I've been trying a lot of different things and trait combinations but I cant for the life of me stand a chance against the usual multiplayer affinities.



Heres what I've learned:



1) Due to disharmony taking 5-7% FIS per system above 3 on all systems (And cant be countered with empire range like regular factions can) your limited to a certain amt of systems based on difficulty before you get contamination barriers. This hurts your ability to make improvements, teching and even growth since it takes away from base food so you get closer and closer to not even having surplus food. The number of systems you can take before diminishing returns starts hurting is around 6-9 depending on difficulty. (Assuming you have cassimir already)



2)Without buyout, if a system does not have a jungle/tundra/lava/methane that system is crippled and unworkable for pre barriers it takes too long to get anything built though population does grow if the slider is for food. Without tolerant your early game goes into praying for jungle/tundra.



3) Contamination barriers is 5.6k science... means you really need those science planets, but without industry planets your not gonna be able to build anything on them, so now your left praying for industry/science system combinations. If you get just science you cant develop them since you cant buyout, if you get industry means you will never reach contamination barriers, and your limited on systems you can take before barriers and with the 5.6k goal you need a LOT of science planets.



4) War slows you down brutally, due to amp not figuring out their industry discounts you spend a lot of turns on half growth or no growth trying tot ake advantage of the slider. If someone goes to war on you right when you finish a science cycle and are about to go into a growth cycle you pretty much lost. Any extended wars mean you get outgrown since you cant ever stop making ships.



5)Dust planets might as well not be there before barriers, its a lot of planets you cant even touch, even terran is kinda iffy. Dust anomalies or luxuries can ruin the planets your looking for, you may even have to skip researching a luxury to just try to avoid the dust. Dust on systems lowers your industry and food already low from disharmony, cripping growth and improvements/fleet.



6) Hull bonuses, engine tonnage on first hull is pointless, industry isnt worth the little evasion multiplier. I am not familiar with the recent buffs to fighters/bobmers but before that it woudlve been 100% worthless. Point defense is pretty pointless as a bonus and good luck reaching any other hull techwise.



I've yet to reach barriers on any MP game, either due to the host leaving (which is ruining 80% of my MP games) or being attacked when im 70% of the way to it since im obviously the weakest player and people want to expand by that point in the game. Or simply not getting enough science planets in my area... god knows im not gonna be able to fight for systems early without crippling myself.



Any suggestions or has anyone even managed to figure this out? Feels extremely ridiculous the main feature of the Disharmony expansion is not even workable.





Ps. Any vip forumers care to shine whats being worked on? Its like a desert on the regular forums and im sorta getting discouraged seeing no movement or communication.

I would also like to know if people are able to make harmony workable. I find that all the other races have great control of their approval, whether by dropping tax rate and using some industry to dust or by setting up their research so that they are able to have approval improvements right when they need them. New systems can easily be kick started by admin hero and buyout of isotope factory. The approval system is so much easier to deal with then the crazy disharmony penalties.



I think they need to rework where the disharmony improvement techs and contamination barriers tech are in the tech tree because you just get stomped by enemies that pick up speed into the midgame. I also agree that you are much more dependent on getting good planets(for harmony) then other races.

I've got to agree. It seems like Harmony have a handful of crippling weaknesses and almost no redeeming features to make up for them. Both not having any dust for buyouts and heroes and cutting population growth in half while you're making a ship hurt a lot. Contamination barriers should be one of the first techs you get, maybe even just a given at the beginning.

Harmony is Underpowered as hell period!



Save the Harmony!

Has anyone tried just picking up just the tier 1 beams, missiles, and invasion tech from the warfare tree and the required titanium and hyperium strategic resources from the science tree, then spamming cheap cutters equipped with tier 1 weapons? The lack of upkeep would mean you could field a huge army of tiny ships which take almost no time to complete long before your opponent could work up a proper army. Not sure if it would actually work or not though.

I consider the Harmony a great single player race but its terrible for multi-player.



I dont even play multi-player games but from the look of it and from my ingame experiences with it I consider that the case.

Multiplayer is the measure of all things if it comes to find out the true potential of a race/race affinity.



The AI is beatable even if you took all the negative Race Traits and not a single postive one.

Nacho wrote:
Has anyone tried just picking up just the tier 1 beams, missiles, and invasion tech from the warfare tree and the required titanium and hyperium strategic resources from the science tree, then spamming cheap cutters equipped with tier 1 weapons? The lack of upkeep would mean you could field a huge army of tiny ships which take almost no time to complete long before your opponent could work up a proper army. Not sure if it would actually work or not though.

At this point I think other factions can produce tier 2 stuff just as fast once tier 2 infrastructure kicks in (something that Harmony is missing due to lack of heroes and all the faction goodies being tier 3), and tier 1 is just not good enough vs anything later than that to stockpile. And early game expansion is meaningless cause you don't have the tech to benefit beyond certain number of systems and vast number of planet types.