Welcome to Dune Wars

Hello and welcome to Dune Wars. For those who are not familiar with Frank Herbert's epic Dune saga, this mod features a struggle between several factions based on family houses; such as the Imperial House Corrino, and a few organizations; such as the Spacing Guild who has a monopoly on space travel. They all fight to control one planet - Dune, Arrakis, a barren, dry, desert wasteland which is valuable for one reason alone- the spice melange. The spice has the universe addicted to it; it extends life, it allows for the Navigators of the the Spacing Guild to Foldspace, travel from here to there without moving. It's the basis for the economy and trade of the known universe. The spice is created by Sand Worms, giant creatures that live their whole life in the sand. The Imperium calls them Shaitan, the Demon while the Fremen call the Shai-Hulud, Great Maker. The worms may grow larger than 400 meters long.

The ruler of the royal House Corrino, the Emperor Shaddam IV Corrino, has given control of the planet Dune to all of the Noble Houses. He decided on this after the current House controlling Dune, House Harkonnen, failed to meet spice quotas. The Harkonnens protested it was not their fault, it was due to a mysterious Fremen Umma (Prophet) by the name of Muad'Dib who they hailed as their messiah. All of the Houses who could afford to land on Dune did so to be the next ruler of Dune. The Spice must flow, and whoever controls the Spice controls the universe.

Are you ready to become the sole ruler of Dune, and in turn, control the Universe?


Required:
Latest Version: 1.9.1
Current Patch: 1.9.6 (Release Notes)
Feedback? Post on the latest feedback thread here in the Dune Wars sub-forum.

Optional:
Dune Wars Music Pack

Documentation:
See the Dune Wars Concepts tab in the civilopedia



Play as your favorite characters from the books, and vanquish the characters you hate the most!



No game set on Dune would be complete without sandworms. Put out spotters to see them coming, or they will lay waste to your armies or spice harvesters and then vanish beneath the sand.



Explore the desert terrain using thopters. Sandstorms, wind traps, axlotl cloning tanks, Reverend Mothers and many other familiar elements from the books are important tactical elements in the game as well.



Combat between the knife-wielding Fremen and the sword-wielding elite Sardaukar is fast and bloody.



The artwork on many screens helps to increase your immersion into the desert environment.



Credits

Dune Wars mod team: deliverator, davidlallen, keldath, ahriman, ChrisAdams3997

Earlier contributors: koma13, slvynn, deon, johny smith, Ajidica, phoenician

Original all terrain transport code: Maniac

Original mercenary mod: TheLopez

Many units and buildings borrowed from other mods.

Here is patch 1.5.5. The main changes are to add the religion effects; include some great new unit and menu art from deliverator; and add a new homeworld reinforcement screen from koma13.

Download: main 1.5 release (this link), patch 1.5.5 (this link).

Religion system
* Added religion definitions from the religion design thread, posts 37-38. This changes all the religion buildings, starting techs, and unit definitions.
* Added religion civilopedia definitions to cover the material below.
* Relgion spread effects added:
+ Tleilaxu Supremacy religion appears automatically in any Tleilaxu city, and it is automatically removed if they lose the city. The Tleilaxu capital is automatically its holy city.
+ If a city is conquered by a player whose state religion is Mahdi, the Mahdi religion automatically spreads to that city.
+ If a religion spreads to a city, and Imperial religion is already there, then Imperial is removed.
+ If Qizarate religion spreads to a city, all other religions are removed from the city.
* The following civilization/religion combos are forbidden; the civ cannot found or convert to the religion:
+ Fremen cannot found/convert to: Imperial, Landsraad, Tleilaxu
+ Bene Gesserit cannot found/convert to: Landsraad, Tech, Tleilaxu
+ Corrino cannot found/convert to: Mahdi, Qiz, Tleilaxu
+ Atreides, Harkonnen, Ix, Ordos, Ecaz cannot found/convert to: Tleilaxu
+ Tleilaxu: cannot found/convert to any religion except Tleilaxu

Changes by deliverator
* New unit art! All the thopters are now winged units matching the scout thopter
* New main menu with animated planet and moons
* New version of the Arrakis mapscript, with new map options: Land Percentage, Grain, Noise, Donut Fatness and Minimum Inland Sea Size
* New leaderheads: Executrix (Ordos), Lady Fenring (Bene Gesserit), Princess Wensicia (Corrino); moved Alia to Atreides
* Revised scout thopter, now appears at proper altitude and scale in pedia and lower left viewport on main screen
* New background for air units in civilopedia viewport
* Added homeworld planet graphics for Wallach IX and Ix, added descriptive text
* Renamed eras with stages of life in Dune terminology
* New religion sounds

