I thought it would be good to collect the old Dune/Dune Wars threads in one place. Then people (with a lot of time) can read the history of the mod and perhaps resurrect good ideas that may have got lost along the way.

As far as I can see the story begins here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=148315

After the project was picked up by Keldath and others it continues here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7995595

After Dune Wars version 1.0 was released and before the creation of this subforum, all the discussion was here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=321914

Good idea. We can also consider the "pre-history" of the Dune mod and related items.

Before this Dune mod, there was another one which never passed the thinking stage, called The Spice Must Flow:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=272838

Slightly before this Dune mod, there was a Modcast discussion about how cool a Dune mod would be. They're right, it's cool.

http://civcomm.weplayciv.com/polycast/modcast (http://civcomm.weplayciv.com/polycast/modcast/)

Or get the MP3 directly at this link (http://civcomm.weplayciv.com/polycast/modcast/season2/episode32.mp3). Discussion starts at about 5 min and continues to about 12 min.

Not exactly history, but recently I have been drawing a lot of ideas from the Dune Appendix reproduced here (http://www.indopedia.org/Dune_terminology.html).

Each time I re-read it I get at least a couple of ideas...

Version 1.3 was released on July 10 and as of early September, it had a little over 600 downloads.

There was a temporary diversion to a "mod mod" while we worked out some differences of opinion. The 1.4.x versions were released in a separate thread "A mod-mod: Dune Wars Reduced" in this forum, so there is no download count.

It's amazing what you find trawling these old abandoned Dune mod threads.

Here's a link to a PDF of all 708 pages of the out-of-print Dune Encyclopedia:
http://www.thedune.ru/duneenc/download/DUNE_ENCYCLOPEDIA.pdf

There's bound to be loads of interesting stuff in there.

Also, found another abandoned thread for a Civ3 mod, Dune:Fight for Arrakis:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=121203

1.5 was released on September 13, 2009 and had about 1500 downloads. It is also now available at moddb.com, which had about 300 downloads, and other mirror sites we may not even know about. The 1.5.4 and 1.5.5 patches each had over 400 downloads.

1.6 was released on October 20, 2009.

Dune Wars is six months old today!

Dune Wars 1.0 was released on the 23rd of May 2009. Looking back at screenshots like this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=216910&d=1244394138) helps you appreciate how far the mod has come.

Dune Wars 1.6 had its 2000th download today! The patches 1.6.3, 1.6.4, 1.6.5 have been downloaded over 500 times each.

Hard to know if its just 500 people downloading all the patches :-)

Still, seems like we're doing well! Probably ~1000 unique users.

Please note that each patch requires downloading the 1.6 release. So I feel we have 2000 unique users, who at least ran it once. Many of them are uninterested in the patches, but we have 500 "core" users who download every patch.

Ahh, I misunderstood. Yes, that sounds right.

Version 1.7 was released on December 13 and passed 1000 downloads December 31. (About 100 Steam users had downloaded a special zipfile version instead of the main installer. This is now fixed.)

Version 1.8 was released April 25, 2010.

Facts and figures on the last release:

Version 1.7
Civfanatics: 2783, ModDB: 891, StrategyInformer: 384, Fileplanet: 192

Version 1.7 for Steam
Civfanatics: 389, ModDB: 152

Total: 4791 downloads of 1.7 since December 13 2009

Patch 1.7.1
Civfanatics: 584 (includes 1.7.2 and 1.7.3 I think?), ModDB: 224, StrategyInformer: 240

There were definitely way over 1000 patches for Dune Wars 1.7 downloaded.

Music Pack
Version 1.7 - Released 23rd February 2010 - 384 downloads

Different modders use different ways to count downloads. Some mods put each new version or patch into the same download database entry, so one person could account for 10-20 downloads. I put each release and each patch into a separate download database entry. So 1.7.1, 1.7.2 and 1.7.3 each had separate download counts, each around 500. My read is that most people are "happy" with the main releases, so that's almost 5000 occasional players and 500 dedicated players.

Each time I re-read it I get at least a couple of ideas...

Write them down somewhere, or you'll be sad!

Happy Birthday to Dune Wars! One year old today...

(I hope it is okay to post this here...) 25 visitors (and me of course;)) on the Dune Wars sub-forum (the most I have ever seen at one time:))! Yes, (@ visitors) Dune Wars rocks. Please see screenshots thread and strategy discussion thread (you won't be sorry).

Dune Wars has had some good exposure since 1.8 was released, such as being picked up by blogs like Gnome's Lair (http://www.gnomeslair.com/2010/04/dune-wars-dune-mod-for-civ-iv.html) and User Created (http://usercreated.org/2010/05/18/still-hot-dune-wars-first-look/). Perhaps that's something to do with it...

Dune Wars has had some good exposure since 1.8 was released, such as being picked up by blogs like Gnome's Lair and User Created.

Very cool. Some high praise from those blogs; particularly for the artwork.

I think I may have also attracted a handful through posting in the Civ5 forum.

