launching it on the target, things get a lot more challenging. At some point, the assassination attempt will be detected by the target which will allow them to use operations to discover where your infiltration cells are so that their military units can search the village and remove it. This slows and eventually stalls the attempt, forcing it to be canceled. 

Understanding the mechanics behind the process is key to being successful in the attempt. Each agent on information for the target faction generates two points toward the progress, making the base progress per day six percent. While in process, there is a timed element called the progress factor that will gradually decrease from 100%. As it goes down the points generated toward completing the assassination will decrease, eventually stalling the attempt. To prevent this from happening you will need to send assassins to infiltration cells. Each assassin will reset the progress factor to 100%. 

Once the attempt is detected, the target faction will begin removing infiltration cells. You won’t be able to set up new ones after the assassination attempt has started either, so make sure at least one is in a place where you can stop attempts at removal! For each cell removed, you will lose one agent slot and reduce the points generated by two. Finally, the longer the attempt takes, the higher the upkeep will be in Solari and Intel. While Solari usually isn’t as much of a problem, the intel costs for recruiting assassins and the increasing attempt upkeep cost will quickly drain reserves. Once the attempt reaches 100%, the target faction will be eliminated. 

Factions

Dune: Spice Wars currently has six different playable factions: House Atreides, House Harkonnen, House Ecaz, House Corrino, Smugglers, and Freman. It may be a controversial statement, but while there are nuances and quirks about each faction that ostensibly make things play differently, there isn’t much overall asymmetry outside of Smugglers, who have some of the most variance in how they are played. Yes, there are differences, but the overall feeling of what you are doing and which goals you are looking to achieve feels very similar for each of the Houses and, to some degree, even with Freman. When selecting a faction to play, you will also select two councilors, which provide additional nuance to your faction. Some of these councilors are less useful, while others are nearly mandatory for optimizing the effectiveness of factions like Corrino.

House Atreides

Atreides is mostly designed around traits that make it a political powerhouse. It has the ability to annex territory peacefully anywhere on the map and gains bonuses from resolutions that boost Solari production or military power. Eventually, it is able to ignore all requirements for charters making it easier for them to make a play for the Governorship of Dune. Despite this, Atreides is a much more “vanilla” faction than the quirks of the other factions. Militarily, they aren’t the strongest faction but they can still do quite well if the circumstances are right. Their four councilors are Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, Lady Jessica, and Duncan Idaho.

Councilors

Thufir Hawat provides your agents with a second trait which is nice but, more importantly, allows you to rush buildings with Solari. This ability can be quite useful in conjunction with Atreides propensity to spread out, allowing you to quickly get up airfields and defenses in regions you expect to see attacks. Overall, he’s one of the weaker picks for Atreides.

Gurney Halleck provides a boost for Atreides troops by granting them +1 armor per experience level. He also provides a small boost in power once troops have reached max level, but that is far less useful. Gurney is your man if you want to play more offensively with Atreides. 

Lady Jessica is much less useful in single-player, where the AI generally accepts your treaties, but her ability to use influence to force a treaty on another player can be helpful in preventing the loss of a region. Combined with the doubled loss in Landsraad standing to break a treaty with Atreides, she can be helpful especially since you don’t need research to unlock any of the treaties. 

Duncan Idaho is the last councilor option for Atreides. His ability to grant two authority per allied sietch can help Atreides expand more efficiently. Unfortunately, the sietch revealed at the start isn’t guaranteed to be useful or in a region you want. Since you must own the region to ally with the sietch and gain the bonus from Idaho, his value can be very situational unless you plan to spread out your control. Even so, netting a couple of sietches can make you an authority powerhouse to push for a hegemony win through annexing regions. 

Of the four available, Gurney and Jessica are the most powerful choices because Gurney boosts your troop’s armor as they gain experience, and Jessica is able to force treaties on factions with influence. Duncan can be useful if you are looking to push for a hegemony victory and are able to snag alliances with multiple sietches where you can use his authority production to drive your annexation of other regions around the map. Thufir is situationally good with his ability to buyout construction and create popup bases much faster than other factions.