Other changes
* Version 2.05 of homeworld screen by koma13, with heighliner animation. Caution: slightly experimental, clicking on this animation while it runs may hang your machine.
* Several unexpected improvements carried irrigation: Wind Trap and Insect Farm; several unexpected improvements required irrigation: Desert Plantation and Insect Farm. (AHR34)
* A plot may get a terraform upgrade if it has fresh water and the owner is following the Arrakis Paradise civic. The chance of each plot upgrading is now 1% + (0.2% * #catchbasins owned) + (0.5% * #reservoirs owned)
* Game speed now affects rate of spice decay, terraform upgrade and Atreides unit production (KO11)
* Arrakis Transformation technology now requires Desert Industry instead of Sand Farms, which effectively moves it much deeper into the tech tree and makes the terraforming victory harder.
* Desalination now requires Desert Industry tech instead of Water Transportation (AHR35)
* Cottages no longer allowed on salt. (They were allowed in any sink terrain.)
* Changes to Mentat unit. It does not do anything new yet, but there are promotions limited to mentats, and each mentat has one randomly selected promotion. See the mentat mechanic thread for the future plan.

Bug fixes
* Removed mastery victory. There are several implementation problems with this; it prevents the victory condition screen from appearing due to a python exception, and prevents other victory conditions from being achieved. Many first-time players have run into this. Understanding the reason for the exception and the prevention is hard; removing the victory condition is much easier.
* Fixed problem where all the interface text was missing for a non-English installation language. (Missing language tags in several non-DW xml text files)
* Fixed problem with force shield turning huge, when Oracle of Hajra is built. Used different building graphic (shrine of ki instead of enlil).
* Fixed problem occuring for one player but not others, with a python alert appearing for the homeworld screen: "File MercenaryUtils, line 190, in isInvalidEra: AttributeError: NoneType object has no attribute getEra". Changed "range(4)" in MercenaryUtils.py to "range(3)" in two places.
* Fixed problem where espionage actions were allowed for units loaded in transports
* Fixed problem where Imperial Militia, House Corrino UU, could not be built

Version 1.6 is released. See the first post in the thread for download details. This release has a large number of changes. The five key changes are:

* Fremen foot units now ride sandworms in the desert! It looks really cool.
* In the early game, you need a larger variety of techs to get a good water yield; expansion should be a little slower but the mid game should be the same.
* The behavior weights for all the AI leaders have been adjusted. Wars should be a lot more common.
* On the Arrakis mapscript, bonus placement has been adjusted, and there are no more big chunks of mesa.
* The religion system was added in 1.5.5 and a lot of small playtest tweaks have been made.

Here are the details.

Graphics changes
* Sandrider unit art! Units with the sandrider promotion automatically switch artwork to show up as a sandrider when moving into desert terrain. Art by deliverator. SDK changes suggested by FFH team and deliverator.
* Full set of new promotion and unitcombat icons (by Slvynn)
* New gamefonts file: religion and resource font characters now match icons (by Slvynn)
* New carryall units (by deliverator)
* In homeworld screen, new animation featuring a Spacer Guild navigator (by koma13)
* New Atreides Palace (by Deon)
* Replaced about 10 of the worst building buttons with new ones
* Added flier to spaceport building (by Deon)
* Change Harkonnen player color to red

Building changes
* Renamed Aerial Bay world wonder to Pilot School, Atreides UB for Aerie
* Changed Great Processor to remove global GP penalty, add +1 beaker per city following the religion, and changed beaker bonus to +25% (AHR45)
* All buildings with thinking machine unhappiness are destroyed when a city is captured
* Landsraad Embassy used to give +2 trade routes to all cities, now it doesn't.
* All of the religion temples require the same tech as founding the religion. Even if the religion spreads to you, you must research the tech to build the building.
* Imperial Palace now gives +1 culture per city instead of +1 gold; now gives +1 gold per nobleman (removed from fiefdom) (AHR48)
* Deleted observatory: extra +25% beakers not really needed

Unit changes
* Reduced strength of bladesman from 6 +10% city attack, to 5 +25%. Reduced hardened bladesman from 8 +20% to 7 +25%. The attack strength is not decreased much but they are more vulnerable to quads.
* Reduced cost of Mahdi Zealot (was Mahdi Fighter) from 40 to 30. It already did not have military support costs, and removing war weariness requires extracting some FFH code (AHR38).
* Added popup so human player can select specialty for Mentat. The specialties still don't do anything yet.
* Renamed Hawk Thopter to Vulture, added Atreides UU Hawk Thopter
* Suspensor Transport changed to defensive only, cargo capacity 3. This unit will no longer suicide after dropping off its cargo (AHR23).
* Removed Guerilla I,II promotions. The terrain they apply to is sink, which does not make much sense. The mesa terrain does not have any sdk hook for promotions since it is "peak" in vanilla. In the future we may add this hook.
* Increased cost of Qizarate missionary from 40 to 100; it functions as an inquisitor. Eliminated prerequisite building.
* Fixed bug, Fremen scouts popped from goody huts were missing the sandrider promotion

Civilization changes
* New behavior values for AI leaders. The old values for declaring war were very low; the AI civs should declare wars much more often now. (design by Ahriman)
* Removed Atreides Draft unique ability
* About five civs had a free initial worker. This is a little too powerful; replaced them with soldiers
* Fremen got two free initial scouts; this lets them scoop up goody huts. Changed one to a soldier. Also changed one initial technology from Mysticism to Desert Survival (AHR11).

