In Dune: Spice Wars, players will have the option of taking command of one of the four factions, including two Imperial Houses and two Arrakis-native factions. The honorable and noble House Atreides is the first of the Imperial factions and will need to use its cunning, connections, and diplomatic acumen to survive and prevail.
Here’s everything you should know about House Atreides in Dune: Spice Wars.
House Atreides Faction Guide
Features and Abilities
House Atreides are masters of diplomacy and negotiation with their feature-set perfectly reflecting this reality. The most important element of Atreides is their Peaceful Annexation ability allowing them to spend influence, water, and authority to annex a village without the use of force.
This ability takes a while to trigger once active, but it’s a great way to annex far away land or make a two-pronged move at the same time: take a village with force and the other with peace. The flipside of this ability is that of all the factions the Atreides cannot pillage neutral villages, so if you want to expand your Solari coffers you’ll need to find a hostile faction or expand your resource gathering operation.
The next two features directly affect faction diplomacy and the Landsraad Council. Firstly, any factions that have signed a treaty with the Atreides will no longer need to spend Authority to maintain the treaty. Second, the Atreides gain increased benefits from a higher Landsraad Standing in addition to starting with a higher standing than their Harkonnen nemeses.
There’s a hidden negative feature for the Atreides to reflect their preference for diplomacy in that they have a base Manpower rating of 10 at the start of the game, compared to the more militarized and aggressive Harkonnens. It may not seem like much, but even small differences in Manpower accrual can have significant long-term repercussions.
As the Atreides gain Hegemony over the course of the game, they unlock several new features. At the 5000 threshold, House Atreides will benefit from increased Solari income if they’re affected by a positive Landsraad resolution and all units under their command will gain increased power if the faction is affected by a negative Council resolution.
At the 10000 Hegemony threshold, House Atreides will ignore Landsraad Charter prerequisites except for necessary Landsraad Standing ratings, making it much easier for Atreides to vie for powerful Landsraad benefits. They do still need to meet Charter unlock requirements, which are usually control of certain regions or the production of a certain amount of resources.
Councilors
House Atreides brings four councilors that can all help specialize or aid the faction in pursuing various goals in their pursuit of a political or diplomatic victory. You can only ever choose two of the four, so it’s critical to have an idea of how you’ll want to obtain victory.
The first is Lady Jessica. Her ability lets the Atreides pay a sum of influence to force a treaty on another faction unless that faction pays an equal sum of Authority to block the initiative. While Lady Jessica’s ability may not initially have a direct benefit, she synergizes quite well with some of Atreides’ technology, but we’ll get into those details in the Strategy part of this guide.
Next up is Duncan Idaho who increases the rate at which the Atreides build relationships with neutral Fremen Sietches and also reduces the authority cost to annex new villages. This councilor is pretty straightforward in that it aids the Atreides expansionist strategy and produces a more beneficial relationship with the Fremen quicker, which can help with resource generation and unlocking Landsraad Charters.
The house’s Mentat or human-computer, Thufir Hawat affects Atreides’ intelligence operations and resource generation by giving all agents an additional trait and villages a resource boost for a set amount of time if the region is affected by an operation. Thufir is also quite straightforward in that agents directly benefit the economy and can help the Atreides ramp up production and become an economic powerhouse, with careful placement of missions.
Finally, Gurney Halleck answers for the Atreides military and unlocks an empowered Veteran Militia unit available for village garrisons and also provides all newly recruited Atreides non-militia units one level of experience, making them stronger than normal right out of the gate. Though it may seem this councilor helps with a military victory, Halleck actually feeds into the Atreides’ general defensive posture.
Army Roster and Tactics
Atreides’ army doctrine emphasizes formation fighting, target prioritization, and effective unit synergy, as well as general combat durability. As such all Atreides unit abilities fit perfectly into this doctrine.
The basic close-quarters Trooper is the Atreides workhorse with above-average armor and a modest power rating in comparison to other faction starting units, so the unit isn’t exactly exceptional by itself and is quite average in performance. However, it’s in the later stages in the game when the Support Drone and Wardens (more on them later) unlock that the Trooper really comes into its own, as its special ability increases its attack power by 10% for every positive buff from nearby allied units.
The Ranger is the basic ranged Atreides unit that fits into the target prioritization component of Atreides tactics. Their ability increases allied unit strength by 5% if units are attacking the same target as the Ranger. Not particularly impressive on its own, but it can really be felt when used in tandem with the next unit on the roster.
The Heavy Weapons Squad is the Atreides grenadier squad that throws disrupting explosives downrange. Not only does this squad deal area damage to units near its target, every shot also stacks a debuff on the target unit, which increases all damage dealt to it by 2% per shot with a maximum of 10 debuff stacks leading to a maximum of 20% increase in damage to the target.
This unit, paired with the Ranger and a staunch line of Troopers can quickly wipe units away with focus fire. The Heavy Weapons Squad also has decent armor so it can situationally block up enemies and tie them down in close quarters.
The support drone is the quintessential support unit as it gives all nearby allied units 20% health regeneration, which only makes the Atreides armored soldiers all the tougher to break through. Also, this buff triggers the basic Trooper’s ability, so a battle formation of Troopers backed up by a Support Drone is not only harder to defeat, but they hit harder when engaged.
The crowning jewel of Atreides formation fighting doctrine is the Warden, a tough unit in its own right that grants all nearby units extra armor and that also procs the Trooper’s strength-increasing ability. There’s nothing really tricky about this unit – stick it in combat with its allies and it’ll help ensure your forces survive.
Strategy
Diplomacy is everything for the Atreides. The ideal path to victory for the Atreides is through Charters and Landsraad Council resolutions since it’s easier for them to activate them, or through Hegemony, which is typically associated with land as a major source of Hegemony points. In addition, House Atreides gets additional Hegemony for every Landsraad resolution they pass, so it’s vital to get active with the Landsraad and control the political developments there.
The Atreides military is primarily a defensive force there to ensure enemies stay out of the way of their pursuit of diplomatic and political victory. This is only enhanced by Atreides technology, which can increase unit strength further when fighting in friendly territory and the empowered militia units that Halleck provides mean villages will be better defended. Militia garrisons will only muster when the village is directly attacked, so you won’t be able to use stronger militias in offensive roles.
Don’t let the Atreides’ apparent defensive nature fool you, though, as they’re highly expansionist and aggressive in the early and middle stages of the game when territory is up for grabs. This isn’t just for resource generation, but also to increase Hegemony and establish strategic depth for defence.
Since the Atreides are so territory hungry early on, Authority, Water, and Influence will be crucial resources, so assigning your initial agents to Arrakis and Landsraad Infiltration assignments will help increase the generation of Authority and Influence, respectively.
As for Lady Jessica’s strange ability, Authority is an incredibly scarce resource, especially since the more territory you claim the cost of subsequent land will increase. If Jessica forces a faction to spend a large sum of authority to block her ability, the Atreides then likely have successfully slowed down that faction’s expansion.
However, if the faction in question chooses to accept the forced treaty from Lady Jessica, the Atreides get a beneficial agreement and combined with a technology that reduces enemy Landsraad Standing if they break a treaty with you, means few will want to break treaties. This doesn’t apply to the Fremen, but can be quite potent against Harkonnens and the Smugglers.
House Atreides is a faction perfect for players who want a dynamic and aggressive early game and a relaxing mid and late game where you consolidate and fortify your gains. It can be a great starter faction to take your first foray into Dune: Spice Wars’ world. How will you take control of Arrakis as the noble Atreides?
Dune: Spice Wars is available on PC.
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