Dune: Spice Wars Spice addiction guide (over 200 hours played) for Insane difficulty

Changes Since Release

Update: This guide was written before the May 23rd patch which changed a lot of things. I will update the guide in relation to the patch in chunks as I play the game.

Dec 21 2022 update: I finally have been playing again. The game has changed immensely since I last played in June, in fact it is almost an entirely new game. I was thinking about just starting the guide over, but I thought it would be fun to leave the historical context here to give new people and idea of just how different the game was in the beginning. Let me start by summarizing the changes I've witnessed:

Faction specific hegemony gains are gone. At release the Smugglers were very OP because you got hegemony gains from pillaging and you could get a victory with just one village lol. Fremen got it through water which was pretty weak. Atreides through passing resolutions and Harkonnen via operations. I really like what they did here to smooth it out. Now every faction can get hegemony through supporting resolutions. House Corrino sort of has their own faction specific way via Emperor Monument, but I'm guessing that is because of their 100% authority penalty to make up for lack of territory.

Trade agreements changed a lot. Everyone loses authority when trading a NAP with Duke, but you don't lose authority when trading solari or research agreements with him. However since NAP is a prerequisite you can't avoid losing some authority with him. This is very painful if you are House Corrino so don't do it in the beginning.

CHOAM operations no longer exist. These allowed you to gain hegemony when you were flowing with money. Now the game has a new CHOAM Market allowing you go buy and sell CHOAM shares and a new economic victory if you own 50% of them.

Timed events have changed. You now have two choices and if you fail to make a choice you don't get penalized. The penalty from long ago was really annoying so glad to see that fixed.

Fremen Bazaar building was changed drastically. It was fairly OP at release allowing you to add +4 power or +4 armor to units if in a 2-slot or 3-slot. Now it generates extra resources per district. However it is still amazing if you 1-slot it since it will grant 50% tech research boost to economy, diplo and military trees.

Fremen 10k hegemony buildings have changed a lot too. My favorite terraforming hegemony win with Fremen is no longer possible.

Fremen now have to spawn a Harvesting Team unit and walk it to the spice field in order to harvest. I am not a fan of this and I wonder how much this gets exploited in multiplayer which I have not tried yet.

Harkonnen are still OP AF when it comes to assassinations. Some things never change :)

Multiplayer is finally a thing. Not going to touch it for a while until I got all factions figured out with all the changes.

I really love all the changes except the Fremen harvesting unit, but I've noticed the AI is even worse at some things. It is still too easy to get an early NAP to buy you time to build up your forces. I did struggle in the beginning on Insane and lost a few before I re-educated myself on the changes. Good starting spots also make a huge difference, especially one game where I had two rare element territories next to my base and a White Rift not far away for 3k hegemony from Kraft workshops. Two missile batteries with tech upgrades can really shred the AI and cause them to retreat.

Oh and then there is the Air and Sand update which introduced ships. I've got mixed feelings about this since I've noticed the AI really struggles with them and I can abuse AI spice fields too easily. I haven't touched multiplayer yet so I'm sure it is a different story allowing players to make interesting strategy decisions.

So here is the old guide below. I will make some corrections to it and make comments about some of the outdated strategies. I'm also a big fan of House Corrino now and will add a section for them later.

Intro

--------------------- Warning: Old Material below -----------------------------------------

Hello and welcome. This guide is still a WIP. If you are playing for the first time don't read this unless you are really stuck. This is a game where you should just dive and and enjoy it. There is a lot to learn, but discovering how things work is what makes games like this fun.

First, a few quick tips for maximizing solari and authority in the early game.

Tips for all factions If not playing Duke then always trade solari and research treaties with Duke. You won't lose authority when trading with him and he will. That's a free 15% trade and research boost.

If not playing Duke then pillaging is good income and as Smugglers gives you hegemony. This also keeps your enemies from taking strategic villages near you if you keep them pillaged permanently.