Tech tree changes
* Reduce early game water surplus without affecting mid game:
+ Dropped shallow well yield by 1 water, add it back at desert engineering
+ Dropped windtrap yield by 1 water, add it back at arrakis habitation
+ Moved the +1 water for windtraps from sandfarms to desert industry.
+ Dropped dew collector yield by 1 water, add it back at desert plantation
+ Moved deep wells from climate controls to water discipline.
+ Cut the yield of all plantations by 2c, add it back at sand farms
* Some tech flags were placed randomly: move open borders and centers world map to Dune Topography and increase cost; move gold trading to protected trade; move vassal states to imperialism; move tech trading to education and increase cost; move culture rate slider to Law of Arrakis.
* Harsh Conditioning now requires Fanaticism since Hardened Bladesman should come after Bladesman.
* Removed tech requirements to connect bonuses. This is the TechCityTrade xml field, displayed as "(enables)" in the pedia entry. For example, nitrates required Desert Industry to connect, leading to an incorrect report (AHR39) that nitrates on peak were not connecting.
* Merged Sayyadinas tech into Faith
* Moved trade connection on rock and graben to exploration instead of desert trade to prevent icons from overflowing container box in tech chooser.
* Moved dew collectors to desert survival and added mining as a prerequisite for water transportation, to spread out first level tech choices
* Increased the beaker cost of arrakis habitation by ~20%.

Map changes
* In arrakis mapscript, thinned out mesas so that there is never a 2x2 block
* Retuned bonus distribution. Less clustering, fixed problem where no insect farm related bonuses were being placed on arrakis mapscript (by deliverator)
* Reorganized arrakis mapscript options; you can make the pole area larger (by deliverator)
* Arrakis mapscript used to recompute starting positions; remove this to let original functions do it. Fewer start positions on mesa (by koma13)

Miscellaneous changes
* Added civilization-specific diplomacy sounds to main release, previously in music pack; increases download size by about 20 MB.
* Cottage and turbine can no longer be built on mesa. This uses a new xml tag on improvements, bPeakMakesInvalid. Going forward we may rebalance solar farm, turbine and mine.
* Homeworld screen version 2.06 (by koma13):
+ Linked unit icons to civilopedia, click on it to open dedicated unit page
+ Can't select units anymore when short of money
+ Units in the pool automatically upgrade to their higher tier version (if available) when player advance to new era
+ Units in the pool can now be from last era, but only if no higher tier version is availabe in current era
+ Fixed bug preventing siege units from showing up in unit pool
+ Elite units get now 8xp
+ Made refresh rate of unit pool more dynamic
* Added pedia text for about 20 entries (by wanderinronin08 and connery)
* Fixed one more text string which said "UN" instead of "Landsraad"
* Changed era titles again, added one word English descriptions
* Renamed about 6 religion buildings, renamed Tleilaxu Supremacy religion to Tleilaxu Zensufism
* Not user visible: renamed 20 building directories and 50 unit directories to match their current unit name

Sadly, version 1.6 has a major bug, which is likely to cause a crash on startup for the arrakis mapscript. Please apply the attached patch for version 1.6.1. I am about to change the main download to contain a full release of 1.6.1. If you have already downloaded 1.6, please apply this patch. If you have not downloaded 1.6, what you are about to download is 1.6.1 which has the patch already applied.

dune wars 1.6.2 released - only for testing for now.

done in this version:

* merged revdcm 2.6 by glider and jdog5000
see here complete list of features: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=262937
* deleted unused sdk and python codes.
* added in the menu sound from the sound pack.
* reorgenized the module folder.
* merged 1.6.1 patch
* added a fix by koma13 to homeworld python error on late era's.


koma13, davidlallen and caphelo,

i hope you guys can take a look on the sdks that you previously added codes into them, so ill know everything is in place.


i have play tested on ai over 400 turns, without a glitch or a python error, thanks again for koma13 for the quick fix.

plz write the feedbacks on the 1.6 report forum.

keldath.

Version 1.6.3 is released. See the first post in the thread for download details. You can install this over 1.6.1 or any of the local 1.6.1.letter patches. If you have a 1.6 install executable, please discard it and install 1.6.1 first.

The key changes are adding unique units for Ecaz, improving the in-game documentation popups, and a number of small bug fixes and graphical improvements.

Ecaz UU
* Added Elaccan Gladiator, UU for Ecaz; replaces Hardened Bladesman, strength 10, dies after any combat.
* Ecaz now controls Semuta unique resource instead of Slig.
* Ecaz UU, Smuggler, has trade mission with 1/10 value of great merchant.

