PANCZASU wrote:
This might not be directly related to Harmony but here it goes:



Can you please change the invasion system so that ships with 0 invasion power cannot start an invasion? Having a tiny scout ship crippling your empire just by orbiting your system doesn't make a whole lot of sense tbh.

This would also help the Harmony. They are quite weak in early game so things would be much easier for them if they didn't have to worry about their systems being "taken over" by 0 invasion power ships.

Here we go Ill say this one more time or as many times as I have to.



This is how I think it should be:



To start even a blockade, the assailant must have a Military Power equal to or greater than the system defense. Or, since defenses can get crazy, 1/2 or 1/3 of the system defense. Either way, make the ability to blockade correlated to the ratio of MP to system Defense.



That's the only real way I thought up to fix it. Also, you would be force to protect you invasion ships at all times, making the take over of a faction slower, meaning a less landslide game in my opinion.

anomalacaris wrote:
Actually, -100% growth apply to everyone. Harmony did not receive any additional penalty, which is good enough! What's more, as harmony you go full research (as in as far as it won't kill your pops) while building colony ships, effectively reducing the impact of -100% growth. On the colony ship front, it's actually advantage: Harmony.





I intepret it very differently. Harmony no upkeep is not about rushing, but about hoarding. Rushing is more Hissho, Cravers or Sheredyn. Everyone can afford a couple fleets early game which is when a rush start, and Harmony only gains advantage when it has way more ships (likely not a rush time anymore).



I think Harmony is somewhat ok expansion wise with tolerance, but they have a key weakness to early hero-led fleets. (+att def from Strategic Abundance kick in TOO LATE, compared with economic compensation like harmonize planets) I think it's way better for them to gain say +5% +att def from just having said resource, while getting full +10% for abundance. Still, that won't compensate at all for the versatility that dust brings for warfare.

Yeah but at this stage of the game i have no problem with any race to pay the upkeep up to hundreds of Ships.



Also Tolerant is far too overprized this + the lack of negative traits you can pick+ the lack of heroes+the lack of approval bonuses from the very start of the game + the huge penalties till purified systems makes them the weakest race of all.

Monthar wrote:
Yes, but every other race can rush buy the colony ship if they have the dust to do so, thus limiting the penalty to a single turn. Cranking up the research while building colony ships will only prevent starvation for the system(s) building a colony ship or colonizing another planet in the same system, all your other systems will starve. So that option isn't as useful as you imply. Most of the time you'll only be able to crank to about 75% science/25% food before your other systems start to starve, unless you have those systems build industry to food, which prevents them from building anything else.

Yep so true you can never realy can go 100% in early or early midgame or systems begin to starve.

Yes, but every other race can rush buy the colony ship if they have the dust to do so, thus limiting the penalty to a single turn. Cranking up the research while building colony ships will only prevent starvation for the system(s) building a colony ship or colonizing another planet in the same system, all your other systems will starve. So that option isn't as useful as you imply. Most of the time you'll only be able to crank to about 75% science/25% food before your other systems start to starve, unless you have those systems build industry to food, which prevents them from building anything else.

First I would reduce the growth penalty when building ships by 25% of the current which brings it to -75% on colony ships and -37.5% when building other ships. Halting all growth when building colony ships is horrible, especially since you also lose a pop per seed module when the ship is completed.

Actually, -100% growth apply to everyone. Harmony did not receive any additional penalty, which is good enough! What's more, as harmony you go full research (as in as far as it won't kill your pops) while building colony ships, effectively reducing the impact of -100% growth. On the colony ship front, it's actually advantage: Harmony.

Yeah its quite depressing its like "hey mhh i pay no upkeep for ships lets build some of those" next moment "oh yeah building ships cruhses my early game Pop Growth cancels out any early agressive tactic ;D"

I intepret it very differently. Harmony no upkeep is not about rushing, but about hoarding. Rushing is more Hissho, Cravers or Sheredyn. Everyone can afford a couple fleets early game which is when a rush start, and Harmony only gains advantage when it has way more ships (likely not a rush time anymore).



I think Harmony is somewhat ok expansion wise with tolerance, but they have a key weakness to early hero-led fleets. (+att def from Strategic Abundance kick in TOO LATE, compared with economic compensation like harmonize planets) I think it's way better for them to gain say +5% +att def from just having said resource, while getting full +10% for abundance. Still, that won't compensate at all for the versatility that dust brings for warfare.