Keep an eye out for Water Seller Caravans. For 500 solari they give a good chunk of authority. They look like a cone. I will upload a screenshot soon to demonstrate the graphic. There are usually 3-4 per map. Update: In the May 23rd patch these were nerfed pretty hard and only give about 30 authority now :(

Avoid bumping into too many factions at the same time. I.e don't rush Polar Sink until you are ready.

Always put your first agent on Arrakis for the +1 authority. I usually go first two there. +1/+2 adds up to a lot in the game and allows for early expansion.

May 23rd update: Ornithopters now have two innate benefits and are 100 solari cheaper. First they give a 20% boost to spice production when attached to a harvester. Second they allow a harvester to detect sandworms faster allowing them to recall before possibly being damaged or even eaten by one. So getting extra ornithopters out there early is very important now. To attach one to a harvester you first select the ornithopter then right click a harvester. You can verify it worked if you see a little magnifying lens icon over the harvester. IMHO they need a better icon for this.

Ornithopters can also be attached to troops to detect sandworms earlier than normal and if you get Paracompass will cause your troops near it to drain supply 30% slower than usual. You can also attach more than one ornithopter per harvester, really handy if you have a crappy map with only 2 spice fields.

After Local Dialog Studies for authority reduction, focus on the economy tree next, you at least need tech for processing plant, spice silos, extra harvester crews before you venture into the military tree. You need a healthy economy before you can build up a good military. If I find myself in a remote starting location then I sometimes go heavy eco and to make the Choam Branch building.

Even before going military tree you want the key diplomatic techs for faster agent creation and access to Intelligence Agency which is another 200% agent creation speed and opens up two more operation spots. These techs are Intelligence Network -> Spying Logistics -> Counter Measures. This is especially important for Harkonnen since they need to get those agents rolling in early for the earliest possible Assassination win.

Authority is precious for expansion. Don't trade treaties with anyone except Duke in the beginning. If you play Duke then don't trade treaties at all in the beginning of the game. If you trade with other factions you lose authority for each trade. Mid to late game when you have enough authority and have expanded then trade with others for a total of +45% solari and knowledge. One exception is Fremen when playing with Stilgar and you find a 3-4 spice fields you can afford to trade away a few authority with Harkonnen and Smugglers to max that solari income.

Update: The May 23rd patch introduces some really OP buildings. Some are faction specific but everyone has access to a new one called Investment Office from Local Dialog Studies tech which triples the output of a village's trait. So if you get a good village trait like Strong-willed for +2 manpower then use this building to get +6 manpower. I wouldn't use it on traits like Supply Caches though. Glass-sculptors and Scientific traits are two other great choices for this building.

Timed Game Events that are not easy to notice.

There are timed game events that are not obvious that you can easily miss your first several games. I don't mean the red/green notifications at the top middle of your screen. I am referring to the small green/red tab looking notifications that will appear below your faction profile at the top left over the course of a game. When playing with tutorials on these appear with the tutorials so you might not even see them. These events are absolutely huge. They ask you to do something like create two new economy buildings or pillage two villages in X amout of days and give you a choice of rewards. You can snag 1000 solari, or 500 hegemony and 500 solari, troop experience, etc. More importantly, if you ignore the detrimental ones you can end up with a rebellion, lose a troop or lose spies. Here is an example. Sometimes you can get the +1000 solari right around 2k hegemony to help you build your first HQ building if you haven't saved up enough.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810145922

The game does a poor job of emphasizing this area IMHO. Also if you forget to make a choice even after you meet the requirements you lose out on beneficial ones and fail the detrimental ones -- easy to do in the last half of a hectic game when fighting and dealing with rebels. The UI needs rework to make these icons bigger and grab your attention much more.

