Autocthon wrote:
It would be easier to test drive the harmony if every time I started I wasn't surrounded by half a dozen systems with literally no colonizable planets. Is it too much to ask for some systems with lots of tundra? At 8 systems I'll be looking at ~20% penalty with one disharmony penalty reduction. I also want to point out that the disharmony reduction effects are on lynchpin researches.

Here's the thing though, and it is one major pet peeve I have with this game, TUNDRA is not their preferred planet!!!!



Those races that start out on something other than tier 1 planets? Guess what, that is a flipping handicap. In my Harmony game I have two adjacent systems, my starting with two tundra and the neighboring with jungle and terran. Guess which system is growing faster, has more industry, is just better overall.



The boneheads at Amp do everything half assed. Really, if my race starts on Tundra then refactor the tables so its tier one for me. Really, the second system within less than a dozen turns or so it out performing the home system ... and it produced two of my colonizers to boot!







Back on track, off the soap box.





These guys really benefit from a larger galaxy size, something to allow them some time to grow up alone. You have to decide fast which system will be your ship world(s) and get the tech needed to colonize all worlds within, then just make sure its always set to growth when the slider is set to research... when the slider is set to growth you can stay growth locally or infinite research.

Shivetya wrote:
Here's the thing though, and it is one major pet peeve I have with this game, TUNDRA is not their preferred planet!!!!



Those races that start out on something other than tier 1 planets? Guess what, that is a flipping handicap. In my Harmony game I have two adjacent systems, my starting with two tundra and the neighboring with jungle and terran. Guess which system is growing faster, has more industry, is just better overall.



The boneheads at Amp do everything half assed. Really, if my race starts on Tundra then refactor the tables so its tier one for me. Really, the second system within less than a dozen turns or so it out performing the home system ... and it produced two of my colonizers to boot!

With Elemental Reduction (Industry to food) the growth rate difference of a tundra systam and a T2 system for Harmony should be negligible.



Tundra produces with conversion: +4 Food +2 Research

Jungle Produces with conversion: +5.2 Food +2 Research (alternatively +4 Food +3.2 Research)

Other T1 produce with conversion: +4.6 Food +2/4 Research (alternatively +4 Food +2.6/4.6 Research)



That 1.2 food difference isn't going to be a very big deal considering when you want to grow you'll be turning down science for that hefty +100% growth factor. In fact I recommend in the early game to use I>S conversion and set +100% Food. For the most part (read if you colonized tundras/jungles) you'll be researching just as fast as others and growing (up to) twice as fast. The +Research techs are actually worse than going for resources as well, just tech up your strategic resources and luxuries.

Back on track, off the soap box.





These guys really benefit from a larger galaxy size, something to allow them some time to grow up alone. You have to decide fast which system will be your ship world(s) and get the tech needed to colonize all worlds within, then just make sure its always set to growth when the slider is set to research... when the slider is set to growth you can stay growth locally or infinite research.

Definitely benefit from larger galaxies, some extra "safe time" can make a big difference. I totally messed up my tech sequence in this game I'm playing and it's totally tanked my score (not that my score is ever good, I build tank ships).

Autocthon wrote:




So basically early game strategy is something like this as far as I can tell:



1) Set starting colony to food conversion, maximize research bonus.

2) Exploit Industry EVERYWHERE

3) Research N-Way Fusion Plants and Core Mining.

4) Reduce research multiplier while you upgrade systems and produce your first two colony ships.

5) Ramp up research again while you colonize and research..

Step 4 is backwards, max research while producing colony ships or any ship as you cannot gain pop on planets doing either

Shivetya wrote:
Step 4 is backwards, max research while producing colony ships or any ship as you cannot gain pop on planets doing either

What I mean is fill ramp up growth while you apply improvements to systems then make your colony ships. You need to get as many population points (as much industry) as you can to pump those ships out ASAP.



Though technicall, the other way to do it is to set growth to maximum and do I>S conversion,m which I'm seeing the benefit to (exponential growth rate while you research at "normal" speed) and I'll be trying that in a few minutes.