I'm failing to see the problem with system growth. This only haults the systems with a shitty population and i'm faily sure that ½ of ones empire should be able to rip ships out in a timely manner because Harmony are inhertantly expansive. If that makes any sense?

Monthar wrote:
After playing the Harmony a lot and comparing them to every other race there are just a few things I would change.



First I would reduce the growth penalty when building ships by 25% of the current which brings it to -75% on colony ships and -37.5% when building other ships. Halting all growth when building colony ships is horrible, especially since you also lose a pop per seed module when the ship is completed.



Second I would give the affinity a flat +10% FIS on Empire, +10% min/max damage on all weapons, +10% defense on all defense modules, +10% invasion strength +10% MP rating per fleet and +10% defense on system. This is primarily to compensate for the lack of heroes. The FIS bonus is to also compensate for the lack of ecstatic bonus that all the other races get since Harmony has no approval system. Heroes add +2% science per wit point, +2% production per labor point, +5 and +5% system defense per melee point, +4% min/max damage and +4% MP rating per offense point, and +4% defense and another +4% MP rating per defense point. As the heroes level up, that's a lot bonuses. Granted the other races can't have a hero on every system or with every fleet, but they can move them around every few turns to boost a system or put them in their best fleet. When you add all the hero bonuses up and divide by the number of systems that's likely more than a mere +10% FIDS boost they are providing on average. Doing the same with the fleets might end up as much less than 10%, but a single fleet with the kinds of boosts a hero can add is more than a match for several identical fleets without the hero. This is why I said a flat 10% boost across the board for everything heroes can boost.

Yeah its quite depressing its like "hey mhh i pay no upkeep for ships lets build some of those" next moment "oh yeah building ships cruhses my early game Pop Growth cancels out any early agressive tactic ;D"

After playing the Harmony a lot and comparing them to every other race there are just a few things I would change.



First I would reduce the growth penalty when building ships by 25% of the current which brings it to -75% on colony ships and -37.5% when building other ships. Halting all growth when building colony ships is horrible, especially since you also lose a pop per seed module when the ship is completed.



Second I would give the affinity a flat +10% FIS on Empire, +10% min/max damage on all weapons, +10% defense on all defense modules, +10% invasion strength +10% MP rating per fleet and +10% defense on system. This is primarily to compensate for the lack of heroes. The FIS bonus is to also compensate for the lack of ecstatic bonus that all the other races get since Harmony has no approval system. Heroes add +2% science per wit point, +2% production per labor point, +5 and +5% system defense per melee point, +4% min/max damage and +4% MP rating per offense point, and +4% defense and another +4% MP rating per defense point. As the heroes level up, that's a lot bonuses. Granted the other races can't have a hero on every system or with every fleet, but they can move them around every few turns to boost a system or put them in their best fleet. When you add all the hero bonuses up and divide by the number of systems that's likely more than a mere +10% FIDS boost they are providing on average. Doing the same with the fleets might end up as much less than 10%, but a single fleet with the kinds of boosts a hero can add is more than a match for several identical fleets without the hero. This is why I said a flat 10% boost across the board for everything heroes can boost.

Now, i'm not a fantastic player, but by utilizing tolerant and fast ship-travel, i actually managed to squeeze a shitload of ahips out around the 50-turn mark, owning half of the galaxy through fairly intense warfare.. New stuff in the front, and the old planets ripping out ships (because, well, they are all fully populated). When you hit the "no more dust" mark, it's an avalanche of ships the opponents have to deal with. I love it!!!

I feel like they are now at least competitive, while not the best, and are as strong as they need to be for more advanced players to use them against more basic players using races like the Sophons.

It's interesting reading the history of the Harmony balance issues in this thread. I just started playing the game the day before Dungeon of the Endless appeared on Early Access.