Dirty Little Secrets

The game in its current state actually is easier on the hardest setting(Insane). This is because the AI just loves to send wave after wave of troops to you if you share a border with them. If you are not ready for it then you will be in for pain, but if you are ready with a good economy, troops and ops then just farm the hell out of the AI for hegemony. Each kill is 20 hegemony whether it is the AI or militia. Most times when playing on Medium and especially Large maps you have plenty of time to build up your economy before worrying about a big military even on Insane. Small maps are definitely more challenging. Once you are ready with a good economy, decent size military, barracks building and good +intel generation then you+ops > AI waves of farmable units. It doesn't matter how much the AI fails to take your village it will try over and over again giving you hegemony and troop xp.

May 23rd update: It does seem easier to trade for non aggression pact(NAP)now. If you unlock the Diplomatic Maneuvers tech in diplomacy tree then give it a try if you are not ready militarily or just want to keep one border safe while you are fighting on another. Maps seem messed up with this patch and you can end up with two borders really quick with 3 factions starting so close. Just remember like in the Intro when you trade treaties with anyone other than Duke you lose authority. So if Duke is your neighbor be glad, you can just trade a NAP when you two are sharing a border and lose no authority and have some piece of mind :)

I've done speed runs to compare how fast you can win the game. Would you believe my fastest victory was through a one spice village hegemony victory with the Smugglers? Yea they are currently that broken. Here's why. Each faction has their own specific way of gaining hegemony. The smugglers get it through pillaging. 150 hegemony per pillage doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up. In my victory I had over 12k hegemony just from pillaging because I didn't have anything else to do in the game :) Since smugglers can get income and research from underworld HQs I didn't have to worry about taking any other villages. If you pick Banerjee you'll get plascrete from pillaging along with increased solari. You will only have a plascrete issue later in the game as you fill up your HQ with buildings since they cost 20 plascrete each. Not really a problem though as long as you keep pillaging and trading with the AI. Screenshot below:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2807308590

That was before the May 23rd patch with the 25k hegemony limit. Harkonnen are now the best for fast hegemony wins. Oppression can be chained with Rabban for a permanent 150% production rate. The first oppression is a 200% production boost, then you suffer -50% production loss. But with Rabban you can oppress as soon as the last oppression wears off, so you keep a 150% boost for the rest of the game -- assuming you aren't distracted by other things in the mid game when things are hectic :) Combined with OP village traits and Investment Office you can make solari faster than anyone. Also because Choam Shares ops are only 2k solari with a sacrificial agent, you can use captured agents for these ops. If you don't care to win by Assassination then just sacrifice all your agents for 25+ Choam Share ops. The fewer agents you have the faster they respawn so you can keep this going until a 30k Hegemony victory quite easily. Plan ahead and have a 3-slot economy in HQ for the bonus to Choam Share ops. I'm sure I will have to update this again in the future since oppression is really broken right now.

Oh yea trading...this is kind of broken right now too :) It doesn't matter how much the AI hates you it will always trade with you. Oops you lost a spy in the assassinate operation? No problem you can usually get it back for 700-1000 solari and use it for you next step two steps of the operation.

HQ BuildingsYour first HQ building should always be a Research Center. This will almost double your research speed and really get you going through the tech tree. When playing the Fremen which has an OP bazaar building your next building should be the bazaar in a 1-slot(make sure you researched it in the eco tree). Put the bazaar in a 1-slot district and you get 40% bonus to research for economy, military and diplomatic. That combined with Research Center gets you through the tech tree faster than anyone.

As if that wasn't enough later you can move the bazaar in a two slot military to get +4 power to your units. If you want to steam roll over everything in your path as a Fremen you already have beefy units, now add +4 power and now you can have Fedaykin with +4 power, sand killer counselor and up against 5+ units by his lonesome for another 50% power and +5 armor is just silly fun.