Affinity wrote:
because you need a lot more than 4 systems to get the 5.6k science needed to start purifying the systems. In order to get that much science in any reasonable amount of time, you have to get 8+ systems, which is pretty crippling.



I think they should add a lower tech upgrade that mitigates the disharmony, w/o fully purifying it. Maybe just move all the -22% disharmony upgrades to lower techs. As it stands, the 3rd and 4th take way more sci than even the purification tech, making them effectively useless. Lower those tech costs, and you have a way to mitigate disharmony enough until you can actually purify.

This, exactly: The tech that eliminates 100% disharmony costs far less than the one that reduces it to -88% while also providing a gigantic additional bonus of converting the system's dust production into food and science. The only difference is you have to 'build' the 100% one (industry cost: 5 turns) while the second one needs only researching - but the tech cost difference between these two technologies is so massive (one is a late midgame tech, the other a very endgame tech) that you will, in practice, NEVER need the -88% one - it might as well not exist. It should be obvious to anyone if you understand this that something is wrong with the faction. Affinity's suggestion of moving around the four -22% techs would indeed help the Harmony - I get the feeling, though, that something much more drastic is required. The way the Harmony is designed currently is just inherently wrong: an overpowered midgame tech that removes *all* expansion disapproval, while also yielding a huge additional bonus + having absolutely nothing going for them until they can unlock this tech doesn't make for a balanced, sensible faction.

Shivetya wrote:
These guys really benefit from a larger galaxy size, something to allow them some time to grow up alone. You have to decide fast which system will be your ship world(s) and get the tech needed to colonize all worlds within, then just make sure its always set to growth when the slider is set to research... when the slider is set to growth you can stay growth locally or infinite research.

This is wrong. In a large galaxy with ample space to expand, every other faction, Hissho with no economical traits included, will be able to expand *much* faster than the Harmony. In fact, the best situation for the Harmony currently is small systems with no room to expand and opponents right next door - even though they weren't intended as a war faction, it's actually the only way they stand a chance due to their broken design.

Apheirox wrote:
The way the Harmony is designed currently is just inherently wrong: an overpowered midgame tech that removes *all* expansion disapproval, while also yielding a huge additional bonus + having absolutely nothing going for them until they can unlock this tech doesn't make for a balanced, sensible faction.

While I agree that the tech is a bit silly, with a race as dramatically different as Harmony there has to be some give and take. Right now they are pretty awful, but tipping the -22% disharmony techs might, as you seem to imply, make them incredibly strong with their purification. That might well be true, certainly. Unfortunately we won't know unless we make changes, try some games, make changes, try games, make changes...etc.



If we really want to help the harmony (heh, maybe we don't) we need a working mod that rearranges the techs, values, etc that we can play test and tweak. *Hopefully* we could come up with a balanced version of the harmony that the devs would eventually implement into the game. I haven't done much work with mods, but maybe I'll get around to it sometime, unless someone beats me to it!



Of course, a mod hinges on the current Harmony glitches being fixed as well....

OMG Resource Leverage. +100% fleet speed is ridiculous.

I just want to add that I also think Harmony is weak having played nothing but Harmony for the past few games. For those who thinks they can be played as well as the other factions just play them on any difficulty higher than normal and you'll what everyone is complaining about. As many have pointed out their saving grace is their many late game advantages. Which means if you never make it to late game, you're screwed. (Which is exactly what happens on higher diff)



But on another note, I just won with them for the first time in so many games and you won't believe how it happened. The early game started out abysmally as always, but it was spiral galaxy so I at least put up some stop gap defense at the only wormhole. I was, not surprisingly, the lowest score player by the time I started exploring the rest of the galaxy. Then something that really blew my mind happen, the highest and third highest score players, who were Amoeba and Sophon, offered me an Alliance with bonus resources as a deal-sealer! And none too soon because Sheredyn declared war right around then. I think they just really took pitty on how pathetically I was playing. Anyways, long story short, we stamped out Sheredyn, I reached Dust Barrier, my colonies went from the weakest to some of the strongest and eventually pulled off a tech victory. So yea, I guess you can win as Harmony on Serious, if some AI takes pitty on you. Hahahahaha







Maybe the lesson here isn't that Harmony is unplayable, maybe they were just never balanced on a difficulty higher than normal.

