Emperor: Battle for Dune (Windows)

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Description

Emperor: Battle for Dune is the true sequel to both Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty and Dune 2000. Unlike Dune 2000, it progresses the storyline and takes place after the Ordos victory in its predecessors, but with the same basic premise: houses Atreides, Ordos, and Harkonnen battle for supremacy on the planet Arrakis, the only location where the valuable resource known as Spice Melange can be found, but for the first time in the Dune RTS series, other locations are also visited briefly.

This time, all three factions have redesigned arsenals with more varied units. Other than a new 3D engine by Intelligent Games, Emperor: Battle for Dune introduces the sub-house system. In skirmish and multiplayer games, up to two (out of five) sub-houses can be chosen to lend their technologies to the player in the form of two unique units and a relevant structure which trains them. The singleplayer campaign is once again played on a meta-map, this time with defensive missions as well, and sub-houses may join the player in the fight. The Living Planet feature randomly spawns tornadoes. The AI's play style can also be chosen in skirmish and multiplayer modes for a more varied gameplay.

Each refinery now comes with a free carry-all assigned to the existing free harvester for faster resource gathering and defense. Also, each refinery can be upgraded with two extra pads which also come free with a harvester and carry-all.

True to a major Westwood Studios production, Emperor: Battle for Dune features live-action cutscenes between missions.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "Emperor: Schlacht um Dune" -- German title
• "Empereur: La Bataille pour Dune" -- French title
• "Dune 3" -- Informal name

Part of the Following Groups

• Dune II series
• Dune series
• EA Classics releases
• Games with downloadable official map/level editors
• Live action cut-scenes

User Reviews

A fairly decent strategy game, an innovative approach of Frank Herbert's work.	KaiserChicken (12)
interesting asymmetric factions, but single player is flawed	MiG_ (41)
Yet another C&C	El-ad Amir (124)

Critic Reviews

GameGenie	2001		100
Power Unlimited	Jun, 2001	88 out of 100	88
Svenska PC Gamer	May, 2001	87 out of 100	87
GameStar (Germany)	May, 2001	87 out of 100	87
GameSpot	Jun 14, 2001	8.3 out of 10	83
FiringSquad	Jul 13, 2001	82 out of 100	82
GameSpot (Belgium/Netherlands)	Jun 20, 2001	80 out of 100	80
Game Informer Magazine	Aug, 2001	8 out of 10	80
IGN	Jun 14, 2001	8 out of 10	80
GameSpy	Jun 22, 2001	75 out of 100	75

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Trivia

Editor

The game had no editor, but because of the rising demand from the fans, Westwood patched the game, and released a map editor. They also released six map packs as an example to well built maps. After the editor was out, Westwood lost interest in the game and moved it's support to one of their fans known as Gabblehopper.

Music

Beside Frank Klepacki (Westwood's house composer at the time), Westwood Studio brought another two music composers for Emperor: battle for Dune. This way, each of them composed music tracks for different houses, so that way they accomplished that each of the house, Atreides, Ordos, and the Harkonnen possess similar yet unique music style that marks a certain house.

Ordos

We finally learn the name of the icy home planet of the Ordos: Draconis IV.

Plot (Dune 2000 spoiler!)

This game is a sequel to Dune 2000, but when finished with Ordos. In the last scene of Ordos House in Dune 2000, Lady Elara uses her Gob Jabbar to kill the Emperor, and that piece of animation is even used as intro for this game. By this, Westwood breaks the tradition of making add-ons and sequels as if the good guys have won in the predecessor.

Pre-order code

Those that pre-ordered Emperor: Battle for Dune, received special code that unlocks three units for multiplayer mode. However, Westwood Studios's plan was to make them available for all the others as well, but not so soon.

Support

As of 2003, the game support has moved from Westwood to fed2k. Their website was www.fed2k.com

Information also contributed by Henry Aloni and Jornand de Buisonjé

Related Web Sites

• Emperor: Battle for Dune on Wikipedia (Information about Emperor: Battle for Dune on Wikipedia.)
• FED2K (Covers all the games based on the Dune universe)