LordReynolds wrote:
considering that the slider on either position deos not make up the basic disadvtantage the harmony has in terms of FIDS and growth i fail to see how you will keep up with other races.



sheredyn for example can boom like hell, and easier, and earlier and without ever stoping growing.



think about that.

Well FIDS rating is reporting your FIDS as much as 30% lower than they actually are (depending on what planets you have). I personally prefer rushing D->F on Trade Routes then going for weapons tech (because contamination barriers are awesome). I've already shown that I can on normal get competitive FIDS and Research against the AI with a custom version (and decent with a non-custom).

Autocthon wrote:
I've already shown that I can on normal get competitive FIDS and Research against the AI with a custom version (and decent with a non-custom).

You've also posted some nonsensical stuff, such as arguing that the lack of approval improvements isn't really a problem for the Harmony. Frankly, being able to compete with the AI isn't exactly scientific evidence that nothing is wrong.



The faction is just inherently poorly designed, being too extreme in both directions. In terms of their economic capacities, the Harmony is subpar through the all-important first half of the game, then probably badly overpowered in the latter half (though this advantage is cancelled out by getting such a poor start). No approval modifiers mean they lose out on Empire fervent (+20%), system ecstatic (+20%) and a further 10-25% bonus from the Colonial Rights improvement - all this in addition to missing out on any dust income whatsoever. All these bonuses, totalling more than a +50% FIDS increase, are lost in return for virtually no upside since the Harmony is still just as badly limited by expansion disapproval as the other factions, regardless of their ability to stay 'content'.

Apheirox wrote:
You've also posted some nonsensical stuff, such as arguing that the lack of approval improvements isn't really a problem for the Harmony. Frankly, being able to compete with the AI isn't exactly scientific evidence that nothing is wrong.



The faction is just inherently poorly designed, being too extreme in both directions. In terms of their economic capacities, the Harmony is subpar through the all-important first half of the game, then probably badly overpowered in the latter half (though this advantage is cancelled out by getting such a poor start). No approval modifiers mean they lose out on Empire fervent (+20%), system ecstatic (+20%) and a further 10-25% bonus from the Colonial Rights improvement - all this in addition to missing out on any dust income whatsoever. All these bonuses, totaling more than a +50% FIDS increase, are lost in return for virtually no upside since the Harmony is still just as badly limited by expansion disapproval as the other factions, regardless of their ability to stay 'content'.

There is currently a ship cost bug that is preventing the Harmony from performing early game (nevermind the population bug from -200% pop growth). The Production Bonus from approval is offset by the fact that you can increase population literally twice as fast. Which means you hit midgame industry values twice as fast (or roughly equal speed if you exploit industry). Not to mention that Colonial Rights is replaced by +50% FIS on Pop-Capped planets (worth as much as all those happiness modifiers). Nevermind that your PRIMARY RESOURCE TECH is part of the WARFARE tree.



I've also shown that the Harmony can have competitive stats not only against AI but (by comparing to nother person;s score) against REAL players as well.

hm pop growth.. you mean the thing that is basically nonexistent for harmony unless you punish your science which will leave you worse off versus the heroed first tech fleets other players will throw at you? Combined with the fact that harmony has no industrial hub worlds means all ships are build scatterd around the map, which means it takes a long time to build up that fleet which will have inferior tech that you require to dislodge all the enemy fleets that are sittign on your colonies, blockading them and preventing you from actually building your fleets?







???

:l The hell?



Well anyway the AI has always seemed to be more then competent with the Harmony, producing fleets before the other AI's and having the best FIDS for most of the game with astonishingly good growth potential.



Rushing is far from easy to do on any but the smaller maps, so I don't get you guys problems with them. They are good enough.