Another discovery: Trade routes also appear to bypass the Mind & Matter slider. Getting them up and running early can allow you to maintain double research rate.



Edit: Has anyone else noticed how much AI automatons kick ass?

Autocthon wrote:
Another discovery: Trade routes also appear to bypass the Mind & Matter slider. Getting them up and running early can allow you to maintain double research rate.

Doesn't the dust income from the trade route hurt you though? Yes, eventually they get food instead of dust, but doesn't that middle period cause issues?

RobM wrote:
Doesn't the dust income from the trade route hurt you though? Yes, eventually they get food instead of dust, but doesn't that middle period cause issues?

Dust production itself doesn't cause disharmony as far as I can tell. At least not from trade routes and you'll get untaxed research.



Edit: 3000 Food Surplus on a pure jungle system (4 Planets) and +100% food production. Cannot wait to complete Foord->Industry

This is where your wrong



due to the fact that Harmony gets no heroes your massively lacking on fids production (even more so if they use legendary heroes and cloning hero)



In addiction to this their ships can't be upgraded and you lack the ability to have fleet heros



This is further compounded by the fact the Slider is all systems not just one and some systems might be in pop growth phase, while others could be in ship build phase, means u can't just crack the slider one way or the other.



they also do not get the approval building that gives +10% fids on high approval making even worse



Also due to no dust you can't "buy out" bad systems and have to deal with long turn times to get these systems viable, you also can't leave them cause the AI will take their bad systems and be ahead



Due to the VERY BAD idea of making hulls having different bonuses based on ship means your ships can rarely compete ship v ship and ship design is limited to throwaway ships.



Not being able to build ships of lower tier tech also hurts them more than others



People are mistaking "can win" with "ok"



addition below

Autocthon wrote:
Dust production itself doesn't cause disharmony as far as I can tell. At least not from trade routes and you'll get untaxed research.



Edit: 3000 Food Surplus on a pure jungle system (4 Planets) and +100% food production. Cannot wait to complete Foord->Industry

Dust does not affect them their systems are set to a state of disharmony until you rid it if they have dust production, while yeah the could become WTFBBQ once science drops off / terra forming food conversion I have yet to get their as I have been outstripped by NEWBIE AI ever by fids or fleet ability or mass expanding

Dudes .. seriously ??? I don't know why people keep discussing this. They are weak sauce. Even if this so called wave of research, wave of growth strategy would work against normal AI or easier, it would stand no chance against a human player who would EXPECT you to use it and would constantly attack you while you're trying to grow and massively build up his fleet while you are researching more. Not to mention that suicide fleets of one 1cp ships with nothing but loads of missile damage would chew through a Harmony fleet in no time, regardless of their technology, leaving them naked to any and all future attacks.



There are loads of problems, and we all know them. Stop defending the developers. Harmony need to be buffed significantly in order to make them a viable choice.

xfstef wrote:


There are loads of problems, and we all know them. Stop defending the developers. Harmony need to be buffed significantly in order to make them a viable choice.

Because message forums don't exist to expound the word of god, they exist to debate things.



Just because the OP has declared it so does not make it correct. The fact is the game hasn't been out that long, people are still learning it and trying new things.



Now i'm not saying that the harmony are or are not too weak, but it is certainly a viable debate.

ThatMG wrote:
This is where your wrong



due to the fact that Harmony gets no heroes your massively lacking on fids production (even more so if they use legendary heroes and cloning hero)

The harmony gets up to +100% growth rate. How many heroes can do that? A few turns of +1 Pop/turn on a system can double or triple relative industry output.

In addiction to this their ships can't be upgraded and you lack the ability to have fleet heros

They also have Between 133% and 300% "space" on tehir ships relative to other factions. That can close teh relative gap between hero and non-her fleets. The harmony heavily prefer "juggernaut" style fleets over ones that have strong offenses.

