I've found early game in harmony that it's more effective to exploit industry and set Science to 0% using the I->S conversion to get the science you need, and only turning up the slider for important system upgrades (Trade routes or the first +Industry all others can be ignored until you have max population).

Autocthon wrote:
I've found early game in harmony that it's more effective to exploit industry and set Science to 0% using the I->S conversion to get the science you need, and only turning up the slider for important system upgrades (Trade routes or the first +Industry all others can be ignored until you have max population).

Strongly agree. Yes, race feature "food-to-science conversion slider" - completely useless. Set it to 0 at start.



Reasons:



1) This is not "conversion" (as it is described on slider tooltip) - this is simply "0%+100%" slider, what less effective



2) In real game you can NOT do science OR food wave - typically on early game you have 2 base planets with pop cap and 3-4 newly colonized planets with 1-2 pop. Therefore if you set "science" - you lost in birth rate on new planets (and if not - you lost science form old ones)



3) Almost at start (30-40 turn) and 7-10 system you stuck with "disharmony" penalty. You can not remove it because Harmony race do not have such building and can not manipulate tax. Therefore you lost about 50% food from disharmony and simply can not set slider more than 20-30% (you small planet get starved)



P.S Harmony is truly pitiful race. I am just play Endless level as United Empire and wipe out all AI. And i am try play Harmony... Well... I am cheated and got them around 10000 research points. All for nothing - all AI overpowered me at turn 50 in all aspect.

I routinely set my slider to +100% science once I pop-cap my first 3-4 planets actually and start collecting my additional systems. I do this while I research toward the dust removal tech. Honestly two -22% Disharmony techs reduce disharmony enough in the early game that you're going to have twice the population of your enemies (in single player) which is just as useful as having as many planets most of the time.



If you're starving your planets at the 30% point you're doing something very very wrong.

It's also not as if the Harmony could not get around the modifier for Food, on industrious Systems the industry -Food conversion is more usefull than the percentual Bonus.

That also works, though you're unlikely to get early indiustrious systems without playin a custom faction, and even the tolerant is just not worth the point total.

Autocthon wrote:
my first 3-4 planets... If you're starving your planets at the 30% point you're doing something very very wrong.

How you can survive just with "3-4 planets" ? Pure hope in peaceful race around ? With such small pop any Cravers wipe you out.

And if you try 7-10 system - you stuck with disharmony penalty (same as expansion disapproval) for other races.

I have 3-4 planets at roughly double pop early in the game. That's slightly less efficient than having more planets, but as long as I pump out a blockade on wormholes I can handle it just fine.



Just have to establish yourself. Once you've got some high pop planets you have a strong base to work with, it's not worth getting slapped with disharmony early on.

i really really REALLY dislike that ship bonuses are not the same across each race. I do not mind there being negatives that are different for each race for building certain ship types. I don't want to memorize what each race gets so when I encounter them I can automatically go, oh yeah their dreads are toast, and I bet the AI doesn't work it to its advantage either. Between that and no pop growth while build colony ships.... well.



at least it runs now, being a mac user I actually loaded it on my work laptop just to play.