The effectiveness of the race is extremely dependent on difficulty and map size, recently I only play endless,small/tiny and fast. Having to deal with enemy fleets worth 800 MP-1.3k Mp blockading one or more of the systems by turn 12 and continuing combat between the player and a.i. for the first 70+ turns (the enemy fleets are usually around 11k MP by turn 44) means that the player has to continue producing ships to match the a.i., which results in 0 pop growth for a few systems and considering this starts at turn 12, no you wont have max pop systems and cannot just swap between production across systems (new systems cannot sustain production at all). Also in these games its common for 1-2 a.i.s to die off (usually also conquer a few a.i. systems myself by turn 60) by turn 50, which means that whoever you fought in the first 50 rounds might have been the underdogs compared to the new enemy that just attacked them.



On the other hand if your playing large maps with enemies you never even meet in the first 50 turns, well harmony can do well.



Also one annoying thing about harmony in all these endless games is that in most cases invading a system results in it going from 30+ pop to 5 pop in one round (nothing impacts the -food amount for the conquered system, changing ind-food or food-rsch slider have no impact), happens so often that conquering enemy systems is worse than with other races.



Many of the above things could be bugs, but for now its how they play.

Is that a problem however?



That some races are better on different map types and sizes?



After all it's not like a RTS game with 3 factions, we have a lot more room for variation.



It could simply be that the Sophons and Sherdyn are batter for fast and small map games?

LordReynolds wrote:
hm pop growth.. you mean the thing that is basically nonexistent for harmony unless you punish your science which will leave you worse off versus the heroed first tech fleets other players will throw at you? Combined with the fact that harmony has no industrial hub worlds means all ships are build scatterd around the map, which means it takes a long time to build up that fleet which will have inferior tech that you require to dislodge all the enemy fleets that are sittign on your colonies, blockading them and preventing you from actually building your fleets?







???

Let us (for a moment) consider the way Harmony tax works.



Harmony start on a tundra, worth 2 Food, 6 Industry, and 2 Science. For a moment let's imagine we've exploited Food. We will (for the moment) set Mind and Matter to 100% Food. What is happening?



We are producing 8 Food a Turn (2 Base, 2 Exploit, +100% on planets). We are of course (since we have no construction to do at the moment) converting I->S. This means we're also producing 2 Science each turn. So, what are other races looking like?



Sophon: At 0 Tax will be producing 6 Food and 4 Science (Roughly, happiness notwithstanding)

UE: 6 Food 3 Science

Amoeba: 6 Food 5 Science

Sowers (Exploit Industry): 4 Food ~4 Science



Those are the ones off the top of my head. So basically, for the first 3-5 turns you're growing your population about 33% faster than other races. Is your tech going to lag little? Yes. But so does other Faction tech. Sowers get a 20% malus to tech even. Horatio can compete in growth of course, but as far as other races go they can't keep up. Just hard push growth of your first two colonies BAM industrial hub worlds that can now pump out ships. That's what I do, and it works.

Not to mention you can change your growth bonus to a science bonus on a dime with their tax system.

Autocthon wrote:
Let us (for a moment) consider the way Harmony tax works.



Harmony start on a tundra, worth 2 Food, 6 Industry, and 2 Science. For a moment let's imagine we've exploited Food. We will (for the moment) set Mind and Matter to 100% Food. What is happening?



We are producing 8 Food a Turn (2 Base, 2 Exploit, +100% on planets). We are of course (since we have no construction to do at the moment) converting I->S. This means we're also producing 2 Science each turn. So, what are other races looking like?



Sophon: At 0 Tax will be producing 6 Food and 4 Science (Roughly, happiness notwithstanding)

UE: 6 Food 3 Science

Amoeba: 6 Food 5 Science

Sowers (Exploit Industry): 4 Food ~4 Science



Those are the ones off the top of my head. So basically, for the first 3-5 turns you're growing your population about 33% faster than other races. Is your tech going to lag little? Yes. But so does other Faction tech. Sowers get a 20% malus to tech even. Horatio can compete in growth of course, but as far as other races go they can't keep up. Just hard push growth of your first two colonies BAM industrial hub worlds that can now pump out ships. That's what I do, and it works.

Assuming you meant very early game, heres the actual result at turn 3.



I used food slider at 100% and I->S and food exploit for harmony as you mentioned in your post, while sowers are industry exploit and also I->S



http://imgur.com/a/nF9rr



note the harmony barely got any research done, sowers just finished their first research project (i randomly chose one of the low tiers that is used as a start).