This is further compounded by the fact the Slider is all systems not just one and some systems might be in pop growth phase, while others could be in ship build phase, means u can't just crack the slider one way or the other.

This can be rather annoying. However, it's not that hard to pick one "ship growth" system to focus industry improvements into and grow your other planets.

they also do not get the approval building that gives +10% fids on high approval making even worse

+50% FIS on pop capped planets instead. I'd call that a good trade any day (nevermind 33% of Dust->FS)

Also due to no dust you can't "buy out" bad systems and have to deal with long turn times to get these systems viable, you also can't leave them cause the AI will take their bad systems and be ahead

I've noticed how annoying this is. If you get bad systems the harmony are screwed more heavily than other factions. On the other hand if you play a defensive game with 8-10 colonies and get to lategame you can have explosive production (better than the sowers). Not much consolation if you get screwed early of course.

Due to the VERY BAD idea of making hulls having different bonuses based on ship means your ships can rarely compete ship v ship and ship design is limited to throwaway ships.

Specialized hull designs have ALWAYS been in the game. They're not a bad idea either. the harmony get BETTER relagtive bonuses than other races, once you unlock your Simic ship you're set to entrench yourself against at the very leats normal AI. Against people it's a bit more complicated, but considering your ships have considerably more defensive capacity than most ships have offensive capacity you should be able to keep yourself alive.

Not being able to build ships of lower tier tech also hurts them more than others

What do you mean by this? The only thing preventing people from building ships is an irrational fear of "giving up" speed.

People are mistaking "can win" with "ok"



addition below







Dust does not affect them their systems are set to a state of disharmony until you rid it if they have dust production, while yeah the could become WTFBBQ once science drops off / terra forming food conversion I have yet to get their as I have been outstripped by NEWBIE AI ever by fids or fleet ability or mass expanding

What glaxy type are you playing in?



Against notrmal AI I'm ~200 turns in and I've been middle of the pack in terms of most things for the, majority of the time. By being non-aggressive I've managed to get peace and cooperation agreement with every faction but the cravers (for obvious reasons) and in the past 30 turns I've gone from 4th to 2nd or 3rd in everything except military (I'm like 5th in military, but my ships aren't high MP designs). Additionally, "once science drops off" isn't what makes them WTFBBQ, it's the ability to turn industry to science while growing at a ridiculous rate for the majority of the game. If I'f had trade routes I have no doubt that I would have been 3rd or better in score all game.

Autocthon wrote:
The harmony gets up to +100% growth rate. How many heroes can do that? A few turns of +1 Pop/turn on a system can double or triple relative industry output.

Wrong cause yeah so what you can pump pop, your hit a max cap of X fids, the players with heroes will always get +X% on I,S,D this EXCEEDS the cap of the planet per pop, thus if you ever bother to look your always behind on score most the time, unless very lucky

They also have Between 133% and 300% "space" on their ships relative to other factions. That can close the relative gap between hero and non-her fleets. The harmony heavily prefer "juggernaut" style fleets over ones that have strong offences.

personally jugs suck, cp 1-2 ships out preform them dps and defence wise (more targets), focus fire is a thing now. not upgrading ships means bad times, also every human ever has 2 in xtra space in C.races, the AI gets benefits per point of weight due to bonuses they don't out preform other races vs AI, especially vs S.races that have traits to ships

This can be rather annoying. However, it's not that hard to pick one "ship growth" system to focus industry improvements into and grow your other planets.

ind should be on every planet or you gonna lose the fids race due to being able to clear high ind improvements, their tax feature doesn't help this, I had game were my tech is ahead of IND my pop is capped, no heros means no above cap EXTRA fids, leaves you behind

+50% FIS on pop capped planets instead. I'd call that a good trade any day (nevermind 33% of Dust->FS)

I don't get where that is coming from

I've noticed how annoying this is. If you get bad systems the harmony are screwed more heavily than other factions. On the other hand if you play a defensive game with 8-10 colonies and get to lategame you can have explosive production (better than the sowers). Not much consolation if you get screwed early of course.

except playing defensive means the AI will mass grab all the systems get higher fids and Dust production spam ships/buying out systems and steam-rolling you, cause you can't grow while building ships, + hero fleets/kinetic spam will out-kill your ship production

Specialized hull designs have ALWAYS been in the game. They're not a bad idea either. the harmony get BETTER relagtive bonuses than other races, once you unlock your Simic ship you're set to entrench yourself against at the very leats normal AI. Against people it's a bit more complicated, but considering your ships have considerably more defensive capacity than most ships have offensive capacity you should be able to keep yourself alive.

