The era of Disharmony - click for the HD version
Hey guys,
Today, we are going to reveal tons of information on the Harmony. Just skip this blog post if you don’t want me to spoil the surprise!
At first, we wanted to make a guide, a bit like the one we made for the Automatons a while ago. This time, we thought it could be fun to include our VIP players in this idea. We will try to detail their unique gameplay style and talk about their philosophy (how to play them). We’ll then suggest several custom factions made by the VIPs. We’re also publishing a step by step game of Harmony written by our VIPs: check out this thread!
AFFINITY AND TRAITS
- The Harmony have a very particular affinity which questions several fundamental elements of Endless Space.
- The Harmony have steady approval of 50: they never have bonuses nor penalties related to their approval either.
- The Harmony do not use Dust whatsoever, on the contrary it corrupts them. Therefore, they cannot:
[LIST=1] - Hire heroes
- Buyout improvements
- Retrofit a ship
- Trade Dust
- Receive any kind of Dust thanks to Trade Routes, or Random and Exploration Events
[LIST=1]
[/LIST]
The Tax Rate becomes a gauge of “Body & Mind”, allowing the player to adjust their Food & Science production (
& :science
.
- At the centre: balance, Food and Science are produced at a normal rate.
- Far left: no production of Science, but Food is producer at 150%; the Harmony are focusing on developing their population.
- Far right: no production of Food, but Science is produced at 150%; the Harmony are focusing on research.
I previously mentioned how Dust corrupted the Harmony. This isn’t just a matter of lore but a real issue when it comes to the gameplay they are following. Given that they do not have any approval, they aren’t limited like the other factions of Endless Space in their expansion. However, their expansion might have to slow down when dealing with Dusty systems. Indeed, Dust will penalize the Harmony’s balance and affect their Food and Science production. The best strategy will be to avoid Arid and Desert planet types, as well as other planets with anomalies boosting their Dust production.
The only way to remove any kind of presence of Dust is to purify the system with a unique improvement located in the warfare technology tree:
Contamination Barriers
Once a system is purified, it won’t produce any more Dust
and a part of it will be converted into Food and Science. The purification process is irreversible and may penalise other empire’s economies.
Well, I think you know enough about their affinity now, and you’ll have the pleasure to discover other subtleties of this faction when you get to play it or read the VIPs posts! Now let’s take a look at their traits:
- Xenobotany: unlocks Tundra colonization
- Crowded Planet II: +2 Pop on tiny and small, + 1 Pop medium
- Solid Citizen [NEW]: allows them to reduce their loss of Population & troops when invading / being invaded. They are rocks after all, aren’t they?
- Mineral Memory [NEW]: whenever you visit a system, all the available strategic resources are revealed, even if you can’t exploit them yet.
- Strategically Resourceful [NEW]: removes by one number the amount of strategic resources needed to get a monopoly.
- Efficient Stock [NEW]: +1% FIS (Food, Industry and Science) on all systems per exploited strategic resources on planets.
It is then obvious that they will build a gameplay around these strategic resources. Not only does this bonus get interesting, but it will almost become vital if you want to survive against the other factions! I haven’t mentioned the faction’s unique technologies and don’t intend to do so: I still want you to discover them when you get to play “Disharmony”!
PHILOSOPHY
MAIN DILEMMA
To play the Harmony, you need to find the right balance between developing your population and consequently their expansion in the long term, as well as their scientific research progression. By the way, they do have infinite improvements that aim at converting industry to science and industry to food. Note that you may build a macro strategy and use these buildings to refine your empire’s orientation.
FIRST FEW TURNS
At the beginning of the game, two paths are possible:
- Either concentrate on Food to maximize their home system population
- Or take the research route and try to unlock colonisation technologies
If there’s a system at your reach, it is better to focus on Food in the first place. However, if I do not find any colonisable planets within the first two turns, I will most likely try to get a focus on research and look for the arctic colonisation technology and / or other techs to exploit strategic resources.
COLONISATION
As far as colonisation is concerned, I tend to avoid arid planets, unless they’ve got strategic resources, which might bring an interesting bonus to my empire. Then, I’ll try to find some arctic, barren and lava planets: since the Harmony do not have any approval issues, I better enjoy them as they’re hostile to other players!
SHIP PRODUCTION
Keep in mind that the Harmony do not pay any upkeep. Producing ships very early (yes, I will get my revenge, Nosferatiel!) allows you to slow down your neighbours’ development. You need to find a compromise between your systems’ development, use of infinite improvements and ship production. All of this will become important since you will have to make sure you build a great amount of ships and update your designs from time to time as it is impossible to retrofit to counter your enemies. Note that you’ll also have to fight against enemy ships with heroes!
CUSTOM FACTIONS
Taken from the VIP forums (thread):
Eysteinh wrote:
Harmony. Home planet Tundra. (2,6,2,2 (FIDS))
Xenobotany (tundra planets)
Crowded planets ++ (2 small and tiny and +1 medium.)
