Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (titled Dune II: Battle for Arrakis in Europe and Dune: The Battle for Arrakis in North America for the Mega Drive/Genesis port, respectively) is a 1992 real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin Games. It serves as the sequel to Dune (a more traditional adventure game), which came out earlier that same year.

While not the first real-time strategy (RTS) video game, Dune II established the format that would be followed for years to come. As such, Dune II is the archetypal real-time strategy game. Striking a balance between complexity and innovation, it was a huge success and laid the foundation for Age of Empires, Warcraft, Westwood Studios’ subsequent strategy game Command & Conquer, and many other RTS games that followed.

The player takes the role of the commander of one of the three interplanetary houses, the Atreides, the Harkonnen or the Ordos, with the objective of wresting control of Arrakis from the other two houses. House Ordos is not featured in the Dune novels and is mentioned only in the non-canon The Dune Encyclopedia. The basic strategy in the game is to harvest spice from the treacherous sand dunes using a harvester vehicle, convert the spice into credits via a refinery, and to build military units with these acquired credits in order to fend off and destroy the enemy.

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