The point was that race hulls are not the same, its biased meaning unbalanced, weight in classic could be offset by the fast teching up, harmony can't upgrade fast or pump ships out, the AI has no brain and doesn't push advantages.



fights go like this

1) you lose badly

2) you and the enemy fleet do nothing

3) you win by a lot

within 1-4 rounds



Harmony stacks you to 1-2, 3 if you don't go glass cannon or hp/repair cannon

What do you mean by this? The only thing preventing people from building ships is an irrational fear of "giving up" speed.

Meaning, cause you can't upgrade ships it would benefit Harmony more to run multiple tiers of ships cause while building ships your growth is 0 due to higher ind cost is less time growing

What galaxy type are you playing in?

I always play huge spiral 8, with 4-6 planets, rich resources, perfect balance, 133% more systems, normal connect, low parsecs, no pirates/random events/explore events, no win conditions.

Against normal AI I'm ~200 turns in and I've been middle of the pack in terms of most things for the, majority of the time. By being non-aggressive I've managed to get peace and cooperation agreement with every faction but the cravers (for obvious reasons) and in the past 30 turns I've gone from 4th to 2nd or 3rd in everything except military (I'm like 5th in military, but my ships aren't high MP designs). Additionally, "once science drops off" isn't what makes them WTFBBQ, it's the ability to turn industry to science while growing at a ridiculous rate for the majority of the game. If I'f had trade routes I have no doubt that I would have been 3rd or better in score all game.

Except with any race other than Harmony I can double to triple the score of the AI by 200 turns, with some high ranked fleets due to blocking movement into mid or my lands and the ability to upgrade, then pumping out my Invasion fleets speared by hero fleet commanders and nom nom the map. (those fleets are normally 1 dread, rest battleships, that was my classic build however the hulls are diff now)

ThatMG wrote:
Wrong cause yeah so what you can pump pop, your hit a max cap of X fids, the players with heroes will always get +X% on I,S,D this EXCEEDS the cap of the planet per pop, thus if you ever bother to look your always behind on score most the time, unless very lucky

There is no hero or combination of heroes in game that can allow an empire to grow at double rate in every colony. And until you DO pop-cap (twice as fast as anyone else and therefore twice the resources on most planets) you will have decent to strong FIDS. And while everyone else is increasing their population you're churning out free fleets.

personally jugs suck, cp 1-2 ships out preform them dps and defence wise (more targets), focus fire is a thing now. not upgrading ships means bad times, also every human ever has 2 in xtra space in C.races, the AI gets benefits per point of weight due to bonuses they don't out preform other races vs AI, especially vs S.races that have traits to ships

Not juggernauts the ship, juggernaut the object. A force that is impossible to harm. Stack heavy defenses because defenses are cheap for the harmony.

ind should be on every planet or you gonna lose the fids race due to being able to clear high ind improvements, their tax feature doesn't help this, I had game were my tech is ahead of IND my pop is capped, no heros means no above cap EXTRA fids, leaves you behind

Exloit industry, always go for industry producing techs once you've got your trade research. I'm gonna be checking how it works in a bit.

