clearbeard
King
Just finished my first game of Dune, thought I'd offer some feedback. The game was a Huge Arrakis Emperor, as Paul Muad'Dib of the Fremen. I set the AI to have one of each faction, so there were 8 opponents instead of the normal 10 for that map size. Won with a terraforming victory, to try it out.
Overall, I love the mod. Easily in the top 4 I've played, with BUG, FFH2, and Final Frontier Plus. Clearly factions need some balancing, but you all knew that already. Fremen and Sardaukar in particular are wickedly powerful. Hard to know how to balance things relative to them, considering in canon they are supposed to be the two most dominant fighting forces in the galaxy, but still.... Corrino ended up the second place faction in the game, despite becoming my vassal after a short, brutal, and one sided war over the polar cap, so they were clearly doing something right before running afoul of the Fedaykin. Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit were the other two marginally successful AI's in the game.
I have some other, fairly minor observations that seemed odd to me. Some are undoubtedly intended, others may be minor bugs:
1. Zeal 3 cannot be taken by units with only 1 move point, including the Mahdi units it's most flavored for (already noted on bug thread).
2. Sandrider workers seem to treat all desert as move 3 roads, while other unit types use move 2 roads.
3. The XP bonus for Ginaz training is functionally useless. Even with both levels (+40%), you would need to be risking your level 5+ unit attacking not much higher than 50% odds to have a chance at +1 bonus XP. Still a useful promotion for the +20% strength, but perhaps increase the bonus to +25% XP for each level so you only have to get 2 xp from a combat to have it kick in?
4. Very minor, but it's annoying for Fremen to have to burn a promotion on stillsuits in order to get thumpers. Don't think I actually attacked any sandworms the whole game, but it's a thought.
5. Couldn't figure out how to drop a thumper to attract a sandworm. Is that feature implemented at all, or just in the description?
6. Having the worker buttons for all 3 mine levels look the same was a little annoying. Even a little Roman or Arabic numeral in the corner to differentiate would be nice. Similarly, if there's a way to set the default action for the "m" hotkey to be building the highest level mine available, that would be nice.
7. I would like to see more than 3 mentats available. Perhaps it's just my playstyle, but I found the military XP bonus far more desirable than any of the others, except perhaps the production one, in the midgame. As an idea, maybe a limit of one mentat of each type? That would further encourage the city specialization the mod seems to be set up to promote. Also, as someone else already noted somewhere, the civic mentat is bugged to give +25 /+25 with sapho juice.
8. Bombers can't take ultralight (fighters can)? Probably intended, I just got excited when I saw it in the list of available promos for bombers.
9. I don't think the Dragonfly Bomber should upgrade to the Cielago Stealth Bomber. They are both quite late in the game, and serve different enough roles that having both available could be useful.
As I said, pretty minor stuff, and I loved the game. Just wanted to mention what came to mind while playing. Now to decide which faction I want to play next!
Overall, I love the mod. Easily in the top 4 I've played, with BUG, FFH2, and Final Frontier Plus. Clearly factions need some balancing, but you all knew that already. Fremen and Sardaukar in particular are wickedly powerful. Hard to know how to balance things relative to them, considering in canon they are supposed to be the two most dominant fighting forces in the galaxy, but still.... Corrino ended up the second place faction in the game, despite becoming my vassal after a short, brutal, and one sided war over the polar cap, so they were clearly doing something right before running afoul of the Fedaykin. Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit were the other two marginally successful AI's in the game.
I have some other, fairly minor observations that seemed odd to me. Some are undoubtedly intended, others may be minor bugs:
1. Zeal 3 cannot be taken by units with only 1 move point, including the Mahdi units it's most flavored for (already noted on bug thread).
2. Sandrider workers seem to treat all desert as move 3 roads, while other unit types use move 2 roads.
3. The XP bonus for Ginaz training is functionally useless. Even with both levels (+40%), you would need to be risking your level 5+ unit attacking not much higher than 50% odds to have a chance at +1 bonus XP. Still a useful promotion for the +20% strength, but perhaps increase the bonus to +25% XP for each level so you only have to get 2 xp from a combat to have it kick in?
4. Very minor, but it's annoying for Fremen to have to burn a promotion on stillsuits in order to get thumpers. Don't think I actually attacked any sandworms the whole game, but it's a thought.
5. Couldn't figure out how to drop a thumper to attract a sandworm. Is that feature implemented at all, or just in the description?
6. Having the worker buttons for all 3 mine levels look the same was a little annoying. Even a little Roman or Arabic numeral in the corner to differentiate would be nice. Similarly, if there's a way to set the default action for the "m" hotkey to be building the highest level mine available, that would be nice.
7. I would like to see more than 3 mentats available. Perhaps it's just my playstyle, but I found the military XP bonus far more desirable than any of the others, except perhaps the production one, in the midgame. As an idea, maybe a limit of one mentat of each type? That would further encourage the city specialization the mod seems to be set up to promote. Also, as someone else already noted somewhere, the civic mentat is bugged to give +25 /+25 with sapho juice.
8. Bombers can't take ultralight (fighters can)? Probably intended, I just got excited when I saw it in the list of available promos for bombers.
9. I don't think the Dragonfly Bomber should upgrade to the Cielago Stealth Bomber. They are both quite late in the game, and serve different enough roles that having both available could be useful.
As I said, pretty minor stuff, and I loved the game. Just wanted to mention what came to mind while playing. Now to decide which faction I want to play next!