Songs of Syx News

Songs of Syx is approaching the end-game now with a new Beta release out for version 66, which as usual has tons of changes for this massive city-building strategy game.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/04/fantasy-city-builder-songs-of-syx-is-approaching-the-end-game

• Campaign engine.
  
• The tutorial converted into a campaign.
  
• Selectable scripts when generating random game.
  
• Different "scenario" options. A scenario is a save that you can distribute with mods. Battles for instance.
  
• Trait system remade and reworked to work both or royals and subjects.
  
• Military equipment has efficiency based on race, added as a modding request. I've added some malus to the Argonosh.
  
• All kinds of racism is now connected in the world and your city, and other factions.
  
• Save resilience. Saves should now be able to be opened with different mod configurations, if the mods are not too exotic. Custom maps also have a good chance to work all the way to 1.0 as well.
  
• 14 new sountracks. The soundtrack is now complete.
  
• A nifty little property saver that saves for instance wall-type in room construction to your profile. Can be used to save many such QoL, suggestions are welcome.
  
• New menu background
  
• New Titles: The Undefeated, The Incompetent, The Merciful, The Merciless, The Wise, The Bureaucrat, The Clumsy, The Gourmand, The Entertainer, The Drunkard, The Caretaker, The Pleasurer, The Uniter
  

• Admin and knowledge now have sticky production, meaning values will not swing back and forth during the day.
  
• Accidents are back. Also some panic when accidents occur.
  
• Pimped the Embassy. Made it more space efficient. It now needs jewellery and fabric, although it's optional as the admin.
  
• Sick and injured people no longer counts as workforce, enabling you to control work priorities properly.
  
• Soldier fulfilment based on total number of soldiers, not per race.
  
• Grave mourners now stand beside the grave.
  
• Market rooms keep their settings when copied.
  
• Pasture output tiles capacity increased.
  
• Overtime now has significant penalty to happiness.
  
• Water pumps can now only be placed on ground water. You must plan for the canals.
  
• Data for resources and credits are now per day instead of per season.
  
• Resource piles have much greater capacity, reducing their amount and potential lag if the map becomes filled with them.
  
• Rooms listed in construction order
  
• removed entrance check when building rooms, allowing you to build in mountains.
  
• Saved blueprint now moved to the construction screen of individual rooms. Saved blueprints made more robust.
  
• Made some small changes to the bottom menu. I know you don't like this, but it's for the better. Some small changes might occur next patch, but after, I'm done.
  
• Food preference improved. You'll get a slight value when there is one out of many.
  
• Service overlays now better.
  
• Entertainment buildings keep better count of available services.
  
• Services such as food stall and restaurant now count to fulfilment by themselves. Restaurants are on average used ever 8th food stall day.
  
• Tree regrowth rate halved, and woodcutter production boosted.
  
• Auto employ removed from crafting buildings.
  
• More road types, and they look better.
  
• Road access remade. Now remade into preference, which works the same as the building materials.
  
• Hospitals now offer fulfilment to citizens.
  
• Multiple drink types. I only have two. Tavern has been pimped, and has an upgrade. Drink preference works just as food preference.
  
• Massage parlour added. What happens in there is up to everyone's imagination. In practise, it is just another service, but reduces health slightly.
  
• New room "stockade" is a holding place for prisoners. It is dirt cheap, and it is not a punishment. Prisons are now purely a punishment.
  
• Law is remade, so it starts at full fulfilment, then climbs down as crime starts appearing.
  
• Added escape events to stockades and prisons.
  
• Work priorities and the assignment mechanics got some love, and now work better, even when priority is 0.
  
• -Logistics remake-
  
• Two new major things to know about. Fetch and deliver orders. These are set per room. They are similar to the old "empty to" functionality.
  
• The warehouse have 4 available fetch orders. In addition, it also has a toggle for "regular fetch", and a true store function. It also has a limit that decides how much other storage fetchers may fetch from it.
  
• The hauler has the same things, but only two fetch orders.
  
• The old fetch mechanics is thus retired. Warehouses will only grab stuff from the ground and from production rooms, if no fetch orders are issued.
  
• Logistics are nerfed a bit. They have less radius, and less carry capacity. The carry capacity is based on race and can be upgraded. Garthimi sucks, Dondorian and Cretonian excel.
  
