Songs of Syx

In March I played the demo for Songs of Syx [website]. After just a few minutes of play, I couldn’t buy the full, up-to-date version fast enough. It was pretty much an insta-buy for me. You can buy Songs of Syx on Steam for $24.99

Since childhood I have been into city building games, strategy games and Songs of Syx is like a good melange of those two things. Perfect.

City Builder / Base Building Heaven

This game has everything that makes me hyper-fixate on a game. It’s a genre of game that makes me spend countless hours obsessing over the small details of my city. What is this game, you ask?

Blurb from songsofsyx.com

Songs of Syx is a retro base/city builder inspired by “Pharaoh”, “Dungeon Keeper”, and “Rome Total War”. It aims at fusing those genres, while also adding to the experience. Its uniqueness comes from having huge populations, while still simulating each individual in great detail and providing big maps with 1:1 scale buildings. It’s set in a low-fantasy universe and the gameplay is mostly automated where you let the AI do the mundane tasks, while you focus on greater, more kingly things.

The game can be downloaded and played for free. You’ll find the free version on itch.io or on steam (demo). It’s not limited in any way other than being 3-6 months behind the payed version in terms of development. If you like it and have the means, consider purchasing it to support development. In any case, don’t forget to join the a community to follow development and bombard us with suggestions.

Inspired by

Start off Small

Early-game can be a struggle. You start off small and have to build up to everything. There are research trees that have to be unlocked so you can build all the types of buildings you need to build the various components your citizens need to be safe, comfortable, and content in life. And boy, do they end up needing a bunch of stuff! You can grow your empire on the world map and have shipments of goods heading to your capital while you build your army up and besiege your enemies. Or you can focus on making a functional society that produces a lot of its own goods in-house.

Game-play in Songs of Syx

Food

You have several options for food production for your citizens. Each species of citizen has a food preference so if you want a society with people from all species in your city you should have a variety of foods available. For example, the Cretonians are vegetarians and don’t want meat. The Amevias like fish, the Garthimis like meat.

In-game, you get food from farming, animal husbandry, fishing, hunting, or from refining raw materials into food or drink.

Farming

You can farm a variety of crops for food, fiber, and medicine for your citizens. Fruit, vegetables, grain, cotton, opiates, and herbs are available to farm in-game. To farm opiates you have to unlock that skill in the research tree. Fruit and veg can be consumed fresh from the field, but grain is refined into bread or brewed into alcohol. Fruit can also be made into alcohol. Cotton is woven into fabric for clothing. Herbs are used to preserve food for rations.

Animal Husbandry

Animals are domesticated and kept as livestock. Aurochs look like cattle and produce meat, leather along with the livestock resource that is used to make more fields of livestock (I sort of think of this resource like baby animals in a box). Entelodont are like hogs and produce meat. Globdiens look like lizards and produce eggs and meat. Onx look like sheep or goats and produce cotton and meat. Balticrawlers are the strangest of all the animals that can be farmed. They look like maggots and Garthimis farm them (or Argonosh).

Mining

Mines are important to source raw materials. Many things can be mined for resources. It is possible to mine stone, clay, coal, (iron) ore, gems and sithilon. Use stone to make buildings and as a construction resource. Fancier goods require cute stone. Use clay to make pottery. Weaponry requires coal and ore made into metal bars. Ore is a component for a ton of things. Make jewelry with gems. Sithilon is a rare resource that is useful for trading and some species are really obsessed with it. Looking at you, Dondorians.

Refining

Raw materials often need to be refined into usable components for other things. Grain is refined into bread, cotton is refined into cloth, grain and fruit are refined into alcohol, and ore is refined into metal. You can also refine wood into charcoal if you do not have coal deposits handy.

Crafting

One you have raw materials and refined materials, it’s time to craft more specialized goods that your citizens need to live comfortably and succeed in the geo-political sphere that you find yourself in. In the Bowyer you produce bows, Carpenters produce furniture and at some level you can make warhammers and shields, jewelry is produced at the Jeweler, cut stone is produced at the Masonry shop. Mechanics make machinery, paper is made at the Papermaker, rations at the Rationmaker. Smithys produce your weapons, tools, and Tailors make clothes.