With that in mind, my experience is very limited. I have only played 3 single player games, all with exactly the same presets:

• Huge Spiral-4
• High Density
• Old Galaxy
• Many Constellations
• High Connectivity
• Many Wormholes
• Short Constellation Distance
• Many Planets
• Random Planet Sizes
• Many Resources
• Normal Difficulty
• Amoeba, Automaton, Craver, Harmony, Hisso, Sophon, and Sower AIs

Game 1: Pilgrims; lost to the Harmony achieving a wonder victory

Game 2: Vaulters, lost by 2 turns to the Sophons achieving an economic victory

Game 3: Vaulters, won a diplomatic victory (1 turn away from a scientific victory!)



In all three games, the Harmony had the highest score. They also had the largest number of systems after me. In my third game they singlehandedly annihilated the Cravers.



I recognize my sample size of three (all under the same, very specific conditions) is not necessarily representative of the norm. That said, my experience seems to at least paint the Harmony in its current state as a viable AI opponent for single player. It seems like the updates have had a positive effect.



I never did enter armed conflict with them for an extended period, though. Perhaps my opinion would change if I had directly observed their martial prowess (or lack thereof). The Cravers and Sowers were always the thorn in my side from a military perspective.

Stealth_Hawk wrote:
Here we go Ill say this one more time or as many times as I have to.



This is how I think it should be:



To start even a blockade, the assailant must have a Military Power equal to or greater than the system defense. Or, since defenses can get crazy, 1/2 or 1/3 of the system defense. Either way, make the ability to blockade correlated to the ratio of MP to system Defense.



That's the only real way I thought up to fix it. Also, you would be force to protect you invasion ships at all times, making the take over of a faction slower, meaning a less landslide game in my opinion.

I haven't played in a while but I can't believe that this hasn't been done yet. There have been so many suggestions to make ES a better game but they've been buried from time. Only just recently the basics of ship repair and rally points has been introduced.

Despite the changes in the recent add-on, harmony still seem a little... bogged down.



I've been experimenting with game starts on hard difficulty, as a custom harmony-affinity faction and one other harmony AI on an 8-player single player game.



In nearly every game after about 50 or so turns on slow speed, I'm almost always in 7th place in score (normally find I'm 1st with my other custom factions), with the harmony in 8th. In my most recent game, even the Hissho were more technically advanced than me and wiped me out with one fleet. And even with my inferiority in all places, I was still superior to the harmony in every area (except ; but my ower: was higher).



I've tried balanced mind/matter and I've tried cranking up to max and using the > strategy. In both cases, science goes at a snail's pace. And that's even with some points dropped into the science trait.

Monthar wrote:
Yes, but every other race can rush buy the colony ship if they have the dust to do so, thus limiting the penalty to a single turn. Cranking up the research while building colony ships will only prevent starvation for the system(s) building a colony ship or colonizing another planet in the same system, all your other systems will starve. So that option isn't as useful as you imply. Most of the time you'll only be able to crank to about 75% science/25% food before your other systems start to starve, unless you have those systems build industry to food, which prevents them from building anything else.

Sovereign wrote:


Yep so true you can never realy can go 100% in early or early midgame or systems begin to starve.

Wait a minute here... I think you guys read me wrong, as 100% science is obviously impossible. It's about reducing your food surplus so you don't lose that much food when building ships.

Actually building colony ship/colony base doesn't stop your system from shrinking. You set your slider right where you don't starve for all planets, and I usually divide early Harmony into 'colonizing+research' and 'growth' episodes, which means I build colony ship/colony base on all systems simultaneously.



Dust to colony ship? Really? Very expensive way of using dust, which I don't get that many early game due to outposts being utterly bad at dust.

Also Tolerant is far to overprized this + the lack of negative traits you can pick+ the lack of heroes+the lack of approval bonuses from the very start of the game + the huge penalties till purified systems makes them the weakest race of all.

Chill.. I didn't say Harmony is actually strong, they need help against early rush, especially since they lack retrofit and buyout.

Harmony do much better with tolerant for the early game, with some Lava/Barren/Helium/Methane. They won't be much slower FIDS wise if harmonize planet is somewhat reached early.

Bump



for the reason i found playing the Harmony still being a dissapointment maybe they are good in the late game but every faction is that in a way.

Also they are highly luck dependent...set the ressource rate in the settings to low or just not found enough planets with strategic ressources cripples the Harmony extremly.

PANCZASU wrote:
This might not be directly related to Harmony but here it goes:



Can you please change the invasion system so that ships with 0 invasion power cannot start an invasion? Having a tiny scout ship crippling your empire just by orbiting your system doesn't make a whole lot of sense tbh.