• Transports have 4 delivery orders available. Their capacity is now 60, and they will depart more regularity. Their speed is slower than a regular pleb, but they obviously carry a lot more. They are good for moving big numbers of resources. For few numbers, a warehouse will do.
  
• Export depots and military supply depots work similarly to warehouses, in that they grab resources on the ground, and also have pull orders.
  
• The "export when over" is thus scrapped and replaced by the power of the pull orders.
  
• The army supply works like a warehouse with 2 fetch orders available.
  
• Exposure tweaks. You must now provide wells and hearths all over the city, as everyone will become cold and hot. Clothes will only decrease the frequency of getting cold/hot, thus making the city more efficient.
  
• Divisions when sent out to an army will take some time to return.
  
• Option to send out divisions even if they're not fully trained.
  
• Raids pimped up. They no longer spawn an army, they attack directly. You have a chance to fight them on the field.
  
• Raid chance is reworked. Now based on riches (resources, slaves and credits) and your military power. Also your military reputation.
  
• Raids no longer scale as you defeat them until you're faced with impossible odds. Instead they are randomized each time.
  
• Raiders have a captain and a name.
  
• There are a number of unconditional raids added that you can't avoid.
  
• Roundness is now an addative value.
  
• Made some visual changes to walls.
  
• Some 20+ techs added and tech tree restructured.
  
• Refined how slave submission works.
  

• Generation now tries to base the size of the region on capacity, meaning larger, infertile regions.
  
• Roads made a bit more pronounced.
  
• Some color and sprite changes.
  
• Editor. To share maps you make, make a mod and put the save from the editor into custom folder.
  
• Havens now have lower requirements in order to join you. More will join if you exceed the requirements though.
  
• Build points removed. World buildings rebalanced.
  
• "Organisation" a new world thing and is based on how much workforce you have allocated. Replaces distance, although distance is still there.
  
• Organisation lets you either expand though upgrades or through region amounts.
  
• Building buildings now has a new flow. Loyalty and health is based on the population target, not current population. Enables you to know exactly what to build.
  
• Building buildings is done in bulk that lets you experiment with different configurations without spending money.
  
• Prosecution in you capitol also affects regional happiness.
  
• Representation of species in your capitol affects regional happiness.
  
• Representation of nobles in your capitol affects regional happiness.
  
• Prices have been fixed all over, and is now derived from the prices of goods. For instance slaves cost their food and upkeep during breeding, and mercenaries their equipment and training.
  
• Region generation improved.
  
• Battle stats for armies and factions. Military reputation based on your prowess. Affects AI factions and in-city stats.
  
• Mercenary rework. Scales with your size, and have a long cooldown when disbanded, and low replenishment. Also correctly prices, more than it will cost you to train your own.
  
• Raid stance added for army. Allows you to get slaves and resources.
  
• Artillery is now an army supply.
  
• Only rations and clothes are mandatory, drinks improve morale.
  

• Opinion "threat" now reworked. Based on population vs Ai's population, meaning small states will hate you more/faster. Some additional stats added.
  
• UI of opinion enhanced.
  
• Reworked emmisaries. Now a diplomatic point system. Points allocated will stick to the court when someone dies. Better UI for this.
  
• New "sabotage" diplomacy option in order to get a faction to attack you without getting a betrayal penalty.
  
• Betrayal added. If you act like a jerk, you will be severely punished by all factions.
  
• Factions will not attack you simple because they do not like you. They will make sure they can beat you in auto resolve.
  
• Factions with low opinion will secretly convince other factions to attack you with time.
  
• New diplomatic options available:
  
• Alliance -> a military alliance, you will share enemies. You can get a cheap alliance by helping someone out that is at war.
  
• Colleague -> a non aggression pact. Promise to not attack each other.
  
• Vassal -> become, or make a vassal. A vassal pays a yearly tribute to its overlord, and is protected by it. As an overlord, you can pick what kind of tribute you want, and as a vassal, you'll pay 15% of your shit each year.
  
• Protector -> above reversed
  
• Join Federation -> Unite. Pay a hefty sum to have a faction join yours without bloodshed.
  
• New trait system for royalties. Shapes a unique personality that has a large impact on your relations. Hopefully this will prompt you to assassinate more.
  
• All factions now has an army. These armies grows slightly as you expand.
  
