Start with a small colony and grow it into a city, a city-state, and eventually an empire in Songs of Syx, a fantasy city builder. The game mixes city planning with real-time strategy, so the clock keeps running while you manage your economy and your armies. Every citizen and enslaved worker has their own needs, beliefs, fears, and goals, and small problems can snowball into bigger ones if you ignore them.
A typical session begins by picking a spot on a generated world map, since each province has different resources and climate. From there, you clear land, build farms, and set up a warehouse, because your people need food and your buildings need supplies to be built. Every building also has upkeep, and most need workers, so each new room adds to what your colony has to support.
Your long-term goal is to turn that village into a metropolis and then an empire. Along the way, you can appoint or import nobles to run parts of your realm, and you can recruit, train, and equip armies of up to 50,000 units.
- Developer
- Gamatron AB
- Publisher
- Gamatron AB
- Release
- Steam Early Access: 2020-09-21 · V71: Reign of Terror: 2026-06-15
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
Game data
Resources
Resources are the food, drinks, raw materials, crafted goods and military gear that your settlement gathers, makes, stores and uses. Most of them link into chains, so a shortage of one good can hold back several others. Food keeps citizens fed, building materials keep construction going, and rations, clothes and drinks keep armies supplied on campaign.
Production Chains
Production chains are how Songs of Syx turns raw resources into the goods your city runs on. Mines, woodcutters, farms and fisheries supply the raw materials, refining buildings process them into basics such as metal, and crafting buildings turn those into furniture, tools, machinery and clothing. Because each chain depends on the one before it, food, wood, coal and metal are the chains to get running first.
Races
Songs of Syx calls its races species. Amevias, Cretonians, Dondorians, Garthimi, Humans and Tilapi can be picked as your starting race. Argonosh and Cantors are Haven species that you can bring into your city later if you meet their conditions. Their strengths range from farming and mining to research and combat, so the mix you choose shapes how your city grows.
Songs of Syx Controls
| Action | Desktop |
|---|---|
| Pause | 1 |
| Normal speed (1x) | 2 |
| Fast speed (5x) | 3 |
| Fastest speed (25x) | 4 |
| Shrink or grow a room while placing it | Q / E or Ctrl + Mouse Wheel |
| Copy a room | Shift + Left Click |
| Toggle view | Tab (twice) |
Songs of Syx gameplay tips
- Place guard rooms so they cover your busiest areas. Law effects grow with the number of guards and how much of the city your guard rooms cover. Guards also patrol the streets, so good coverage helps you keep order.
- Set punishments crime by crime. Law trades happiness for loyalty, and happiness is the price of obedience. Being strict only where it matters keeps that cost down.
- Watch the happiness of enslaved workers. Enslaved people count as their own subject class, and their fulfilment and happiness work almost the same as citizens'. Neglecting them causes the same kinds of trouble.
- Put your warehouses on auto-employ. Warehouses then hire workers based on demand, so goods keep moving without idle workers doing all the hauling.
- Keep an eye on your workforce. Most buildings need workers, and if you're short, lower the staff in less urgent buildings so the important ones keep running.