This would also help the Harmony. They are quite weak in early game so things would be much easier for them if they didn't have to worry about their systems being "taken over" by 0 invasion power ships.

Thats true this is crippling the Harmony way more then a normal race.

Also one could argue Harmony could do the same even better cause they pay no upkeep costs...but well some 0 Invasion Ships is a thing every tiny empire no matter which faction can affort.

Steph'nie wrote:
We release our mod: Help the Harmony. Let us know what you think of the changes! Link.

How many people have fooled around with this? I haven't had the time, but it looks like a pretty decent boost. Especially to their ability to pick up strategic and luxury resources. Hopefully they'll be able to trade those in lieu of dust.

This might not be directly related to Harmony but here it goes:



Can you please change the invasion system so that ships with 0 invasion power cannot start an invasion? Having a tiny scout ship crippling your empire just by orbiting your system doesn't make a whole lot of sense tbh.

This would also help the Harmony. They are quite weak in early game so things would be much easier for them if they didn't have to worry about their systems being "taken over" by 0 invasion power ships.

Doshaburi wrote:
Can you develop a little the subtle changes you noticed ? Maybe I miss some important points and I'm interested.

Science is noticeably faster than before, making purifying tech easier to get. This is the easiest one to spot since you can just compare tech trees between versions.



I'm sure industry and food are faster too, but that would be difficult to judge without taking science out of the picture. With faster science, you get the tier 2 techs for those resources much quicker. While this is useful, keep in mind you're not going to be able to outtech your opponent in the early game. You'll still be behind until you can purify your systems and start harmonizing planets.



As for strategy, I like to get as much of the colonization-required techs unlocked before getting the purification tech. It's a nice early boost and allows for early unlocking of mass resources, good for defense and extra production. I'm not aggressive early on, though I make a bunch of fleets for defense. I tend to sit quietly in my arm of the galaxy and try to get peace with everyone and then pick on the weakest race that doesn't like me post purify tech to claim any resources I'm still missing for abundance.

ArealFloodAdvisory wrote:
Just finished a round on Serious. Definitely some nice changes! Subtle, small, but useful. Most obvious on the research side of things.



Nice balance too; the Harmony are still very weak early game but that's ok seeing how their endgame behaves. This gives a few more chances to reach that endgame!

Really ? I still have a hard time playing them, especially when the first enemies' heroes show up. Maybe I'm not playing correctly though... I will see if I can learn something on the Forum. I thought the patch would need somethings more to be perfect.



Can you develop a little the subtle changes you noticed ? Maybe I miss some important points and I'm interested.

Steph'nie wrote:
We release our mod: Help the Harmony. Let us know what you think of the changes! Link.

Just finished a round on Serious. Definitely some nice changes! Subtle, small, but useful. Most obvious on the research side of things.



Nice balance too; the Harmony are still very weak early game but that's ok seeing how their endgame behaves. This gives a few more chances to reach that endgame!



Some notes:



-Metal Memory (resource combat bonus tech) bonuses are invisible. Is this intended? I figured they'd show up a la the ship experience bonuses (gives more fists). This leads to the endgame hilarity of a wimpy fleet holdings its own or even beating a fleet (seemingly) 10x more powerful than it. Not a major issue, but would be a nice QOL tweak.

-How is the altered Dust production from Contamination Barriers (purify improvement) supposed to show? If it's supposed to show on the planetary level, it's not working correctly. At least, my Hydrogen giants don't seem to do anything when it's built and I thought that would be the most obvious place to spot it. And anyone clarify/confirm/deny?

Bonjour tout le monde !



*switching to English*

I'm not playing the Harmony for very long but I tried to analyze as much as I can and learned from the previous post about the current problems.



First of all I like the idea of a slow-paced mineral life forms creating their own empire, eradicating Dust to pursue their goal (well... in fact I don't really know the goal of the Harmony... is it to look after the Core once again ? And if it is, then can Harmony "clean" itself from the Dust to regain their lost abilities (like natural space-flight for each individual, or shared mind) ? Or do they intend to use spaceships to continue their job, even if it is not as effective as before ? Or did they give up about the Core and now focus on purging every single planet from Dust in the entire universe ? Well that's not the question here but it pass through my mind). And I also like all the stuff around resonance, if it was me I would certainly had push it further as I love game mechanisms that interact which each others.