Documentation changes
* When you build a landing stage, you get a popup to select which offworld trade contract you should receive. The choices now have hover help to tell you what benefits each contract gives.
* Added hover help for unique resources to show the controlling civilization, civilization unique abilities, and unique classes such as Atreides Heir and Axlotl Tank.
* Multiple popups ("Congratulations! You have built your first Archer!") used to appear if advisor popups were enabled when you built a worker, now they don't.
* Removed some leftover vanilla text from civics, such as slavery; replaced with "Stub text" messages for now (SL03).
* Corrected name of Kindjal contract to Ginaz Training contract.
* Improved description of relationship between fresh water and spice in the Dune Wars Concepts tab of the civilopedia.

Changes by deliverator
* Patch 1.6.1c (release note)
* Patch 1.6.1d (release note)
* Patch 1.6.1e (release note)
* New sandstorm and spice blow graphics, using particles.
* More detailed textures for sandworm and worm rider (by Slvynn and deliverator)

Building and unit changes
* Increased hammer cost for most early game units (design by Ahriman).
* Reinforcement screen offered units requiring resources you don't have, now it doesn't (by koma13).
* When you captured the headquarters of a spice corporation, you used to double your spice income; now you don't (AH117, AHR60).
* The Bene Gesserit did not get their UB version of the palace, so Reverend Mothers could never be built; now they get it (GE01).
* The Reverend Mother training ability only worked if the owner was Bene Gesserit; now it works for any civ (GE02).
* Thinking machine buildings (automated factory, computerized research center) now only give unhappiness to city instead of continent (AHR61).
* Reduced chance of Harkonnen to generate slave to 50%.
* Infiltrator unit can now acquire Suspensor Travel promotion allowing movement on desert waste and deep desert terrain.

Miscellaneous changes
* Modified flavor values for leaders and techs; each leader should now research more appropriate technologies (design by Ahriman).
* If spice is destroyed by fresh water appearing nearby, remove harvester (AHR10).
* Cities are now named differently: Each civ's capitol and all Fremen cities have a fixed list of names; all other city names are picked off a global list of 100 place names (concept by Fenring, names by Deliverator).
* Change starting techs for Ix to Water Conservation + Mining, and Tleilaxu to Mysticism + Exploration (DV24).
* Small changes to religion spread rates (by Ahriman).
* Replaced about ten tech icons (by Slvynn).
* Religious victory now only requires 80% of religion instead of 100%.
* Removed "lapping waves" sound from many features (by deliverator)

Ok found this mod, now to take a look to see what is happening. Hi Keldath.

Version 1.6.4 is released. See the first post in the thread for download details. You can install this over 1.6.1 or 1.6.3. The key changes are a new method for assigning starting plots on the arrakis mapscript, a number of new Unique Units and Unique Buildings, and great new artwork for the religion buildings by Slvynn.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 Usage
Many vista and windows 7 users have reported problems with a crash during the early game loading stage while "init xml" is displayed. You can work around this problem by right clicking the game shortcut and selecting "Run as Administrator". This patch contains a solution for the problem, but for now you must take two manual steps after you install the patch.
1. Locate the mod install directory, such as Program Files\Civilization 4\Beyond The Sword\Mods\Dune Wars. Underneath that, go into the directory assets\module, and find directory interface. Delete the entire interface directory, including all subdirectories.
2. Locate your user game directory, such as My Documents\My Games\Beyond The Sword. Underneath that, create a new directory Dune Wars. All of the game initialization files will now be written here.

New features
* New method for assigning starting plots on Arrakis mapscript. Should improve separation between civs and placement of AI initial cities. Has no effect on Arhipelago mapscript; has no effect on city placement apart from capital city.
* AI now understands that initial Fremen units such as settler and warrior can move on all terrain. Fremen AI civs should now expand better in the early game.
* Redefined Terraforming victory condition. No longer requires 7 Reservoirs of Liet. Instead, you win when 3% of the total planet area is terraformed within your cultural borders. When the first player reaches 1%, a popup appears to warn about the potential victory. The AI seems less interested in pursuing this victory, despite high AIWeights on the catchbasin and reservoir buildings.
* Mentat unit. Each mentat unit has a specialty, and acts as a city governor to give large bonuses to a city. The mentat functions even better if the city has access to Sapho Juice. See the mentat civilopedia entry for more details.

New Unique Units and Unique Buildings
* There are a lot of changes in this area. You can get a summary of the current UU,UB, Unique Abilities, and Unique resources by looking at the hover help for each civilization in the pedia. (This is not new, but it is helpful.)
* Atreides UU, Atreides Heir, has been removed. The inspiration idea is now moved to a Bene Gesserit UU, Kwisatz Haderach, with a world limit of 1. In an upcoming release, we will add a line of "potential" Kwisatz Haderachs with increasing combat power.
* Bene Gesserit UU, Sayyadina, gets Weirding Way training method of Reverend Mother. Reverend Mother becomes a basic spy unit, but we will add unit-specific spy missions in an upcoming release.
* Corrino UB, Selamlik, Tribunal which grants -50% war weariness
* Corrino UU, Laza tiger, replaces Master Guardsman. Hidden nationality, bonus against melee and guardsman units, penalty against city attack. Intended to roam other players' territory and pick off isolated units.
* Ecaz UB, Sculptors Garden, replaces Mushtamel which grants +1 trade route
* Ecaz UB, Smugglers' Haven. Functions as Landing Stage, so Ecaz can lock in 4 offworld contracts.
* Harkonnen UU, Inkvine Regiment, replaces Heavy Trooper with higher strength, no city defense bonus, and +25% vs melee
* Ordos UU, Trike, replaces Quad with +1 movement and +20% withdraw
* Ordos UU, Chemical Trooper, replaces Grenade Trooper with strength 4 (less) but +100% vs guardsman and melee, plus more collateral damage
* Ordos UU, Saboteur, replaces Spy. In this release, there is no difference; but we will add unit-specific spy missions in an upcoming release.
* Tleilaxu UU, Face Dancer, replaces Spy. In this release, there is no difference; but we will add unit-specific spy missions in an upcoming release.
* Spice Worker: requires Spice Industry civic, +50% work rate, can only build harvesters.