Fremen Domination And Hegemony Strategies

With the May 23rd patch(0.1.20.15268) a few things have changed for the Fremen. After Local Dialect Studies I find it best to head to Composite Materials -> Advanced Engineering -> Spreading the Faith. Spreading the Faith used to be a costly tech, but now you can get it early and it is about +90-100 solari in the early game if you go that route. Since the Shai-Hulud temple was nerfed it also makes Mother Ramallo not a good choice anymore. For both domination and hegemony I go that economic path first then skip up do diplomatic for Intelligence Network -> Spying Logistic -> Counter Measures. You want to get those spies rolling in. After that I go and finish up the T3 economic tree with Spice Markets -> Economic Lobbying -> Arrakis Secrets. Then start dipping into the military tree if going domination else go into the green tree up to Lay of the Land and Dune Wanderers if focusing on a hegemony win. T4 Economic tech like Spice Hegemony and CHOAM Hegemony can wait till later.

However I find that about 1/3 of the time that even on medium maps that you get thrown next to two factions while the 4th faction has half the map to itself. It feels like a bug oversight to me. You might be lucky to get two spice villages and suddenly bumping heads with two factions on each flank. If so you might have to go military a bit earlier.

Fremen domination strategy (singleplayer)

Counsilors: Stilgar and Otheym.

Using the strategy discussed in Dirty Little Secrets, build a Research Center in a 1-slot and bazaar in a 1-slot you'll fly through the tech trees as Fremen. Once you get the techs you need you can then destroy the 1-slot bazaar and rebuild it in a two-slot military next to Barracks. Now your units get +4 power. Or put the bazaar in a 3-slot military for +4 armor. I prefer the power since all factions have armor reducing AOE units and Fremen units have beefy hp so may as well kill as fast as possible. Soon you'll want to aim for the Command Post building for the 20% power to all units. Since this is domination I'd put that in the only 3-slot and fill it up with Recruitment Center and then Enhanced Fortifications building for the +2 armor buff. Unfortunately when on the offensive the Enhanced Fortifications building doesn't help as it only buffs your HQ's power and armor. But at least with putting it in a 3-slot you'll get +2 armor and then the +4 power from Barracks+Bazaar. In my dom win I wasn't paying attention and accidentally put an economy building in the 3-slot military next to Command Post and Recruitment Center so I didn't have the +2 armor bonus. :)

Be aggressive and own one of the middle spice fields(usually two next to the Polar Sink). Don't bother owning the Polar Sink else all 3 factions will attack you, and as Fremen you can't build a Water Extractor for+50 water. Own one spice field and put up two missile batteries to defend it. Two warriors and 1 skirmisher are enough to hold it until you get enough CP via military tree and buildings to build up enough units to take out an HQ. Save up your intel for Supply Drops and one for 50% HQ vulnerability op. By owning a middle spice field you should be in range at 10k hegemony of at least one HQ for a worm strike! Be sure to bring a donkey and set it up just outside the HQ so units low on hp can run there and heal up. It will be hectic especially on Insane as the AI will send a lot of units at you. Having 1-2 Feds to fend off the attackers helps a bunch. Here is the first HQ ready to fall. By snagging Economic Lobbying you can also create 2-3 Mercenaries very quickly to deal with rebels then disband them.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2809456413

Be sure to bring 2-3 skirmishers to reduce the armor on the building. Also be prepared for rebellions in your villages. Having just one Fedaykin with the +4 power buff and Sand Killers from counselor will be enough to hold off rebellions. However if you get two rebellions at a time like I did you might lose one village like I did :)

Final HQ down at just a tad over 9 months game time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810151898

Fremen hegemony strategy (singleplayer) (pre May 23rd patch)

Counsilors: Stilgar and Otheym or Mother Ramallo. Rebellions are toned down so Chani is not so great and you have to give up a large chunk of authority to cause a rebellion using her ability, but early rebellions are easily defeated. Mother Ramallo used to be a good choice but has been nerfed a bit. Still can be useful, but Otheym gives you more flexibility to go domination.

So far my fastest hegemony win is 25.08.10192 is with the Fremen. I just beat the previous mark I had with Smugglers. The date in the upper right corner is just a D/M/YYYY format. Each month is 30 days and there are 12 months to a year. I think in real-time that each day is 25 seconds but don't quote me on that.