Logistics

You also have to move all these goods around and store them. This can be one of the most challenging parts of the game to balance. Warehouses have to collect goods around them. Version 66 which I am currently running has managed this better than previous versions with each warehouse able to set a radius to manage how far away its goods should be collected from. You also need to ensure that buildings have the supplies they need to make goods. If workers have to go long distances to procure supplies the efficiency at which you produce supplies is diminished. So it’s important to also employ haulers to keep a steady supply of goods on hand.

Health

Your citizens need to be taken care of so they won’t get sick. Once you unlock the skills you can build hospitals and physicians, but even before that they can get sick. You also need to give them access to wells for water, and hearths to keep warm in the cold winters.

Homes

Obviously, your little guys need a place to live. You can build longhouses for them, or houses or apartments. They can each hold different numbers of citizens. Most of the time, species like to live with other members of their species around them. You can set permissions on dwellings so only certain species can move in. If you allow mixed species units the citizens get into brawls and unnecessary deaths can occur. So it’s best to keep buildings of separate species so they will live more harmoniously. Low happiness can still lead to brawls, though.

Religion

There are four religions in the world and your citizens will want to be able to worship freely at an establishment of their choosing.

Entertainment

All this production and worship and work gets tedious so citizens need to be entertained. There are speakers to spread the news, stages for actors, and fight pits. A Grand Arena can be built for en masse entertainment, but it’s later in the game because it requires an inordinate amount of cut stone and weapons. It has to be a big building.

Other types of buildings

There are water pumps, military buildings, schools, laboratories, breeding facilities and more. But those are the basics.

Races

In Songs of Syx, eight species inhabit your cities as citizens. They are:

Cantors –
- Cantors are impossible to keep happy, and hard to get to come to your city. In all my play time (nearly 400 hours) I have only gotten one Cantor in my city as a war captive and when I emancipated him he immediately left. I was bereft. They are nearly immortal, living 8000 years. They’re very strong, making them good to have around if you are a military power. They do a massive amount of blunt-force damage. But as they are hard to attract to your city I have no experience with them.
Cretonians
- Cretonians are peaceful citizens who like to farm, prefer a vegetarian diet, and are pretty submissive. They’re generally easy to have as a majority because they don’t get whiny and complain about everything.
Dondorians
- These guys are like dwarves, I guess. They like to mine and work in skilled labor. They don’t like to farm.
Garthimis
- Little bug-man hybrids. These guys are sort of cool but they also are easy to exploit as miners.
Humans
- Smart species, humans like to do science, and skilled labor.
Amevias
- These are lizard-man hybrids who are good at fishing and like the water.
Tilapis
- These guys are like elves and enjoy nature, herding, and circular/organic buildings.
Argonosh
- Like the Cantors these guys are hard to attract to your city. I’ve never had one come to my city. They can also do massive blunt force damage.

One of my goals is to figure out how to get the Cantors and Argonosh species to naturally want to come to my city. But I don’t like to look up walkthroughs or guides because I like to learn the way the game works organically.

Small Following

Songs of Syx is one of the best city-builders, and very much in the same spirit as games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld. Despite that, it has a much smaller following than other games like it. As of publishing, its highest player count on Steam was 2956, so many fewer than Rimworld’s nearly 62k peak player count.

Songs of Syx did get a lot of attention earlier this year when a gaming content creator made a video playing it, but I still marvel at the fact that it’s got such a small following. In my opinion it’s one of the most engaging games I’ve played in recent memory.

Songs of Syx Guides?

There is a really good wiki on the Songs of Syx website if that’s your thing. If you like city building games, or strategy games you should get this game and check it out. It’s very worth it!

I post about games I like on my blog. I enjoy No Man’s Sky, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed and games like that.