• Initial generation of factions makes sure you will have nice progression. The neighbouring factions are immune to events, and will stay there until you're ready to expand.
  
• Slave trade.
  
• War diplomacy fixes.
  
• The betray system hopefully fixes exploits, such as selling a region and then attacking it shortly after.
  
• Opinion has less impact on trade prices.
  

• Reworked the sound engine.
  
• Added multiple new sounds in theory, but I haven't added much of the actual sounds.
  
• Sounds that you can be added by modding:
  
• -Room ambiance
  
• -Room on click
  
• Furthermore, there will be a variety of sounds coming from the subjects themselves, but I'm saving these until after 1.0, as it will not affect saves.
  
• 
  

• Some changes to scripts. Now there are selectable scripts, and forced scripts. Forced scripts can be adding ui tools or whatnot, selectable is a traditional script. Scripts are selected on a new random game.
  
• 
  

After being in Beta since mid-December, the latest big content update to the fantasy city-builder Songs of Syx is out now bringing some sweeping changes.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/01/huge-fantasy-city-builder-songs-of-syx-latest-massive-update-is-out

• WORLD
  
• Overall the world has been overhauled to 1.0 status. Lots of smaller adjustments.
  
• Armies are now reinforced by garrisons and other armies nearby in an intelligent way.
  
• Better auto resolve based on damage types.
  
• Better army composition for the AI.
  
• Most UI reworked. Made sure it fits on a 1200x720 screen.
  
• Improvements to FOW and minimap FOW and highlighting.
  
• Lots of new functionality around trade.
  
• Improved world buildings on the map. Each race have specific ones.
  
• Improved neighbour factions spawning
  
• Mineral deposits rework. All deposits available in any region and in any city. The amount of deposits dictate the efficiency of the mines. Settlement will be generated with the same quantity of ores. The ore nodes will increase quality of the nodes.
  
• Epidemic events on the world map.
  
• NPC factions communication events.
  
• All UI and mechanics concerning army management and recruitment polished.
  
• The world construction has been completely revamped with new mechanics and buildings to choose from.
  
• 
  
• CITY
  
• Generating initial roads according to the world roads.
  
• Generating small rivers according to the world map.
  
• Equally large mineral patches will be generated (about 1500 workers each) on every city. The richness of the spots is determined by what world location you pick.
  
• new Main UI
  
• Historic data for equipment wear and initial equip.
  
• Full control over house assignments.
  
• Brawls still happen now and then (prevented by segregation of hateful species with the new home settings). Big brawls are now an event that happens with low fulfilment.
  
• Army recruitment UI redone. Bulk edit of divisions, and reordering. More info on whats going on.
  
• Strangeness regarding training of different battle types fixed. A recruit can train at any facility for basic training, and will then start specialising.
  
• Warehouses are now upgradable for more space and less degrade. Visually a bit more exciting.
  
• Overtime command now gives flat bonuses. The actual work hours are not affected, they just work more efficiently.
  
• Work time is now "elastic" in order to let the peeps travel farther away services without affecting production. When a peep has been away in the arena, he will work extra shifts afterwards to compensate.
  
• Arenas now have workers istead of using prisoners. Death in the arena is an optional punishment form.
  
• Arenas are now renamed "fighting pits" and are available early. The size option does not affect quality.
  
• A new Grand arena building is available late game.
  
• Eatery renamed food stall, and look much prettier. Canteens -> restaurants, and I've increased coal consumption and work time for it! The idea here is that while it's theoretically possible to give everyone restaurant access, you shouldn't, you should use in conjunction with food stalls.
  
• Roundness and squareness now replaced with only roundness, and it's not tied to rooms, it's tied to the walls of your whole city, including mountains. Added roundness liking to Garthimi.
  
• Hearths no longer require wood to be brought to them. Instead they cost a lot of wood to contruct and maintain.
  
• Added some terrain decorations.
  
• Made the mineral deposits a bit more visually appealing.
  
• Shrines to all gods added. Shrines is your everyday religious fix. Shrine have a tiny radius. Temples can serve more people and have a much wider radius.
  
• All services are now a bit more tolerable for being full. A subject will try to find a vacant service several times before they mark it as unavailable.
  
• Made some changes to the workload calculator, hopefully giving you more accurate results.
  