Graphics changes
* Great new building art for all religions buildings and some other buildings, put all the proper religion art into the building icons (by slvynn)
* Added terrain-specific suffixes to city names (by deliverator)
* New unit art for Mahdi Zealot and Qizarate Priest (by deliverator)
* New civilization select and order sounds (by deliverator)
* New baradye bonus graphic, new anchor grass terrain, fixed missing grid lines in other terrains (by deliverator)
* Fixed landing stage popup help for Caladanian Wine; it gives happiness, not health (DV28).
* Removed siege tower graphics on certain city attacks (GE06)
* Moved Paul leaderhead from Atreides civilization to Fremen, to spread out the leaders a little more.
* Rename some technologies: Spacing Guild => Frigate Transportation, CHOAM => Guild Banking, Kindjal Blades => Assault Doctrine, Theocracy => Divine Mandate
* Merged code from EmperorFool which allows an image to be placed in event popups. So far the only popup which uses it is the Mentat specialty selector.
* Added text to each religion civilopedia entry to cross-reference which buildings and units are available; added hint and Dune Wars Concepts reference to guide players to find it.

Bug fixes
* Shift key would cause assert from updateHelpStrings, now it does not. Removed small section of setPlotHelp() from JCulturalControl mod.
* If you had two landing stages finish on the same turn, you would only get one popup to choose an offworld trade contract. Now you get one for each landing stage (SL09)
* (Re) fixed problem where heavy carryall movement flags were set incorrectly (GE07)
* Changed cost of Landing Stage from 1 to 150. When debugging I often make an item super-cheap so I can build it fast; looks like I forgot to change it back.
* Deleted "Desert Dock" building. It was a repainting of the "drydock" building for naval unit construction. But, it applies to thopters, suspensor, and carryalls, which is a weird collection. It makes more sense to delete the building. (GE04)
* The Tleilaxu Zeusufism religion is founded automatically, but the tech chooser screen showed it as founded by Genetic Manipulation. Removed this from tech chooser by adding an invisible (offscreen) tech for this (SL01).
* When a Harkonnen unit creates a slave due to a combat win, the slave now appears on the winner's plot, not the loser's plot. This may fix a reported issue where an AI Harkonnen unit attacks the player, wins, and the player's stack mysteriously teleports outside the Harkonnen borders (DV29)
* Adjusted weights that the AI gives to trade resources. Should reduce likelihood of bad trades, like spice for 2 gold per turn.
* For plots which are mesa, force the underlying terrain to rock. This prevents the bug where some mesa plots are +50% defence and some are +25% (GE05).

Version 1.6.5 is released. See the first post in the thread for download details. You can install this over any of the 1.6.x releases. The key changes are stronger spy units, a new set of projects for creating the Kwisatz Haderach, and a number of small tuning and bug fix changes.

Spy Abilities

* All spy type units now have 2 moves and start with suspensor travel for double movement on desert; this enables them to travel to other continents. Even though spies may be trained without the Suspensor Devices tech, consider it as a small single person craft, not suitable for transporting armies.
* Spy promotions changed: removed Logistics line, removed Improvisation 4, 5; doubled strength of Improvisation 1, 2, 3; renamed Fish Speaker line to Poisoner
* The three spy UU have unique promotion lines: Poisoner is only available to Face Dancer; new promotion Diplomat 1, 2, 3 is only available to Reverend Mother; new promotion Sabotage 1, 2, 3 is only available to Saboteur.
* Assassination mission now requires Poisoner promotion, and therefore is only available to Face Dancers
* Reverend Mother has access to a Force Friendship espionage mission, which causes the target civilization to receive a permanent +1 diplomatic bonus.