Strategically Resourceful (3 for monopoly)
Efficient stocks. (+1% FIS per strategic resource)
Mineral Memory (See all strategic resources in a visited system)
Solid Citizens. (20% less collateral damage on population and troops.)
Snowballing/expansion play style: (Suited for any map where you expect to expand for a while before meeting your opponents.)
Pro's and con's:
Faction trait means no buyout since they do not use dust so loosing some tempo from this but also no upkeep from buildings or ship. Quite a powerfull trait.
Also with no approval they loose serious bonuses from happiness (10% lost science from a fervent empire and 20% food and industry bonus early then 10% FIDS lost with colonial rights) but at the same time save huge investment in approval both in industry and dust upkeep. Also means they can expand without any sort of mechanism stopping them other than Dust Interference & Dust Corruption.
Also they have no heroes. That means no bonus to your planets or ships. Basically your own your own and your system building skills will decide how well you do in your game. And many exploration events affect dust or heroes and these will be of no use to your faction.
On the other hand any anomality on a planet with approval penalty will not matter (for example toxic), and gas planets should be expanded too early. Lending power to tolerate trait.
You will in custom traits gain a free hellguards, while at the same time loose all the negative points from hero traits.
Your tax slider is changed with a food vs science bonus slider. This means you can grow extremly quickly early and if you use the science in times when most of your planets are building ships that add growth penatly then you are in reality not having as big of a penalty as the slider would suggest.
In unqiue techs the harmony player has a tech to help vs the penatly for dust, and also alliance bonus techs. For this reason endless war trait is not recommended.
Finally arid, hydrogen and desert planets are not much worth to harmony so they have less use for 3 out of 13 planets. (23% of planets are allmost useless for harmony.)
My custom faction:
Wudda Harmony +
Anarchist ++
Arid Epigenetics (I want to be able to expand quickly so no time to waist having planet techs so my first colony ship have high odds to expand.)
Ascetism +
Builders +++
Cloning +
Compact fusion reactors (Arctic planets and also +2 movement that is very important for expansion early.)
Deep roots ++
Efficient stocks +
Hellgourds +
Millitarist +++
Offensive first +
Feeble warriors ++ (if you expand you should have the early advantage so you need to be the one on the invasion path not your opponent)
Strategically resourcefull (very powerfull to have 3 monopoly if you have a slight luck. The monopoly bonuses are all powerfull so this trait has a lot of potential.)
Xenobotany (tundra planets.)
InFlamesWeTrust wrote:
Well my custom faction is very expansion orientated and not at all diplomatic. I use:
Hellgourds (Obvious because it gives you +3 food for -5)
Tolerant 2 (So I can expand and grow without need for science in the early game)
Eternal War (I won't be making friends as they use dust)
Cloning 1 (To increase growth on the lesser planets when I colonise them, as I always go for Methane first if its in a system)
Builders 3 (So I can build faster)
Militarists 2 (So I can expand and conquer faster)
Fast Travellers 1 (So I can expand faster)
So basically this strategy relies on full on growth straight away, then full on science while you're building colony ships. I then rinse and repeat this till I can expand no more. When you have all the systems you're going to get, whack up food to about 70% so you can grow your empire to full population quickly. Then you produce full science when you have full pop or very close to it. Simple strategy and not really tested it out too much but it does seem to work. The hardest part is getting the balance between growth and science right because if you fall too far behind in science you're not going to be able to stand up against other races with superior tech. The Harmony are slow early game but will come back with a vengeance a bit later. You can also use the fact that they have lower FIDS score because you only have FIS, which can confuse your opponents into thinking you're far behind them when in fact you're in front!
Nosferatiel wrote:
Well, I'll try to be brief.
My custom faction:
1 Cloning
1 Deep Roots
1 Eternal War
2 Fast Travelers
2 Feeble Warriors
3 Growth Plan
1 Hellgourds
3 Militarists
3 Offense First
1 Strong Alloys
1 Xenobotany
Reasoning behind the points:
Since harmony do have a food < > science conversion lever instead of a tax lever, percentual and direct bonuses on food or science give maximum benefit.
Why I took food, not science bonuses? For the simple reason that the first planets you can settle have higher food bonuses than science bonuses. Harmony can very well settle barren and helium planets, but doing so requires you to put your tax lever to food > science conversion in order to not shrink those colonies, until you have sufficient buidings in the system to make it sustain itself at 0 conversion or science favored conversions.
Since you do not have any approval, the only limit to your extension is how fast you can actually extend. Therefore the fast travel.
Additionally, there is no upkeep whatsoever on ships. So build ships, when you've got nothing to do. You cannot upgrade them, later on, therefore build multipurpose armored ships, instead. If they're no good for anything else, they'll at least hinder an enemy from advancing.
Finally, why eternal war with the harmony? Because you do not get the same benefits from trade as anyone else, because you'll have a ton of ships before anyone else thinks of building such amounts (upkeep? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) and because you absolutely have to make sure you destroy anyone who tries to make a very successful hero, since you do not have any!