I don't get where that is coming from

The tech that replaces +10% FIDS is +50% FIDS on pop-capped planets. Nevermind Dust->FS conversion in the warfare tree (of all places). This on a race taht can pop-cap easier than enything but the Horatio.

except playing defensive means the AI will mass grab all the systems get higher fids and Dust production spam ships/buying out systems and steam-rolling you, cause you can't grow while building ships, + hero fleets/kinetic spam will out-kill your ship production

Went another 20 turns. I'm now #1 FIDS producer (btw, the reaosn your FIDS always rank low is because you produce no Dust, not because you have worse FIDS in general your FIS is HIGHER than any other faction). My military went form 7th to 4th. I went up two ranks in Score. I can now churn out 30000 MP worth of fleet a turn (my planets are all pop capped with an excess of 4k industry each) and I can research a final tier tech in like 5 turns. Also my fleets are as powerful (in terms of MP) as Hero-Fleets. Harmony shines in the latest parts of the game where their +100% food and +50% FIS translates to two or three times the industry of other factions.

The point was that race hulls are not the same, its biased meaning unbalanced, weight in classic could be offset by the fast teching up, harmony can't upgrade fast or pump ships out, the AI has no brain and doesn't push advantages.

Faction hulls aren;t the same, they're each good at different things. For the harmony they're BETTER with their hulls than other factions. In all cases. They have more carrying capacity, they have +10% Damage/Defense per abundance (pretty competitive with heroes overall FYI) and their dedicated invasion ship is a 1CP monster.

fights go like this

1) you lose badly

2) you and the enemy fleet do nothing

3) you win by a lot

within 1-4 rounds



Harmony stacks you to 1-2, 3 if you don't go glass cannon or hp/repair cannon

Harmony ships are better than any other faction's defensively, except arguably the sowers. -50% defense module tonnage is ridiculous. And their most basic ship has an astounding -75% engine tonnage. then of course their Dreadnought has non-specific weapon tonnage and cost reduction. As far as ships go the Harmony are great, all their hulls are amazing.

Meaning, cause you can't upgrade ships it would benefit Harmony more to run multiple tiers of ships cause while building ships your growth is 0 due to higher ind cost is less time growing

Supposedly they're glitched to be ignoring an industry cost reduction. Once that gets fixed watch out. Nevermind how easy it is for the harmony to cap population.

I always play huge spiral 8, with 4-6 planets, rich resources, perfect balance, 133% more systems, normal connect, low parsecs, no pirates/random events/explore events, no win conditions.

Turn on random events/explore events. Suddenly the harmony get a lot better. And turn resources to normal. You're basically playing with setting stacked heavily against the Harmony as their greatest advantages are entirely negated.



You have Rich resources, which reduces resource gap between players. Which means the "big deal" Resource Efficiency that the harmony has is gone. And those random events? Most of them are dust trades... Which are free for the Harmony. Sure removing them reduces variability, but the hramony are balanced with those events in mind. Turning them off is actually a relative nerf to them.

Except with any race other than Harmony I can double to triple the score of the AI by 200 turns, with some high ranked fleets due to blocking movement into mid or my lands and the ability to upgrade, then pumping out my Invasion fleets speared by hero fleet commanders and nom nom the map. (those fleets are normally 1 dread, rest battleships, that was my classic build however the hulls are diff now)

The harmony are a dedicated lategame Faction, similar to the Sowers though considerably more focused. Probably the reason I like them (and find them intuitive) is because I play the Sowers more than other factions. Once you get lategame they become total monsters... Getting there however is the problem.



Yes they are a bit weaker than other factions, but they're brand new and need tuning. But there are clear tactics to use with them that let you do well.



So to reiterate: You produce no Dust, therefore your FIDS "score" will always be last. Since this is the primary score (or closely linked to it) in early game you will always be at a low spot. This does not mean you're doing poorly, there just isn't any score correction to compensate for a missing fids. Your hulls have some of the best stats in game and are exceptional at defending and invading. You will perform best with random events and normal resource abundance to leverage your faction traits.



Edit: Officially hate cravers, I should have gone after the sowers for the first galactic arm of conquering. The insects terraformed EVERYTHING to desert with Colonial Exchanges.

I almost like Harmony. However, not being able to retrofit my ships was a deal breaker for me.

I never have enough money to regularly refit my fleets. I always spend it!



But I can't wait to have a go at them once the sowers are well and saved.

When I first read the description for Harmony, I thought "woo, its the return of the silicoid". But alas, they do not have the ability to expand freely and colonize wherever they want like the silicoid could..