House Harkonnen

Harkonnen is well known to be overtly evil and oppressive and the design of the faction leans into those traits at every level. This makes them good with CHOAM, Dominination, or Assassination wins. The Harkonnen military is quite strong and shows disregard for the lives of their troops with power boosts at the expense of health and even providing more power as health goes down or when units are killed. Even their economy revolves around pillaging villages for resources and oppressing them to squeeze out more. Their espionage allows for agents to be sacrificed to prepare operations and can gain new brainwashed agents from killing enemy units. There are a lot of things pushing you to play quite aggressively as the Harkonnen and their advisors aren’t much different. The four councilors for Harkonnen are Glossu Rabban, Iakin Nefud, Feyd Harkonnen, and Piter De Vries.

Councilors

Glossu Rabban is an easy-to-understand option. You get an extra militia slot, which is handy for boosting village output from the Harkonnen trait granting a 5% boost per militia unit, and you get 50 Solari for killing a rebel. Since your economy revolves around using oppression on your villages almost constantly, it makes what could be a downside into a benefit and encourages even more oppression.

Iakin Nefud pushes for aggressive military action by reducing the training speed by 30% while preventing level one units from regenerating health and giving you 50% of their cost back when they die. If you want to go for swarms of low-level troops you can replace quickly, take Nefud.

Feyd Harkonnen provides his faction with a means to manipulate the Landsraad by allowing the use of Corruption on votes to reduce Landsraad standing when a faction wins a resolution. He also provides increases in influence production and agent recruitment speed while at least one village is oppressed making him useful for more espionage-related play. 

Piter De Vries is another espionage-focused councilor. His traits reduce the cost of missions by 15% per sacrificed agent and give you 60 Solari per active agent. Getting brainwashed agents to sacrifice from killing enemy units combined with De Vries can be a powerful combination for making operations more sustainable and providing additional cash. 

Choosing which Harkonnen councilors to take in a match isn’t too difficult. Iakin Nefud is the weakest and the loss of veterancy for your troops can be a tough sell even with the benefit of getting some resources back when they die. Feyd, however, is too useful to skip making him your number-one choice because he synergizes so well with the Harkonnen oppression mechanic you’ll be using as much as possible. Even better, the corruption option allows you to degrade some of the Landsraad status of factions like Atreides and Corrino when positive resolutions come up they might want. From here, your choice is De Vries or Rabban, with Rabban being the top pick if you prefer the economy boost and De Vries being your pick if you plan to be more espionage-focused. 

House Ecaz

Ecaz was a late addition to Dune: Spice Wars and appeared with the 1.0 release of the game, which caused some controversy. They combine some of the concepts of Freman with a few additional quirks to create a slightly different experience from the other Houses. The primary features of Ecaz are the creation of sanctuaries, garden resorts, and building masterpieces in villages. Militarily, Ecaz isn’t as strong in the early game but later units like Knights and Banners can be quite strong. They need to be careful because their perfected units take longer to build than other factions so a bad matchup can leave them hurting for a while. 

Ecaz sanctuaries are regions surrounded by their territory that cannot be attacked by another faction and provide a boost of one authority. They also apply the quirks of villages in the regions around the sanctuary to those villages a second time, making them a village trait-based economy not unlike Corrino’s. One of the Ecaz villages can be upgraded to become a garden resort that boosts influence production of all masterpieces in surrounding villages, gives two knowledge per adjacent sanctuary, and will cost an opponent 100 Landsraad standing and 100 authority if they attack the village. 

Masterpieces are buildings that can be built in a village and count as two buildings for the purposes of applying village quirks. If the village is captured and the faction now controlling the village destroys a masterpiece, they will lose ten Landsraad standing and ten authority per masterpiece destroyed. Combined with the right councilors, Ecaz can be a hegemony and potentially Governorship contender but they need to be careful about signing truces because they can’t betray them. The councilors available to Ecaz are Sanya Ecaz, Whitmore Bludd, Ilesa Ecaz, and Mesa Ecaz

Councilors

Sanya Ecaz’s bonuses are primarily tied to sanctuaries. She will give you twenty Solari per sanctuary and reduce masterpiece construction costs by 20% per sanctuary. Sanya will also generate two Solari per masterpiece in villages you control. This may not seem all that impressive initially but if used in combination with the right village trait, an adjacent sanctuary, and an Investment Office, she can be used to build cheap masterpieces that can easily generate large amounts of Solari. 

