Most Efficient Build

[dschingis27]

It's funny: after our conversation, I just had a new win in 7 turns with a totally flat board.

It's not that uncommon I'd say. It happened to me, too, recently, in the same tournament. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=815900930 This was a "classic" ladybug + fennec fox combo.

It can be very effective to go for the "sprint", particularly as 2nd player and when your opponent does not pay enough attention. Sometimes it's good to place "nonsense tiles" on ground floor (like extra browns or reds that do nothing) just to keep the tactical advantage to finish quickly and pressure your opponent. It can backfire though, here is an old game where Ellektra desperately tried to outsprint me, but without success, I was lucky enough to get enough points in time and then I was so far ahead if the game had continued that there wouldn't have been good chances for him. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=742973206

[LeLion92]

Interesting.
To what rate would you say that such 7-turns games occur?
Once every 100 games? 50? 200?

Ellektra was penalized by the four empty brown tokens.
Had 2 of them be extra greys or greens he would have won.
It is on cases like this that we see that even if Harmonies has a low luck factor it is still non-zero

[dschingis27]

Funny enough, in the end Ellektra won the tournament where he lost the game I linked to, so his luck came back in other games.

Subjectively I'd say "the sprint" happens roughly 1 in 40 (let's say sth in 1 in 30 to 1 in 50). It will depend on your playstyle and opponent pool how often it happens to you. It's just something you want in your toolbox, particularly as 2nd player. I often make a quick mental check in the last quarter of the game if my moves are worth it to "lose tempo", that is I check if I land at max (11), 8, 5, 2 remaining moves and if not, make damn sure that the points/advantage I gain are worth the lost tactical advantage to end the game quickly.

But I have to say that pulling and avoiding "sprints" is not the most important skill to master, there are other more important topics to cover to get good at the game. It is something that helps in some percentage of games but certainly other things will be more broadly relevant.

It is of course a great topic for us Harmonies nerds. Now that we have seen the probably theoretically best possible setup with 7 turns, what's the best setup with 8 turns? I feel that this is a tough challenge.

[LeLion92]

Classic "variance swing" for Ellektra

Actually your insights made me think about another interesting debate: how much of an advantage is it to be player 2?
I have the feeling it is quite much, but I should check my records to support it with data (ex: percentage win on every position)...

[dschingis27]

The 1st player advantage has been discussed before. https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38697
I know that opu928 who might be the best Harmonies player to date has a strong believe in the 1st player advantage, too. He rates it slightly higher than I do but we agree on this. However, the advantage is mild and does not break the game at all.

The "luck factor 1" was also discussed already and disputed. https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38744

[tbhp]

Interesting.
To what rate would you say that such 7-turns games occur?
Once every 100 games? 50? 200?

Ellektra was penalized by the four empty brown tokens.
Had 2 of them be extra greys or greens he would have won.
It is on cases like this that we see that even if Harmonies has a low luck factor it is still non-zero

It happens a lot more often when you aim for it. If you don't even think of the possibility, then it's very unlikely you'd find yourself in a position to end in 21 tiles, as you'd very probably have built a few higher structures by then. But once you realize it's possible, you can will it to happen every now and then. You just need the confidence to go through with it, since you'll probably have to sacrifice a few useless tiles along the way, which can lead to regrets if the plan doesn't work.

Ellektra is known for doing weird things sometimes, like putting buildings everywhere or causing his own downfall by ending games prematurely. In the linked game, if he had denied the double greens for the bee points, then maybe with some luck he might have won on the next turn.

When you go for a low build it's good to have a card or two that allows you to get quick points if you need to extend the game. Ellektra didn't have this here, lots of browns but he had no cards that could make use of them, so he was in a bit of a dead end.

Harmonies is pretty low luck factor when players of different levels play each other, but games between players of similar level often come down to luck. When you both are really good, you usually can guess what your opponent is going to do on their next move, so the game is often decided by the unknowable parts, like who is going to get the best combination of cards in the beginning, or who will get just the tiles they need in the end.

You can do your best to mitigate that luck factor, by having a good handling of probabilities, working on your interaction game, designing a flexible board that works with many different cards, but sometimes that's not enough to win.

[I Love You More Than]

Interesting.
To what rate would you say that such 7-turns games occur?
Once every 100 games? 50? 200?

For me it is 0 times in 900 games, I've never even thought about it until recently and I suspect most players don't try this until much later in their Harmonies progression.

Here is another thing I just thought about...The only animal spirit that can end the game in 7 turns is the Butterfly. Every other build is not flat...Yet another things that makes the Butterfly OP.

Therefore, I would say 7 turn games are almost exclusive to games without animal spirits.

[LeLion92]

In the other hand, nothing forces you to play your spirit.
I can imagine a game where you see you can take a good combo of flat animals, while your opponent has a long-to-build spirit, and you deliberately decide to ignore your own spirit to rush your opponent in 7 turns. That would be a legitimate tactical choice.

[tbhp]

That's something I haven't tried yet, but it would be very cool.

It's certainly doable because, all things considered, games with spirits don't tend to score that much higher than spiritless games. I mean, if you have butterfly, lion or turtle, you can often cruise past 100 points very quickly, but for the less overpowered spirits, people usually won't do much more than 100 points in 27 tiles. So that's certainly beatable with a spiritless game. The only problem is that you're gonna be stuck with your spirit card, but that's not necessarily a problem if you finish your cards fast, or if your plan doesn't require that many of them.

Along the same lines, opu928 won the final of the monthly 512 players tournament by playing only one animal card alongside his spirit, relying on just butterfly points and water points. That was something very cool to do in the final of such a major tournament.

(also note the hidden symbolism of his build: the 9 tiles river representing the 9 games he had to win, then at the end of the river, the golden gilded path to victory)

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=798748384&gs=1

I guess now the next challenge should be: try to win a competitive game without playing any animal card, relying just on spirit points and terrain points.

[dschingis27]

This one might be close to the best build after 8 turns, at least it's good inspiration.

I count 136 points using duck+peacock+otter+frog+raccoon+rabbits. Probably can be better - the red city on top left is wasteful.

(I just noticed that the top middle blue and yellow need to be switched for it to work, my bad.)

It is inspired by this real game that just happened - it took 9 rounds but I had 129 points after 8 rounds. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=819483937