*edit*
Oh, just a thought; should we create a stickied "reviews" post with links to reviews that others have posted?

wow these blogs exposure are awesome!

I read the print magazine "PC Gamer" every month, and they had a short piece on Civ 4 mods in the October 2010 issue. They picked three mods to mention specifically, with a few lines about each one. They picked Planetfall, Fairy Tale, and ... Dune Wars! I feel proud to have worked on a mod which is mentioned in a print magazine. Good work, team!

wow!!! this have been my wish for a long time in civ4 modding world!

im so happy that im involved in such a thing, truly, you guys created one of the best looking mods,

i really hope we shall join again for dune wars in civ5.

Fantastic. Much kudos to all you guys.

I read the print magazine "PC Gamer" every month, and they had a short piece on Civ 4 mods in the October 2010 issue. They picked three mods to mention specifically, with a few lines about each one. They picked Planetfall, Fairy Tale, and ... Dune Wars! I feel proud to have worked on a mod which is mentioned in a print magazine. Good work, team!

In case it's just a few lines, could you please type what they said about those three mods? Or at least Planetfall and Dune Wars; Le Sage plans to buy the PC Gamer issue.

Was a picture of the mod included?

Here is a scan of the article.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=261491&d=1282407398

sweeeeeettt im so proud !

Cool Dune screenie with the sandworms. :) For Planetfall they somehow managed to find a to-year old screenshot though. o_0

Maniac,

nahh i think its cool enough! plus, plantfall is also first in the list.....:)

Awesome. That is really cool. I'm chuffed.

Well done to everyone who has contributed.

Cool Dune screenie with the sandworms. :) For Planetfall they somehow managed to find a to-year old screenshot though. o_0Well, it's the first attached image in the download thread... but that makes me sad, there's an elephant on it! Ah, well...

Still very, very cool to see it in a print magazine - ditto for seeing Dune Wars there, amazing! Nice that the mods get the publicity they deserve! :goodjob:

Cheers, LT.

Well, it's the first attached image in the download thread... but that makes me sad, there's an elephant on it! Ah, well...

Yeah, that is a bit unfortunate after all the fine work you've done on the Planetfall graphics. Still, if it encourages more people to download and play the mod then that's the main thing.

A thread about Dune Wars on Quarter-to-Three following the PC Gamer mention:
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=60953

hehe they all say - "how could we have missed that"....:)

hehe they all say - "how could we have missed that"....:)I think that's one of the best things of getting any mod into a print magazine - the majority of players is probably not even aware of the existence of mods, at least not straightaway after installing the game (nowadays, I'd say that a lot of CivIV players *have* heard of mods, because CivIV has been in circulation for quite a while and because of the inclusion of fan mods in BtS). Things like modding usually only spread by word-of-mouth; print magazines help a lot with that... and once they're aware that mods exist at all, people start trying out other CivIV mods as well! :D

CivV's in-built mod support is - hopefully - making modding a lot more popular as well! :)

Cheers, LT.

yap, every mod needs a god p"r, thats for sure.

many folks are not familiar with modding, so its defiantly needs to get some p"r.

i want civ5 to have dune wars :)

For those that might not have seen, Tom Chick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Chick) is writing a series on Dune Wars (http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/12/dune_wars_i_drink_your_water_i.php) for Fidgit.com. I provided him with some of the background history of the mod. More good exposure for Dune Wars. :)

This looks fantastic so far. Very good advertising for the mod - and written in a fun and engaging style.

I have to agree with Tom - the waterstealer's ability to consume nearby cities' water is a home run, yes, definitely a *feature*. Much better version than the 4 Str (non)waterstealer of doom running around before. :p

Tom's article was tweeted (http://twitter.com/SorenJohnson/statuses/14493255395708928) by Soren Johnson which is kind of cool...

wow! i dont believe this! dune wars got soren j' attention!

this makes me be so proud, deliverator, you just made my week. off course, you deserve most of the honor.

i cant stop praising you my friend.

Keldath, you, Deliverator and David all deserve huge credit (and Koma).

Very cool to get this picked up and noticed.

Once again I reiterate that this mod is great and you guys (the creators/contributors) deserve all the credit in the world for it.

Keep up the good work and have a good holiday!

Once again I reiterate that this mod is great and you guys (the creators/contributors) deserve all the credit in the world for it.

Keep up the good work and have a good holiday!

Hear hear! And I'm definitely one in the "how could I have missed that!" category. Particularly since every Civ 4 game after about my third involved a mod of some kind (BUG, at least)!

BUG, at leastPreaching to the choir. BUG is Awesome! (Please give a shout out to Emperor Fool AND Lemon Merchant + Ruff Hi (you glorious bastard!)).

Bang! 10,000 posts on the Dune Wars subforum!

We've finally edged out the Dune Wars MMORPG to be the top result for "dune wars" on Google.

Welcome back, Fremen scum! :scan:

We've finally edged out the Dune Wars MMORPG to be the top result for "dune wars" on Google.

ha! awesome i actually noticed it a few days a go i think!

welcome back deliverator!