The pop growth and science obviously is a lot more helpful later on, especially when most systems are close to pop max and in that case harmony will most likely be one of the highest in research. Just did this to illustrate the actual figures at turn 3.

Igncom1 wrote:
Is that a problem however?



That some races are better on different map types and sizes?



After all it's not like a RTS game with 3 factions, we have a lot more room for variation.



It could simply be that the Sophons and Sherdyn are batter for fast and small map games?

Imho theres a difference betweenslightly weaker and unplayable. However I assume that many of the current faults (conquered systems losing 30 pop in a turn or even homeworld randomly losing 30 pop if food is below 0) are just bugs. If harmony are changed so they can continue growing while building any ship and the pop disappearing is fixed then im sure they will become competitive on most maps/difficulties.

deathenergy wrote:
Imho theres a difference betweenslightly weaker and unplayable. However I assume that many of the current faults (conquered systems losing 30 pop in a turn or even homeworld randomly losing 30 pop if food is below 0) are just bugs. If harmony are changed so they can continue growing while building any ship and the pop disappearing is fixed then im sure they will become competitive on most maps/difficulties.

Do the same thing with Industrial Zones on the Harmony. Plus I forgot Metallic Waters OP. So yah, sowers have more effective research than I originally math'd.

deathenergy wrote:
Imho theres a difference betweenslightly weaker and unplayable. However I assume that many of the current faults (conquered systems losing 30 pop in a turn or even homeworld randomly losing 30 pop if food is below 0) are just bugs. If harmony are changed so they can continue growing while building any ship and the pop disappearing is fixed then im sure they will become competitive on most maps/difficulties.

True true.



Although that industry bug that kept ships more expensive what meant to kinda fix that was it not?



By preventing growth during construction, but by also making construction easy to do, so players would burst build fleets, but not very often.

Autocthon wrote:
Do the same thing with Industrial Zones on the Harmony. Plus I forgot Metallic Waters OP. So yah, sowers have more effective research than I originally math'd.

http://imgur.com/l5K4akq



food slider all the way to 100% (left)

Informative. Harmony probably should have a planetary Anomaly. Rich Soil or Mineral Rich.



But that's one of those minor tuning things. Do consider though that in the first circumstance you're increasing pop a bit faster, and that scales exponentially as time goes on.

Igncom1 wrote:
True true.



Although that industry bug that kept ships more expensive what meant to kinda fix that was it not?



By preventing growth during construction, but by also making construction easy to do, so players would burst build fleets, but not very often.

true. It will be mostly viable (fleets of battle ships) in early game to the tectonic. Pre 1.1.4 (1.1.1) I did rush fighter+tectonic to dominate a.i. in easier difficulties. However 1.1.4 reduced fighter damage significantly (excluding accuracy 245 -> 70), hope its tweaked, since even tier 1 weapons are better than tier 1 fighters for cost even with tectonic specialty working.

If the Planet Pop glitch would hurry up and get fixed I might be able to do some harmony testing. Trying to figure out what causes it. Turn one going to turn two about 75% of the time I lose my entire starting planet population :/

Autocthon wrote:
If the Planet Pop glitch would hurry up and get fixed I might be able to do some harmony testing. Trying to figure out what causes it. Turn one going to turn two about 75% of the time I lose my entire starting planet population :/

Was it the one where if you start a slow game with a race that has no food production bonus your pop goes from 3 to 1?

I only read about it happening on a slow game, don't know if it happens on normal or fast.

I've had the glitch hit me on normal. I had the body and mind slider heavily into mind, but still not starving, and my pop went from 4 to 1 in a single turn.



I've never had the glitch on normal without manipulating that slider heavy into science though.

Antera wrote:
Was it the one where if you start a slow game with a race that has no food production bonus your pop goes from 3 to 1?

I only read about it happening on a slow game, don't know if it happens on normal or fast.

The first 10 turns of my Harmony games are straight etch sliders... So it's probably related to the slider regardless of difficulty. It does happen more on Slow.