Unit changes
* Bene Gesserit now has a line of four breeding projects to produce Kwisatz Haderach units of increasing power. See the pedia project list for details. Completing each project will create one free unit, but it is irreplaceable.
* Hornet bomber missions were mixed up. All three now have access to all missions, except I removed port bombing since it does not make sense for DW.
* Increased intercept chance for wasp and locust hornets from 10%, 30% respectively to 70%.
* Suspensor Destroyer now has 30% aircraft interception chance
* Deleted Bee Sting trooper, specific AT role was too weak
* Ordos Saboteur did not receive its 1 XP per turn; now it does.
* Corrino UU Laza Tiger now has -50% against vehicles and thopters (SL18)
* Missile troopers used to be able to shoot down air units while loaded in a transport; now they cannot.
* Due to sandworms' random motion, they may be trapped in tight areas. Each sandworm now has a 3 percent chance of dying each turn. The total number of sandworms is kept constant, so a new one will spawn in deep desert.
* Inquisitor unit could not be built without Water Of Life tech, now it can
* Fremen missionaries of Shai-Hulud and Qizarate now start with the Sandrider promotion
* Added Atreides UU Bee, replaces Wasp with slightly longer range and better intercept

Other changes
* Homeworld reinforcement screen contained units for which the player did not have the required offworld resources; now these units are excluded. This bug was introduced in 1.6.2 when I removed TechCityTrade flags from resources.
* The Smuggler's Haven UB for Ecaz was too powerful. It could be built in the same city as a Landing stage for a huge trade bonus, and four contracts is too many. The building is now named Ecazi Landing Stage. Ecaz can build three of these but cannot build any regular Landing Stages. So only three contracts are possible and the buildings cannot stack.
* Force Shield building used to give +75% defense and bombard defense to get 100% invulnerability; now gives only +50%
* Forts can no longer be built outside cultural borders. This may cause some complaint; the AI does not do this very well, but the human player can use it a lot. Fixing the AI would be better, but hard. This may reduce the gap between high human commerce rates and lower AI commerce rates.
* Leaderheads: added Mechanized trait, re-arranged traits for most leaderheads; added second leaderhead for Ix, Ecaz and Tleilaxu. So far the second Ix leader is just a copy of the first, and so forth, except for art and traits.
* Several players have commented that they are able to kill sandworms easily. At lower difficulty levels, each human player was granted a number of automatic wins against animals, and animals had a significant attack penalty. Removed the animal penalties at all difficulty levels. If sandworms become too much of a problem for new players, we can put some back.
* Added new culture level breakpoints, slightly larger cultural borders and slightly lower city cultural defence (by Ahriman)
* A spice blow would create spice adjacent to fresh water tiles, now it will not (GE03: incorrect python, not due to CvPlot::isFreshWater)
* Weirding Way tech was after lasguns; moved to after Water of Life. Moved lasgun trooper from weirding way to plasteel, which was kind of empty.

Graphics and documentation changes
* New unit graphics for Ordos Trike UU, heavy trooper, lasgun soldier, and lasgun trooper (by deliverator)
* New unit graphics for Laza Tiger, Saboteur, Face Dancer (by slvynn)
* New action button and promotion button graphics (by slvynn)
* Civilopedia entry for Liet-Kynes was a duplicate of Stilgar, now it isn't (SL17)
* Renamed Water Discipline tech to Planetary Ecology, Landsraad tech to High Council. Having two items such as tech and civic with the same name confuses the links in the pedia
* Lasgun trooper used to have tank sound and trail, now it doesn't
* Suspensor and vehicle unit help said they cannot move into mesa, but they can; removed the help. Someday, maybe, we may fix the bug which allowed them to move into mesa, but at least now the documentation matches the behavior.
* Fixed some text which mentions water: Exploration tech "Can Work Water Tiles", Weather Scanner "+1 hammer to water tiles" (SL15)
* Added short strategy entries for most of the units.

This looks really cool! I should look into the book series as well...

Downloading as I type. I checked the screenshots and.... awesome.

D/Ling now. Hadn't updated for sometime. Many changes and enhancements.

JosEPh

I'm amazed! Great work!

thank all for the replies

Version 1.7 is released. See the first post in the thread for download details. Please *delete* or *rename* your previous Dune Wars installation directory. The installer, unfortunately will not do this for you. The key changes are a complete rewrite of the Wonders; updating to latest versions of RevDCM, BBAI, BUG and BULL; and gameplay changes to increase the difference in play styles between the civs.

Wonder rewrite by deliverator
* See this post for the design spreadsheet
* See this post for the first release note.
* See this post for the second release note.

Internal changes
* Updated to the latest version 2.61 of RevDCM, version 0.82 of Better BTS AI, and version 4.2 of BUG with version 1.0 of BULL (ported after extensive work by keldath). There are a number of gameplay and interface changes in these. You may easily spot the "Show Hidden Attitude" diplomacy mod and the "Building Actual Effects" city screen mod.
* New installer automatically creates UserSettings directory under My Documents\My Games\Beyond The Sword\Dune Wars so Vista and Windows 7 users no longer need to run as administrator (by phungus420)
* Added Lead From Behind modcomp (by UncutDragon, merged by keldath)
* Hid "Choose Religions" game option. The code is still there but it defaults to "off" and does not appear in the game options screen.