Whitmore Bludd would be fairly forgettable compared to the other Ecaz options if it were not for his ability to name a second champion. He also starts new units at a level higher than normal which provides a relatively minor boost. Where Bludd shines is using your champions to bank hegemony from raiding villages. The loss of the champion will cost Ecaz any hegemony the champion acquired so care is needed to protect them. 

Ilesa Ecaz is the political councilor. She grants three Landsraad standing for each masterpiece completed and, more importantly, can manipulate Council resolutions using Landsraad Immunity to prevent Ecaz from being considered for that resolution. This makes her a solid second choice for Ecaz.

Mesa Ecaz is the strongest councilor for the faction. Her abilities create an authority powerhouse for Ecaz by giving you a boost of 3% to authority production for every masterpiece in a neutral village and refunding you 100% of the authority costs when you abandon a village. This makes her indispensable for Ecaz by taking a village, building as many masterpieces as possible there, and abandoning the village to create an authority-generating minefield. 

Ecaz is all about the art and building as many masterpieces as possible, so when choosing which councilors to take, look for ones that boost your masterpieces. Mesa is a must-have. Her abilities pair well with both Sanya and Ilesa and with the need to use village quirks to your advantage. You’ll want to push to get Native Artists quickly and build a Museum of Unbound Arts to remove the limit on masterpieces and potentially provide an extra instance of village quirks.

Since masterpieces count as two buildings, this can be very powerful with the right quirk, especially when using Sanya, for example, a quirk that grants three Solari per economic building. A second choice for Ecaz is Ilesa, particularly for the Landsraad Immunity. She won’t make you into an economic powerhouse like Sanya can, but the benefits of high standing with the Landsraad are helpful as is the ability to prevent opponents from electing you to a bad resolution such as a 100% cost increase to buy CHOAM shares.

House Corrino

Corrino is the house of the Emperor and was designed to play tall due to the 200% increase in authority to annex villages the farther they are from the Imperial Base. The faction thrives by using its quirks to supercharge the economy and passively generate hegemony while playing political games with the other factions. This makes the faction quite good for winning through CHOAM or hegemony, especially since it starts with CHOAM shares and several of its quirks are tied to them. Corrino starts with an extra building slot to villages, 100% increased influence costs for another faction to cancel a non-aggression pact, and, most importantly, the ability to change the scope of a Landsraad resolution. This allows Corrino to manipulate the Landsraad while using very little influence to do so by making resolutions less palatable for other factions or getting positive ones voted in by changing the scope to affect all factions. 

After reaching 5,000 hegemony, Corrino can deploy a second base to expand to other regions or further boost existing ones with additional instances of village quirks if Administrative Consolidation is researched. Finally, they are incentivized to invest in CHOAM to gain power benefits for military units and passive gains of Guild Favor needed to build ships. Militarily, Corrino doesn’t have a strong early game, but passive boosts and later game units like Artillery Drones and Sardaukar combined with strong air units can make them a difficult target as the game progresses, especially if they can fly under the radar with their CHOAM purchases and annexation.

Although it is middle of the pack with espionage, Corrino can unlock the Emperor’s Eyes to gain three agents permanently on counterespionage, making the faction very hard to assassinate. Like other factions, Corrino has four councilors: Wensicia Corrino, Captain Aramsham, Princess Irulan, and Hasimir Fenring.

Councilors

Wensicia Corrino allows you to build one extra copy of village buildings but charges you 100% Solari upkeep for any building you don’t build a copy of. This effectively allows you to double the output of villages to specialize them for resource production. Have a plascrete special region? Build two plascrete factories. Even better if the region converts plascrete to Solari. It will supercharge Corrino’s economy when it works, but she is at the mercy of the map generation, so it can sometimes be hard to get a good setup for her.

