"My Duke, our people are malnourished and weak, we need to build mushtamals to provide them with fruit and vegetables"
"Sire, you neglect our defences - we must have more troops to defend our lines!"
"My Lord, we need to establish more settlements before the land is claimed by our rivals!"
Paul's mind drifts as his advisors clamour for his attention. His vision slowly becomes filled with his terrible purpose, the crimson red wave of jihad. He finds himself to driven along this path - whether he wishes it or not. The planet and the universe must be purged.
To the west, the Tleilaxu enclave is suspiciously silent; to the south, those strange traders the Ecazi have established bases; and to the south-east, contact has been made with the heretical machinists of Ix. Finally, the Bene Gesserit witch Mohiam is here on Arrakis. Paul touches his hand as he remembers that long forgotten trial - the pain still lingers.
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An early reminder that we are the poorest of all the factions:
I started by switching Kuriya to work on another Worker and Al Yassanah to work on a second Scout Thopter, I thought it might be handy for scouting and transport. Moved worker to build the Diamond mine south of Al Yassanah - we need all the commerce we can get since we are not spice harvesting. The Greenhouse in Arrakeen was completed on turn 102, started work on Settler. Moved worker from Arrakeen down to Kuriya to build a second windtrap.
When diamond mine was built at Al Yassanah, I increased the science rate to 85%, deficit research at -1 per turn. Moved workers to Burro Weed to build dew collectors.
Al Yassanah working Diamond to the south:
In turn 113, the Imperialist ideology spreads to our lands. I decline to embrace this suspect passion for the old ways of the Empire. Duke Paul Atreides does not bend the knee so easily!
Turn 114: Two thopters, one carrying a Soldier and a Settler, and one carrying the new Worker from Kuriya strike out over the open bled. The mission: to set up an advance base on the edge of Ixian territory. (Sadly I read Slvynn's post too late - nevermind - think of it as an extra challenge - perhaps we can attack the Ix first seeing as they are so cash rich)
Al Yassanah finishes barracks on turn 115, I start building an Infantry there. Turn 117, we discover Fanaticism and are now broke. Start on Jihad ~12 turns to go!
The first Ornithopter has safely crossed the perilous open desert, narrowly avoid a sandworm.
Soon after, Wind Pass is founded, it is accessible on foot only by a thin strip of land from the main Ix landmass it seems. So it may be slightly easier to defend.
One of the thopters heads back to the mainland and another goes of scouting around the south of the Ecazi. To the north and east of Arrakeen is mostly open desert which is not surprising - we are situated at the North East of the Arrakis map donut. So most of the land will be found to the west and south of our first three cities.
Arrakeen completes Barracks and starts work on the Oracle of Hajra. It will be finished in ~18 turns so in the next block of 20 turns we should have Jihad plus a free tech to pick. What should it be? (presuming we get the wonder OK). Education seems like a popular choice.
Here a view of what we know of Arrakis so far. Cave of Tears in the polar region is the founding city of the Imperial religion.
We are lagging in Power to the Tleilaxu, but we can now build Barracks-trained Infantry at Arrakeen and Al Yassanah as a stopgap to the Mahdi Zealot army.
(Oh, and I used Alt-D to change our name from Ahriman to Paul Atreides for some more flavour. We could rename again to Muad'Dib when Jihad is founded.)
Hello, I just found this thread. I would gladly join. I like the Dune books, but haven't played the mod yet
Something going wrong here, this mod is not easy to load, it crashes to the desktop instead. I couldn't load the neither this save, nor my own solo game's save. 