Civilization diversity changes
* Previously both Technocracy religion and the Ixian civilization specialized in Thinking Machines. Now Ixians specialize in vehicles.
* Renamed Ixian unique resource from Thinking Machines to Ixian Weaponry
* Removed Ixian UB for Automated Factory and Computerized Research Center
* Added Ixian UB, Skunkworks, gives small bonus to research and also reduces upgrade cost for any unit in city by 50%
* Redesigned Ixian mech units:
+ New strength, tech prereq, and abilities for all; see the civilopedia
+ Created new mech unitcombat, very similar to vehicle; able to obtain additional promotions like March and Shock
* Added new promotions:
+ Ixian: +10% combat, +10% withdrawal. Granted by Mechanized trait to vehicle, walker, suspensor, thopter unitcombats.
+ Sensor Array: +1 first strike chance, +1 visibility. Requires Ixian.
+ Self Repair: +25% repair rate in every territory. Requires Ixian.
+ Point Defense: Immune to first strike, -75% collateral damage. Requires Ixian.
+ Adaptive: +50% to all experience. Requires Ixian.
* The Atreides civilization can no longer build infiltrators. However, the Atreides Palace generates 1.5x more espionage per turn, and the new Duke's Bench UB generates 2x more espionage than the base Tribunal. This represents Atreides honesty and loyalty.
* Added two units for Atreides: Ducal Guard, same level as Master Guardsman; and Ducal Trooper, same level as Lasgun Trooper. Each unit is about 25% stronger and has a national limit of 4.
* Fremen can now capture any unit in the vehicle unitcombat such as quads or scorpions, but cannot build any. This is similar to capturing a slave, but only for the vehicle unitcombat, and the new unit is the same unitclass as the defeated unit.
* Added Fremen Raider unit as replacement of Roller, strength 11, move 2, 25% withdrawal chance

Minor gameplay changes
* Re-enabled "whip" (hurry population) for the slavery civic. Previously the AI whipped way too much, driving its population into the ground. With BBAI 0.82 this is less, and I have removed one reason to use it ("bad tiles"). Now the difference in total pop is very small for the AI. (SL11)
* Changed Unique Resources. Semuta and Slig are now unique to House Ecaz. Pundi Rice is reduced to +1 health; Opafire, Soostone, and Caladanian Wine are reduced to +1 happiness; wine is no longer restricted to House Atreides.
* Added promotions Ginaz Training I,II: requires Combat II, each adds +20% strength and +20% experience to melee units. Requires access to Ginaz Training offworld resource. Ginaz I automatically granted to Swordmaster unit.
* Thumper promotion now attracts sandworms and disperses them harmlessly
* Deleted Sabotage II,III and Diplomacy II,III promotions; will re-add when they do something.
* Margot of Bene Gesserit leader now favors espionage
* Master Scytale traits were phi/pro, now phi/cre
* Renamed Creative trait to Political and increased culture per turn boost from 2 to 3 (AHR82)
* New AI personality values for leaders Goya, Rhombur, Prad added in 1.6.5 and updated values for other leaders (by Ahriman)
* Player anarchy and convert city spy actions now cost 5x more
* Slightly changed culture levels for each cultural border ring (by Ahriman)
* KH Precursor used to give +25% combat strength, now it only gives +10%
* Reverend Mother used to require Water of Life tech, now it requires Academies
* Laza Tiger was not "always hostile" before, now it is
* Spice Worker used to move 2, now moves 3
* Windtrap used to grant 2 commerce, now grants 0
* Spice feature used to cost 2 movement points, now only costs 1
* Re-sorted units in the xml so that all units of the same unitcombat appear together, lowest strength to highest strength.

Version 1.6.5 and 1.7 have a hang bug, which may occur in the late game when Bene Gesserit has two units of the Kwisatz Haderach line in play. Please see this post for the patch 1.7.0.3 to fix it. If you have 1.6.5, you should upgrade to 1.7 anyway; please don't apply the 1.7.x patches over 1.6.x or something weird will happen.

Please see the first post in the thread for download details. You can install this over the 1.7 release. If you installed using the 1.7 *zip* file, please download the 1.7 installer for Steam, which should work for you, and re-install 1.7 with that first. It is the same stuff, but the 1.7 installer sets a registry variable which is needed by the 1.7.1 patch installer.

Merged previous small patches
* 1.7.0.4: release note
* 1.7.0.5: release note (by deliverator)
* 1.7.0.6: release note
* Main points to note from these patches:
+ New colony site selection algorithm. In several test games, this dramatically increased the total AI population, by like 30%.
+ Previously, to get commerce income from Spice, you would build a House Spice Corporation building and found a corporation. This is no longer needed; instead, each palace building automatically gives +3 commerce per Spice resource connected.
+ In the 1.7.0.2 patch, I added a capability for the AI to unload transports on land if there is any threat; but it frequently causes a hang, so this is removed from 1.7.1.
+ Bene Gesserit city conversion espionage mission seriously nerfed