Why to bother to specify ? Because I will not ask for something that does not fit the Harmony as I (maybe it is not everyone's opinion, I don't know) see them. Harmony is unique and that must be protected !



When I first played the Harmony I was a bit sad that they only had a few ordinary traits (except for the Harmony affinity, of course) which didn't lead to any particular gamplay (for instance the Eternal War trait from the Cravers with their Affinity trait obviously make them a belligerent world-eating empire, which have to conquer more and more ; the Sophons are great learners ; Amoebas are good with diplomacy and earn lots of and by trading ; etc). I had a lot of expectations about the Dust eradication mechanisms that would be involved but I was quite disappointed as they don't really exist. Of course there are the Disharmony mechanism and the Dust effect on population but we don't have many tools to counter that except with a T7 Military technology which radically solve the whole problem. It is really too far in the tech tree to be used early on, and it is on the Military tech tree, implying to use a lot of science into ships, lowering a lot the FIS (because recently colonized planets are slowed down and full colonized planets can not extend any further while building battleships) which is already lowered by Disharmony and Dust.



But ... fine. I tried it like that and focus on a full tech development using the Restoration Grids (+50% FIS on fully pop planet) on 4 researched specialized planets. While researching on the military tech tree, I use other systems to produce defensive Tectonic-class battleships (deflectors and/or shields, a repair and a armor modules, and 2 battle specialized fighters, improving the blueprint while unlocking new technologies). That's certainly not the best way to play, but it is close to my vision of the Harmony (slow developing, but strong developing). Plus, that points out some weakness.



First : if we need to quickly specialized into the military tech tree (I think the Harmony is too slow to go far and wide before developing an army, but I may be wrong) we need Industry specialized systems, however like it is now we can not build battleships AND develop the system's population at the same time. That means that we have to maximize the pop before going to Industry but that takes time, or use partially colonized planets and Industrialize them... but that is not as efficient (no +50% bonus).



We could change the Restoration Grids to provide a progressive bonus for each opulation: (could go exponentially though, 1 opulation: gives near nothing and max opulation: gives the whole bonus) instead of a big bonus for max opulation:. Speaking about that I noticed that Restoration Grids have a cost and Contamination Barriers have a Turn cost, maybe it would be more useful the other way. Then we could build a Restoration Grids on difficult systems to rapidly get a FIS bonus. But it may be to simple then... I don't know.



We also could remove the growth rate loss on building battleships and replace it by a cost ? As I understand this, Harmony ships are made with the same material as their body (maybe wrong) and, so, would have the same needs in energy to grow. It is natural to think that building a ship means less energy to "eat" for the population. That would permit developed planet with enough Food/Energy production to satisfy all... well... crystals.



another idea is that, if the ships are made with the same material as the citizens, that battleships could resonate with people on the planet. For example each orbiting ships could give a little bonus to Restoration Grids along with people. That also could help colonizing difficult systems since we don't have any possible buyout.



Speaking of Dust I think we should destroy it earlier than with the Contamination Barriers. All races get benefits from (buyouts, retrofits, heroes, special action cards, diplomacy interactions, trade interests, ...) and Harmony doesn't. I think we should have something else we can rely on, especially early-game, for example special planetary exploitation (or system improvement) that convert 1 per opulation: into // (maybe with some kind of rock that absorb little amount of Dust and convert them into... energy ? well... background-ly speaking). Like RobM was saying, we could use system improvements which give flat bonus on this basis (for example : -X +Y on system). That would destroy some dust and provide useful bonus early game that will not overpower the Harmony end game.



About Heroes would it be too unbalanced if Harmony has... Harmony heroes ? That is to say Harmony beings without dust enhancement and not as effective as normal heroes, in other words : quantity before quality. Or maybe rather than a single hero leading a fleet, all Harmony's ships could have a little beneficial effect on the others, as I don't really see a Harmony being standing out and being a hero on a fleet or on a system. I don't even know if they have some kind of hierarchy.



Well that's really a long post and I don't even know if there is anything useful in it.

I hope I could help... =S



Dosha