Captain Aramsham is a curious option. He gives access to Sardaukar at the start of the game, increases the Sardaukar threshold for executions against factions that betray you by 10% and boosts your military power by 10% for each truce. Combined with armory upgrades to boost the threshold again, Sardaukar can quickly wipe out enemy units the conscripts have weakened. For a Corrino that wants to turtle and peacefully build up for a CHOAM or hegemony win, Aramsham can make them a surprisingly difficult target to take out.

Princess Irulan helps Corrino with politics by giving you half a vote for every vote on a resolution affected by the Imperial Mandate and giving access to alliances with sietches in neutral territory. Her abilities allow Corrino to have more leverage to secure votes that are important and more flexibility with gaining the bonuses for sietch alliances in territories you may not want or be able to acquire.

Hasimir Fenring is a bit of an underrated councilor. His primary ability is to let you research discoveries anywhere on the map, even without agents assigned to Arrakis Information. This is an incredibly powerful ability that lets you grab tech boosts, influence, or authority at will. It doesn’t immediately seem that great, but it will significantly boost Corrino over the course of a match due to the limitations in annexing much past their base. His second ability allows you to use development investment in villages of factions you have truces with, increasing production in those villages by 20% and granting you 20% of their production which further strengthens your economy. 

Overall, there are no terrible options for which councilors to take with Corrino. Wensicia and Hasimir are a solid combo for economy-boosting and hegemony-boosting with double craft workshops and constant access to discoveries around the map. Combined with building an Emperor Monument and Research Center in your base, Corrino can see triple-digit hegemony gains while they hide behind treaties and heavy defenses. Aramsham is excellent for discouraging early aggression against Corrino with his boost to military power from treaties and early access to Sardaukar.

Pairing Aramsham with Fenring allows Corrino to benefit from truces with other factions by gaining more resources from investment offices. Even if you are not going for an economic win, it is important for Corrino to invest in CHOAM to reach at least 30% to get the most out of the bonuses to military power per share. Also, quickly pick up Administrative Consolidation to apply village traits an additional time if the region is next to an Imperial Base. While you can’t select the location of your initial base, picking the right location for your second is critical to being successful as Corrino.

Smugglers

The Smugglers are by far the most unique faction to play in Dune: Spice Wars. While most factions focus on annexing territory, Smugglers are somewhat discouraged from acquiring many regions due to their trait which increases authority cost by 50% for each region they own. However, they have more freedom to select where they want to go since there is no cost increase for regions farther from their base. Finally, they have the ability to create underworld headquarters in the villages controlled by other factions, allowing them access to portions of resources and Solari or making it easier to pillage and capture villages that they need from another faction. They are not as strong politically and can only use influence in the Landsraad until they gain 5k hegemony, at which point they get only fifty votes, half that of the great houses.

However, they do have the ability to place bounties on resolutions to incentivize other factions to vote in ways that are beneficial to the Smugglers. At 10k hegemony, they get more resources from pillaging villages and can install major underworld headquarters in other factions’ bases, which can be configured to provide additional resources or benefits. Their military units can be strong and, with the right councilor gain stealth whenever they use an operation in a region. This helps them move unseen to attack villages or rivals. Overall, the Smuggler faction is very flexible and capable of pursuing any of the victory conditions. Their four councilors are Staban Tuek, Bannerjee, Drisq, and Lingar Bewt.

Staban Tuek provides a small Solari bonus for underworld headquarters with no empty slots, provided they are neighboring. It’s not always easy to stack the bonus, but it is nice when you can get it. However, his second perk is an extra slot in each HQ, which is a nice boost.

Bannerjee provides Smugglers with stealth units in regions where Smugglers have ongoing operations. This can be great for sneaking your army around using a supply operation or escaping from a bad matchup. He also provides two options for each HQ, Local Gangs and Back-Alley Doctor. Local Gangs is helpful, providing you with two additional units to help in a fight before removing the extension but Back-Alley Doctor is what really shines because it refills health and supply for ally units. This can significantly boost the reach for Smuggler forces and allow you to use more offensive operations in the region without worrying about maintaining supply.