Fremen, Harkonnen and Smugglers are a great choice for quick hegemony wins. My previous record was 28.08.10192 by a 1 spice village Smuggler game. Fremen have low spice tax, no airport expenses and the Bazaar building that we used for Domination is now used for +40% Choam Shares ops so each op is worth 700 points. Fremen typically start on the edge of the map and have a lot of authority to expand, especially with Stilgar. Using Mother Ramallo also unlocks the Shai-Hulud temple right away for %20 spice gains.

May 23rd update: Shai-Hulud temple is now only a 10% gain. The tech to access it is easier to get so Otheym is probably a better choice and allows more flexibility for a domination win in case you start out really close to your neighbors which seems to happen a lot more often since this patch. My quickest hegemony win is now with Harkonnen at 8 months and 4days and that wasn't even an ideal map. Under 8 months is doable with them. Fremen are still good but does require a weak military, lots of green tech and abusing NAP for early Hegemony wins.

Spice Hegemony, Advanced Engineering and Economic Lobbying are the key to getting as much solari income as possible. Also helps to snatch up Sietch Network in the diplo tree to build the Al-Gaib Temple.

Similar to the domination strategy we start out with a 1-slot Research Center to boost our research and follow that up with a 1-slot Bazaar to further reduce the time to research the economy, diplomatic and military trees. Then in a 3-slot build Choam Branch, Recycling Vats and destroy the Bazaar and rebuild it aside those two. This gives you the +40% boost to Choam Shares operation. Here is my HQ looked like in my win.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810915625

I just realized when I took that screenshot all my solari trade agreements had just expired. If I had remembered to keep those going my income would have been 1.3k and not 800. I think I remember peaking around +1.7k solari in that game. With Spectral Imaging I could have easily exceeded 2k.

Now the danger here is that your military isn't quite as strong as in a domination configuration so there is a lot of risk in taking the Polar Sink so you need to delay that as long as possible. It takes a lot of authority to take it anyway so no rush. Take as much territory as you can handle and hang on for the last 1/3 of the game as ♥♥♥♥ will hit the fan. I had so many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rebel ops thrown at me it wasn't funny. So I had to keep half of my rather not so great army behind to deal with it.

Fremen Hegemony Insane Victory In 9 Months Using Broken NAP (post May 23rd Patch)

Counsilors: Stilgar and Otheym

With a broken NAP, a Fremen hegemony win on Insane is easy within 10 months and even 9 months, but is also pretty boring :) You need two green techs fairly early: Lay of the Land and Dune Wanderers. You need to detect sietches as soon as possible and Lay of the Land helps with that. It also gives you one extra Arrakis agent to maximize your authority for aggressive expansion especially into the Polar Sink. Trading with 7 sietches requires a lot of water which is another reason you need a lot of green tech. Then when you hit 10k hegemony you need 5 water per Sietch to make the Terraforming buildings. You also need almost all the economy tech aside from Field Work to maximize your +solari income for Choam Shares ops, and a lot of blue tech on the left and right, especially on the left for Sietch Network. This will leave you with a weak military tree, but since NAP is so easy to get since the patch don't worry about fighting with anyone.

Your hegemony comes from Choam Shares ops + Regions + Ally Sietches + Terraforming.

Let's break this down:

Maximize water production with green tech Dune Wanderers for trading with sietches.

Maximize authority and sietch detection with green tech Lay of the Land and be aggressive and snatch as many spice fields as possible and the Polar Sink.

Full economy tree except Field Work

Lots of blue, left side for Sietch Network, right side for spies.

Still room for a little red but you won't be fighting because of broken NAP

You need to get to 10k hegemony within 6-7 months to start putting down Terraforming buildings in sietches so they have time to accumulate hegemony.

Delay NAP as long as you can get away with it since it will cost authority if not trading it with Duke.

If you have enough regions to build hegemony buildings then get the tech for it in green tree Outpost Logistics fairly early so it has time to work for you.

