Having recently replayed Dune II (I completed the Atreides and Harkonnen campaigns in their entirety thus far, and am about to start the Ordos campaign), I maintain my above praise vis-a-vis how revolutionary this game was as the proto-StarCraft RTS that set the standard for the genre!
However, replaying Dune II as such has also reminded of its glaring flaws (understandable, being one of the first such games):
- The atrocious A.I., especially with respect to my own units. They will only attack enemy units if they come very near them. It is frustrating to have surrounded my base with tanks and missile launchers, only to have them ignore enemies that strolled right by and have started firing upon my buildings! Or, perhaps even worse, to have units blindly continue to fire in the same direction--even if an allied unit gets in the way!
- Having to command units one-by-one, rather than selecting and commanding entire units.
- The inability to manually control Carry-Alls, Orthocopters, and turrets. For the most part, letting Carry-Alls do their thing on automatic is generally fine--but there are times that I would like to immediate have one pick-up and drop-off a specific vehicle to and from a specific location. The lack of manual control of Orthocopters, however, makes them virtually useless: immediately after one is created, it automatically flies off to an enemy base and is promptly shot down by a missile turret! Given the time to construct a single Orthocopter, it is nigh on impossible to build an effective unit to swarm a base or complete ground forces! Like Carry-Alls, the automatic targeting of turrets is generally fine--but there are occasions where it would be useful to manually specify their targeting to concentrate fire upon specific enemy units.
- The imbalance between house specialities: House Atreides and House Harkonnen have fairly effective special weapons and vehicles offered through their Houses of IX and Palaces. (In particularly, House Harkonnen's Death's Hand missile is far more powerful than anything else! Although its accuracy is terrible, which can be worked around by reloading one's game until it hits an acceptable area.) House Ordos' special weapons and vehicles are rather poor by comparison. On the other hand, who says that all of the houses need be balanced? Sometimes such an imbalance makes things more challenging, interesting, and varied! (As an additional example of this, contrast earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons with later editions. Classes were once heavily imbalanced, offering vastly different gaming experiences. Today, they classes are very balanced--but are now much too similar and undistinctive.)
- If you build a turret over the ashes of any enemy turret: it might switch alliances! Is that area haunted by the ghost of an enemy turret?
- The range and strength of the Atreides' Sonic Tanks increases the faster I set the game. Conversely, the accuracy of missiles (the Harkonnen's Death's Hand missiles especially) increases the slower I set the game. An odd bug to keep in mind, and change accordingly throughout the game.
- The enemy always harvests nearly as much spice as you, in truth has unlimited resources, and already has their base(s) fully built! With respect to unlimited resources, I've heard people justify this by noting that they're being supported by the Emperor's wealth and favour. Also, I suppose that having the enemy base(s) already being fully built makes things more challenging.
Don't take these observations as harshly denigrating Dune II. All of the above are understandable given that Dune II was released in 1992, and later RTS games improved upon such areas. In some cases, they merely add to the game's challenge and retro-appeal--though in other cases (like the uselessness of Orthocopters), they are indeed quite frustrating. In the end, everything that makes Dune II great overcomes these notable flaws.