Drisq is helpful for easier recon and discovery on the map. She gives Ornithopters stealth and increases their speed and reduces time to recon points of interest by 50%. Her second ability can be pretty powerful, ensuring that information levels are never lower than one. This is effectively an extra agent on every slot at the start of the game and helps provide info on what other factions are capable of without assigning agents to them. These perks mesh well with the Smuggler playstyle, making her a solid choice, especially if you want to push an early assassination.

Lingar Bewt has seen some adjustments through the patches, and his current state makes him fairly easy to use. He provides a base of ten water and adds two new extensions to your underworld HQ options, Water Network and Water Seller. Water Network gives Smuggers and the host village three water, which is helpful, while Water Seller is more Solari-focused, giving you twenty Solari and the host village three water. 

Smugglers focus on raiding and using other factions’ villages for the Smugglers benefit by building extensions to help them plunder resources or passively generate resources from the village while they pursue a chosen win condition. What extensions are needed in which villages will change from match to match, and all of the Smuggler councilors provide interesting and useful boosts, making just about any combination work well. If you are going for a more economic build, taking Tuek and Bewt will be a helpful combination. However, Bannerjee with his stealth and Back-Alley Doctors paired with Drisq, is great if your economy is based on raiding and pillaging.

Freman

The last faction available is the Freman. Those familiar with Dune will recognize them immediately as the native population of Arrakis. Unfortunately, their gameplay is not as divergent as the Smugglers is from that of the great houses. They will never have votes in the Landsraad Council, but they can use influence to vote and gain benefit from resolutions like any other faction. With the right councilor, they can use the intel to incite revolts in villages of factions that are elected for a resolution. 

Unlike other factions, they use harvester teams to gather spice and can do so in neutral regions. They can also form alliances in sietches outside of territories they own and, with enough hegemony, unlock the ability to build a specialized industry in each allied sietch which encourages finding and allying with them. They can also control Deep Deserts by taking all regions surrounding them, allowing them to traverse these regions without loss of supply and counts toward hegemony gains. 

As a thematic nod, Freman can use thumpers to call a sandworm and ride it to a target. However, it is at the cost of any other form of air transport for the faction. They have good authority production, which makes them a solid contender for hegemony wins, and have strong military units, with the Fedaykin gaining up to 50% power and five armor depending on how many units they are in combat. Combined with worm riding, it makes Freman dangerous base snipers. Freman are unique in that they have no ranged units outside of the relatively useless Mobile Turret and none of their units require Fuel Cells, allowing them to use Ceremonial Caves to boost military power, knowledge, and Solari. Their councilors are Mother Ramallo, Otheym, Chani Kynes, and Stilgar Bin Fifrawi. 

Councilors

Mother Ramallo boosts your Spice production by granting harvester teams an extra crew member and giving them stealth so other factions can’t easily see where you are harvesting. She also gives access to the Shai-hulud Temple major building which gives you a 20% resource production boost in the region and any surrounding ally regions. 

Otheym gives your units 10% speed and, if no allies are around, a 25% boost in power and -25% damage taken. While this is a great boost, it’s hard to maintain as the match progresses, but it can be useful for putting down revolts or using a Fedaykin to solo small engagements. He’s situationally useful but probably the weakest option here.

Chani Kynes likes to keep a neutral buffer between Freman land and other factions because these regions will provide one intel per region. It’s not a huge boost, but it does help. Further, she gives access to the Incite Rebellion option for Landsraad votes, which causes rebellions in enemy villages if the resolution passes.

Stilgar Bin Fifrawi grants one authority per region controlled that has a spice field which provides a nice boost in authority generation. The 20% reduction in upkeep costs for the region and surrounding regions he also provides effectively makes him a free Maintenance Center for villages around the spice field. 