You need a 3-slot economy in HQ with one being Bazaar to get +700 per Choam Shares operation.

The game finished in a hair over 9 months:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2816935482

The tech tree:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2816942716

Will provide a more detailed description soon.

OP Harkonnen Insane Hegemony Wins In 8 Months Or Less.

Counsilors: Rabban and either Piter or Nefud. Piter is good for abusing NAP by sending droids with endless supply deep into the desert to gather hegemony POIS, else Nefud helps you with spamming 100/100 Combat Drug ops to keep the enemy off guard if you plan to fight most the game.

The Harkonnen are so utterly broken since the May 23rd patch it isn't funny. You can permanently oppress a village with Rabban for 150% production increase, just keep some units around to deal with rebellions. The first oppression is 200% production increase followed by a -50% penalty, but with Rabban you are able to oppress right as the first oppression wears off for a permanent 150% village production increase assuming you are not distracted by other things.

The short story: Rabban and oppression :) Get those spies generated as early as possible because at 10k hegemony you will be sacrificing captured and using your own spies for Choam Shares operation to reduce the cost to 2k solari. You should be able to get 25+ Choam Shares ops off in 8 months.

Here is an 8 month, 5 day game with just 3 spice fields using Piter and some NAP abuse to keep the Polar Sink and regions near it. This is without a single Craft Workshop. A couple of those and/or White Sands region for +15 Craft and breaking 8 months should be easy.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2817072332

Coming: More details and screenshots :)

How To Smuggle Your Way To Victory

Smugglers are difficult to master because of their squishy units, lack of any tech that allows 2 missile batteries per village and they always start 3 zones away from the Polar Sink. If you aren't careful and forget to keep neutral villages pillaged near you then you can end up with all 3 factions at your doorstep too early in the game. That is a recipe for disaster with early, squishy units. The two missile battery thing is a bit annoying, however if you capture a faction village that already built two of them then you keep both.

So you really need to be careful and try to keep as much open desert between you and your enemies. You will find the Fremen and Harkonnen advancing to the Polar Sink quite quickly and need to keep the neutral villages pillaged in those zones that are closest to your HQ.

Now on the plus side you get Underworld HQs which are really fun and have many uses. Since they cost authority you don't want to go too crazy from the start. I focus on the Fremen first since they expand quickly and can get you a 3-cluster with them before other factions. Using the counselor Staban Tuek is vital since each adjacent underworld HQ gets an additional +5 solari and you get .5 influence for each HQ. The second counselor is a tossup, but I usually go with Banerjee for the extra solari and plascrete from pillaging. Pillaging as a Smuggler not only nets you Hegemony but money to keep paying for more underworld HQs.

The first two slots I build in an Underworld HQ are Bootleg Market and Spyware. This will get your solari income and research going. Later I build a Whisperer's Lair in HQs that are far away from me. For HQs setup in villages close to me that I plan on attacking in the future, I leave the 2nd and 3rd slots for Back-Alley Doctor and Hidden Explosives. As long as you are on the bedrock of a village with Back-Alley Doctor your units will heal hp and supply.

It also helps to hotkey your first two ornithopters as well as your first units. I do this for all factions, but for Smugglers it is especially important to focus back and forth between your units and your second ornithopter that is searching for factions to setup HQs. I usually hotkey first orny as 1, second orny as 2 and my first two units as 3. I use orny2 to quickly find the Fremen which are usually NW of Smugglers.

It is very tempting to want to claim territory between your HQ and the Polar Sink, but don't do it. The key to surviving as Smugglers is to expand outward to the outer edge of the map while pillaging the zones close to the Polar Sink. You want to buy time and avoid conflict for as long as possible until you build up a lot of Intel, snipers, combat drones, a few wreckers and Free Company. Also the outer edges have high wind values of 4-6 instead of 1-2 near the Polar Sink.

More coming up..especially mid game war strategy.

More to come..

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2809136076

Spice addiction guide (over 200 hours played) for Insane difficulty