Unit changes
* New graphics for rocket trooper, now with real rockets! (by deliverator)
* Changed tech prerequisite for Walker mech unit from Solid Fuel to Low Energy Vehicles; previously it was already obsoleted by the next mech unit.
* Reduced strength of Ixian Spider unit from 14 to 13
* Increased cost of Ixian Tarantula from 170 to 250
* Sayyadinas can now only give promotions to melee and guard units, and the promotions add a level. There is no cap but a unit which gets free promotions this way will take a long time to gain additional levels.
* Homeworld screen will no longer *add* a unit which would exceed a national limit. This is better but not perfect. If the unit is already in the homeworld list, then you build the maximum, you can still purchase the unit and exceed the national limit.
* Harkonnen slaves were not created properly upon capture since Fremen vehicle capture feature was introduced.
* Mentats built by the human player were giving a military benefit regardless of their actual specialty.
* Reduced Fremen Raider UU to strength 10, moved to Desert Industry, renamed to Razzia Raider.
* Reduced Roller to strength 9, raised withdraw chance to 25%.
* Siege units now get the Home Ground promotion when they start a turn inside their own cultural borders (AHR94).

Minor gameplay changes
* Changed Holy War victory to only require 40% of land instead of 50%, and changed Religious victory to only require 70% of religious influence. Otherwise both of these are too close to a full conquest victory.
* Arrakis mapscript now rejects start locations which are very close or very far from the (central) polar region
* Open water terraforming feature did not allow improvements or cities to be built.
* In cases such as scenario maps, previously each time the map is loaded more rock features were added. Now, if any such features exist, no more will be placed.
* Enabled founding cities on salt flat terrain. It is usually a bad idea; but there could be excellent terrain around it.
* Reduced hammer bonus of deep mine and core mine. Previously a core mine on stravidium gave 14 hammers! Now it gives 10.
* Moved Mushtamel / Sculptor's Garden building to Adaptive Agriculture instead of Water Transportation; seems too early in tech tree to grant +2 health
* Ixian Skunkworks building used to give -50% upgrade cost to a human player (by design) and something like -95% for the AI (due to a bug); both human and AI should now get only -25%
* Automated factory/research center now give +40% hammers/beakers respectively, instead of 25%, and removed leftover entry for having access to power
* If a tech was researched by a civ that could not found the corresponding religion, the religion would be granted to a random civ; now the religion stays available until an appropriate civ researches the tech.
* Corrected about eight techs which belonged to the wrong era, based on their X position in the tech chooser. This incorrectly allowed early access to advanced units in the homeworld screen.
* Replaced Earth historian names with Dunish ones in the "Top Civilizations" popup

Please see the first post in the thread for download details. You can install this over the 1.7 release; this also contains the 1.7.1 patch, so it does not matter if you have the 1.7.1 patch installed or not.

As you may notice, it has been more than two months since the last patch, where the previous frequency had been every two weeks or so. Blame "Dragon Age: Origins".

Changes:

* Many players have reported a crash or hang at different stages of the game. Several save-game files were submitted, and they all had the same cause. A modcomp for "multiple production" was merged in and it seems to change gameplay in a bad way, even when the option is switched off. This patch removes the code for that modcomp. The submitted save-games all run correctly now. It is possible that there may be some second problem causing crashes or hangs; but I hope this fixes the majority of them.

* In 1.7 and previous, each spice harvester improvement added to your total commerce because of the House Spice Corporation, a standard corporation which converts spice to commerce. In 1.7.1 I added a different way to convert spice into commerce, with a new xml tag on buildings. However, the AI did not recognize this and mostly lost interest in building harvesters. One good solution would be to have the AI make decisions based on this new xml tag. But, I could not figure out how to do that. So, in this patch I have put back the spice corporations.

* Includes deliverator's 1.7.1.1 patch; see its release note.

* Each leader now gives a higher weight to researching the tech for its favorite religion. This uses new flavor values in the leaderhead file. The idea was suggested by Lone_wolf and implemented by Ahriman.

* During 1.7.1 testing I accidentally disabled a function which is called when cities change hands. As a result, Mahdi religion was not spreading properly. It is supposed to spread into a city whenever the city is conquered by a civ which follows Mahdi. This is now working correctly again.

* When advisor popups are enabled, a cascade of messages like "Congratulations! You have built your first archer!" used to appear. Now they don't. Fix by orlanth.

* New terrain buttons by Pickly

* New leaderhead picture for Malky of Ix, by deliverator

* Carryalls now ignore terrain costs

* Diamonds no longer give a happiness bonus

I think 1.7.2 should be pulled and 1.7.1 put back as the current.
1.7.2 is unplayable with the spice firm not able to be built, the AI gets to build it and they get a huge advantage. I used WB to add it into my city and then spread it via WB, this is a broken bonus. You get too much gold and learn techs in the 1-2 turn cycle. I was wondering how the AI could achieve such a large number of tech gains within a small number of turns.

The way 1.7.2 is goofed up, the palaces from some civilizations are what supplies the gold from the spice, so you should be getting the spice gold anyway. Also, the corporation isn't spreadable normally, so spreading it around in the world builder is stretching beyond what the game can normally do.