Overall, Freman are an odd faction, playing similar to some aspects of Ecaz but with less benefit and with less ability to impact the political game. However, their authority production means that annexing a large number of regions is a viable strategy for them, and combined with some tough units, they can be a dangerous opponent. When picking councilors, Stilgar is the go-to choice for his boosts to authority generation and cost reduction attached to something you’ll need to do anyway. From there, Chani or Ramallo are the next choices.

Taking Ramallo will help your economy and make it easier to hide spice production, which can help if you are looking for CHOAM shares. Chani is more useful if you want to mess with other factions’ economies by using Incite Rebellion to force them to kill a bunch of rebels to get their economy working again. Otheym is probably the least attractive councilor, but in the right hands with good micro, he can be quite effective.

Combat

Combat in Dune: Spice Wars is a curious affair. In most RTS-style games, combat is usually the main attraction, but here, it seems more nuanced and reserved. True, the military is always needed to eliminate neutral militia or raiding parties. Still, faction-on-faction combat tends to feel more like skirmishes, with one side retreating before taking complete losses. In fact, many times, focusing too much on attacking another faction can put both you and your target behind considerably, potentially costing you the match. 

Every faction has a small set of units, typically including melee units, ranged units, a mechanical unit, and two flying units. Each unit other than the factions’ flying units has access to the armory, which allows them to be configured with two upgrades at will, as long as you have the Solari and research to unlock the slots. Generally, these upgrades increase armor at the cost of power or provide special abilities like increasing the threshold for Sardaukar executions or providing buffs to nearby units like Atreides Support Drones. 

Each unit will cost a certain amount of Solari, manpower, and sometimes special resources like Fuel Cell and has an upkeep cost in Solari. Be careful with armory upgrades, as some can vastly increase the upkeep costs of a unit. All units have several stats that define them. Power is the relative strength of the unit’s attack; Armor reduces power by the value listed. Health is how many hit points the unit has. Finally, most units have a special trait that helps inform how they work within the army composition.

The basic concept is to provide a line of melee skirmishers to tie down enemy melee and potentially ranged units since ranged units can’t use ranged attacks and do 50% melee damage when in close combat. While the melee line is engaged, ranged units should be equipped to destroy enemy armor values, making it easier for the melee units to kill them. Damaged units will recover health using available manpower if they are in a friendly region after combat ends. Mechanical units will use Solari for repairs instead.

Which units to use and how to employ them best will change from faction to faction. Ecaz, for example, can build perfected units that gain 20% power and health but take much longer to recruit, making it hard to replace an army once lost. On the other hand, Harkonnen is quite happy to lose units, and options like Executioners will gain health and power as other units around them die. Corrinio likes to have swarms of conscripts combined with Sardaukar to eliminate damaged enemy units or lean heavily on air power due to their ability to generate a lot of Spacing Guild support and needed fuel cells. All factions have access to Mercenaries once they reach 10% CHOAM shares, which are powerful in large numbers and recruit quickly.

Beyond just the composition of your force, espionage operations provide significant benefits to fighting other factions and quickly gaining an advantage to preserve your own forces. A well-timed Orbital Strike from Corrino can quickly drop health enough for Sardaukar to execute veteran troops or a Decoy Thumper can make it impossible to move reinforcements to a battle without an airfield due to the threat of a sandworm. With Harkonnen, using Combat Drugs can significantly boost the power of your units at the cost of health and a Sleeper Agent operation gives you a good chance of giving you cheap agents you can sacrifice to perform more operations. Even if your military isn’t involved, you can profit from the conflict with a well-placed Scavenger Team operation. 

Conclusion

Dune: Spice Wars is an expansive game packed full of details with subtle interactions between mechanics, like councilor choice or use of operations to support attacks, and randomized elements like Landsraad resolutions, map layout, and village quirks that make it difficult to definitively cover every aspect of what a player should do because the situation in each match is exceptionally fluid. Even though each match may feel similar, the choices made will change drastically and a well-played assassination to destroy a faction close to a CHOAM win while working out how best to acquire the last hegemony boost to win yourself can be exhilarating. Good luck, and may you see victory on Arrakis!