Roots of Harmony News

[h3]Hello harmonious people![/h3][p][/p][p]First let me wish you a happy new year, full of happiness and... harmony! 🌳[/p][p][/p][p]As explained in the last dev talk, Roots of Harmony now costs 8$ from today. Thank you to everyone who have sent supportive messages about this decision.[/p][p][/p][p]If you want to support the game even more, please consider leaving a review. As you know, it greatly helps and it's always nice to have some feedback. 🦋[/p][p][/p][h3]3.1 Changelog[/h3][p][/p]

• [p]Added: Harmonypedia. As the name suggests, the Harmonypedia is a new dedicated section that provides help on various topics of the game. Please let me know if you want more topics covered. You can also share your tips and I might include them there as well.[/p]

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• [p]Added: User Interface Themes. It's been a long time that I wanted to do this one, but it was a bit too tedious for 3.0, so here it is: full customisable UI themes! I've designed 6 of them by default, feel free to experiment by creating your own themes in the Roots of Harmony\\themes folder (copy the default theme, rename it, and it will appear in the list, from the Settings menu). Don't hesitate to share your themes on the Steam forum, on the Reddit, or on Discord![/p]

[p]The "Camo" theme.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]New UI themes are accessible in the Settings menu.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Added: 1 milestone: "Unlock 4 doctrines". Sounds rather simple, but the reputation hit can actually have some serious consequences, especially in NG+.[/p]
• [p]Added: 4 impactful POIs (Riftmaster, Transmogrifier, Pandora's Box and Cage of Confidence).[/p][p][/p]
• [p]Changed: Improved text rendering performance.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Chat on Discord[/p][p]Post on Reddit[/p]

[p]We need to talk.[/p][p][/p][h2]The infamous bug[/h2][p][/p][p]Since its release in October 2024, Roots of Harmony has been impacted by one of those very weird bugs that make programming such a "wonderful" experience: the game was always slower when it was launched through Steam. This affected the menus and the responsiveness of the UI, but most importantly, all the heavy processes, like world generation and the end of a turn. For instance, the world generation function could be up to 20 times slower than when the game was launched through the raw .exe file.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]No longer will you wait 4 seconds to generate the world or end your turn![/p][p][/p][p]I tried a few times to alert the Steam support about this problem, but always in vain. It's only with the version 3.0 release that I decided to really dive deep into it. I've asked developers on several forums, and it took several weeks until a CPU trace showed that Steam was actually hooking its overlay onto some functions of the game. However, don't get confused: we're not talking about the UI you access with Shift+TAB (which never worked in RoH anyway), but about a DLL file that hooks to the game and is always present, whether the UI overlay is enabled or not. Nobody knows why the overlay used to slow down the game so much, but after a month of patience, the Steam support finally decided to completely deactivate the DLL. It doesn't change anything about the game, and it solves the problem.[/p][p][/p][p]Now Roots of Harmony is the game that I always wanted to ship, with higher performance and, I suspect, better stability. 🌳🦋🌳[/p][p][/p][h2]Price increase (5th January)[/h2][p][/p][p]Roots of Harmony has now been in development for three years, and with version 3.0, I feel that a significant milestone has been reached. The game is no longer a casual text-based game, but a full 4X with enough replayability and a sweet "one more turn" effect.[/p][p][/p][p]But I believe the game is underpriced.[/p][p][/p][p]No, no; it's not greed![/p][p][/p][p]Okay okay, before putting me on the pillory, let me explain:[/p]

• [p]Quality perception. Low price can signal low quality, especially on a niche product. I think associating the "casual" tag (now removed) with a low price made the game appear short and shallow. With all the previous updates and the major 3.0, this is no longer the case.[/p]
• [p]Content. Now a single standard playthrough can easily take more than 6 hours, and the replayability has been greatly increased since the release. All the new content is free, and I don't intend to make any DLC.[/p]
• [p]Alignment to other games. Games of the same niche such as Warsim or King of Dragon Pass cost around $10.[/p]
• [p]Investment. The increased price will help to further develop Roots of Harmony with new features, support new projects, and promote the game.[/p]
• [p]This is a one-time price increase; it will never happen again.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Roots of Harmony will cost $8 from the 5th of January.[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for your understanding,[/p][p]Guillaume - aka Joubarbe 🌳[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Changed: The event where you discover a book that reset all doctrines has been modified, because cancelling a doctrine is no longer possible in 3.0.[/p]
• [p]Changed: When you have explored at least one land after an Outpost, you can pass through, whether or not it's owned by the enemy.[/p]
• [p]Changed: Enemies now also stop when capturing an Outpost.[/p]

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• [p]Fixed: Crash when enemies would invade an Outpost that you own.[/p]
• [p]Fixed: Outposts owned by enemies would not appear in red in the exploration menu.[/p]