Dune Spice Wars - How to Play Smugglers

A guide on everything you need to know to play what might be Dune:Spice Wars trickiest faction.
0:00 - Introduction
0:51 - Why Play the Smugglers
5:50 - What Makes Smugglers Unique
15:46 - Counselors
21:38 - Expansion, Economy, Developments
1:01:16 - Operations, Units, Armory
1:19:44 - Base Killing
1:22:45 - Win Conditions
1:29:07 - Heroes!
1:31:20 - Final Tips & Tricks

[@Regonarr]

Its always profitable to set up trafficking stations even near your spice fields

[@magni5648]

This. The math here is pretty good. Say you have a region with 40 spice production. If it's influenced by a trafficking station, you lose out 8 of that spice... and gain 32 Solari for it, minus the 8 Solari upkeep on the station for 24 Solari profit. That's a 3:1 spice to solari ratio. Which, uh, you're not getting 3:1 out of normal spice selling even with a CHOAM Branch all too often, and certainly not consistently. And that rate only gets better the more spice production there is in areas influenced by that specific station, because the upkeep cost is static while the "base" exchange ratio without upkeep is a crazy 4:1. If you have 80 spice production (before the -20% from the station) in range of the station, you get an effective rate of 3.5:1. At 120 spice production , the rate is 3.666:1

[@jeremyrugg3015]

@@magni5648 I would agree on the utility, but not the frequency. It is usually in your best interest, especially if you aren't going yellow developments and main buildings. But if you are building the choam branch, then all you need to hit 3.0 is a 2.2 or better. Having yellow you will have the development to make your rate better per choam and it will be better than 3.1 and you can usually store until then with your 6,000 cap. But outside of that scenario, trafficking is better.

[@Regonarr]

@@jeremyrugg3015 no, the station is always better. The profit compared to no station is equal at 4.0 spice rate, you woun't even reach that. The formula is (100*0.8*x+100*0.8-100*x)/100 where 100 is spice income (can replace with other value, doesn't matter) and x is the spice rate from 1 to 4. Look the graph up at wolfram alpha and see it yourself.

[@Regonarr]

@@jeremyrugg3015 the solari income compared to no station is equal at 4.0 spice rate. Once the rate is lower, its always more profitable to use the station regardless of spice income even for 1 spice field. KZbin won't let me post the equation.

[@daevohk]

Good call, I had heard of this before but forgot to take the time to test out just how beneficial it is.

[@Moose_RF]

Thank you for the guide.

[@daevohk]

So generous Moose, thank you so much.

[@Attackstump]

Just got the game yesterday due to yours and Turin's vids. These guides really help!!! Thanks so much, they're very well produced.

[@Grifthin]

Great guide! Looking forward to the eventual guide to Vernius punishment.

[@afiqrizal645]

this is godsent, i was starting to learn how to smug yesterday and then this appears. huzzah!

[@abbas-aliibnmohammadal-nam929]

Don't even bother stick to your lame great houses. I'm the best Smuggler there is

[@unit-lost]

Great video, thank you! Smugglers were the only faction I avoided completely at the start due to their complexity. But now I'm trying to learn them and it's a lot of fun!

[@dillpickle1308]

Nice job with the video. I also use these guides for other factions to find ways to counter Smugglers.

[@daevohk]

Absolutely, once you know what someone wants to do--you know what you dont want them to do!

[@user-kg6vw5ss3j]

You're bloody goat, mate, wtf? Best guide ever, 100% covered, easy, fast, freakin cool. Huge thanks!

[@phillipparadise7613]

Thank you for the guide! I. Trying to expand my arsenal of factions I play so I can feel comfortable in multiplayer playing any of them. I hope to play with you one day!

[@daevohk]

Hell yeah, lets rumble!

[@jamesmunn576]

Absolutely phenomenal guide!

[@daevohk]

Phenomenal comment!

[@user-ic6qt3pw1d]

Your strategy with base snape is fire. I did that on fremen and on hark and win the game.

[@x04b]

Cheers mate, been waiting for this one, and hey, it is a quality guide. Of course as you say, there are many gameplays with the smuggs, your one is one of the top. Thanks again for that sweet work !

[@sambudryu]

Super great guide! I'll be looking forward for the Atreides guide!

[@Maqouz]

Daevohk again with another 10/10 guide. Ty for this

[@anjaisarachi2703]

Thanks for the guide. I love the way you teach

[@diomed4570]

The coolest faction! Just yesterday I watched how Kenri won with the help of Bannerj and robbing/pillage other people's spice fields with right underworld.

[@nar2130]

Thank you kindest sir! *rubs hands together evily*

[@tni333]

Hey man thanks a lot for the guide, but I have a noob question: when you say early aggression and bullying your opponents early, what timeframe are we talking? Like 15-20 minute mark? Cause I tried to be aggressive early with both smugs and fremen but I always fail. I don’t have enough manpower, my snipers just get hunted down by enemy melee units, even against corr and atreides who are supposed to be weak early I struggle to win any engagement. Do you maybe have any gameplay videos where you do early aggression? Any help would be greatly appreciated 😊

[@sambudryu]

You have to make use of various stuff to make early agression a thing. If you're looking for some early aggression, go for some recruitment offices early. And it's okay if the solari productions hit minus, because smugglers can pillage to get their economy going. By having early recruitment offices, you make more troops(compared to your opponent), thus have better chance of winning your fights. You can't expect to have similar army compared to the enemy for the early rush to be successful. Also, collecting troops and manpower by utilizing nearby discoveries is also important, especially since economy focused factions tend to collect their discoveries related to tech or resources. When harrassing, focus on keeping your opponents at bay and stopping their expansion, rather than going for too aggressive liberations. Liberations tend to take long, so liberations early on can be risky(especially when low on water). If you do have the opportunity though, you might want to take it, because liberation can make that village unusable for a long time. But for most of the time, try and stop them from taking important locations in the first place.

[@sambudryu]

What you also want to do is to keep the enemy vulnerable. If you think you can probably beat the enemy army, you might as well go for it(as long as it doesn't go too bad for your troops as well), because if you grind down the enemy's army, it would take longer to build it back up, resulting in slower expansion(since their army to take the villages is all broken down) and being harder for them to stop you. Take different measures on invading other player's territories. People often go for just liberation, but it's not always the best option. Pillaging takes shorter time, gives you a lot of resources, while crippling the opponent's economy. Also, don't forget to destroy some buildings, because it lowers their resource productions and makes them waste some more plascrete. Killing harvesters is also a good move, because it can lower their spice production for a while and make them spend extra manpower to have them manned back. This is especially useful against Atreides, because it can reset Atreides Foreman stacks on that harvester(as an Atreides main I feel very guilty for telling you this).

[@tni333]

@@sambudryu thanks for all your suggestions man. I’ll try to follow them during my next game :)

[@sambudryu]

@@tni333 It's my pleasure. And one more thing, for you to get the hang of when to aggress or not. Make use of ornithopters(having those scavenged ornithopters by patching up broken ornithopter discoveries really helps) to scout nearby factions. By knowing your opponent's army compositions, overall economy, surronding villages, and the threat of other factions, you can see if the timing is right or not. If the enemy has weaker overall army, is about to take a good village(village with resources and good quirks), and no other faction seems to be attacking(or trying to attack) you, it's a good timing to advance(if you have sufficient water for enough supplies, of course). If the opponent has better or similar army compared to you, has villages clumped near main base where it can provide fire support, has strong defense(like missile batteries and militias), or too little safe ground to avoid worms(solid terrains) on the way to them, you might not want to aggress them. "Time" is an important factor, sure, but you shouldn't be in too much of a rush. The game itself is kinda slow paced, and it's better to strike when the timing is right. If you just try to focus on your military earlier than your opponent, you should have your chance before your opponent is ready enough.

[@daevohk]

Fighting is a tricky thing to get a handle on. Hard to give general advice for it but keep your ranged safe, chop up their ranged units, focus fire to take down enemy units but not too focused so that your guys get stuck and can't all attack... its complicated! Often nothing you can do but get more practice.

[@mdilelio]

finally!!! :D

[@theknightowl1040]

On game release: Ok cool we’ve got the Atreides and Harkonnen, obviously, and it looks like the Fremen are playable, that’s sick, and… what the heck? Smugglers? What is this about, what a weird inclusion… Today: We strike without warning

[@daevohk]

I love that they've just committed to giving us weird stuff so they could make cool new factions

[@Jinthe2nd]

Just in time to learn how to piss off neighboring players