• Entry points to your city is now fixed and mirror how your city is connected to roads on the world map. You must keep these points open, or receive negative consequences.
  
• Invasions can happen even if the entry points are closed. Invasions will find a suitable area to spawn on. They will not spawn on places that can't be reached from the world map, like in a mountain, but they are not tied to entry points, so you can't just fortify those. More will be done, I plan on keeping track of where enemies attack, and your fortifications in the area, so that they don't walk into kill boxes. If you go all in on fortifications and artillery, I plan to have them simply besiege you until you die.
  
• Mountains are now "soft" around the edges, so that you can initially tunnel quicker, however tunnelling will be slower the farther into the mountain you dig.
  
• Clearing other terrain stuff can be a bit slower, but yields more resources.
  
• Fixed so that you can always get 1 of each race through immigration, unless you're prosecuting them.
  
• Added more hate and racism :). This will make sure the world map is less diverse, with more regions oppressing other races. I also increased the importance of the "other" fulfilment thing, as well as gave x2 expectancy to your non-starting race.
  
• The liking of other species is now an absolute value 0-1. If A likes B with 0.5, they will only tolerate having 0.5 of that species relative to their own population.
  
• Workshops and refiners now have fixed amount of workers that are guaranteed to have something to do if raw materials exist.
  
• Daily production/consumption UI for rooms.
  
• Tools are now tied to the rooms they are used in, and not equipped.
  
• Pastures have an efficiency item, and get a small boost from sweet water access.
  
• Consumption of resources when producing also apply to bonuses, meaning when you boost something by x2, its consumption is also boosted by x2.
  
• Lowered all raw material production rates. (It's not harder, just more balanced).
  
• Animals on the map are now hunted manually.
  
• Hunter rooms are now a perpetual source of meat, though limited to very few employees.
  
• New building type added. The "hut". What's special about this is that it's free, but take a long time to build. Amevias like it.
  
• A new food panel, that gives you daily production and detailed info about food.
  
• Smallest housing option removed. The other houses have had their capacity increased by 125%
  
• Nurseries now unlock with you population. Maximum children is based on the population of the race in question.
  
• 
  
• 
  
• WATER
  
• Water table scrapped
  
• Instead there is ground water in both sweet and salty variants. You can terraform these areas as you're used to. These areas cover the generated natural water on the map + 8 tiles surrounding it.
  
• New water pumping system. You now need to build water pumps to generate water pressure that you can channel into canals. The pumps stack their pressure. these are manned by workers, although you'll need less as you upgrade them. You get the best result by placing the pumps close to sweet ground water.
  
• Every map is generated with at least 1 small body of water.
  
• To channel water through as structure you can use a drain.
  
• The canals emit sweet water, and increases fertility.
  
• Where there is sweet water access you can place different kinds of pools. These are moddable, I've added moats, ponds and pools to vanilla.
  
• Wells no longer emit sweet water, but can be placed anywhere.
  
• Bathhouses need access to sweet water to function optimally. Their pools look a bit better.
  
• Deep water can now not be completely removed. you can create a pathway through it, and place roads on that, and it will mimic a bridge. You can also remove the pathway.
  
• Skinny dipping access gets you a small fulfillment bonus.
  
• Fish amounts on the map is scrapped.
  
• Instead, you get a fixed, 1 worker/64 tiles in your fisheries.
  
• But, you get a lot of fish from new "deep water fishing spots" that will litter the edge of the sweet water tiles that's adjacent to deep water. These will send out boats to sea to fish.
  
• Salt water gets more of these tiles, since it has crap fertility.
  
• Just wood needed for fishery, they now have an upgrade.
  
• Indoor farms get a small boost to fertility from sweet water access.
  
• 
  
• BUGS
  
• All bugs reported fixed. Noteworthy:
  
• The Cannibal now produces resources as it should.
  
• Fixed broken camps (Cantor, Argonosh).
  
• 
  
• BATTLE
  
• Military Training and Training rooms now moddable. Each room has its own training stat and bonus. Each stat has its own set of bonuses. Divisions will be populated in a smart manner, best candidate first.
  
• Added new damage and armour types. Blunt, Pierce, slash
  
• New division power calculations + advanced auto resolve calculations.
  
• Added new battle equipment: short sword, long sword, warhammer, plate armour, leather armour and shields.
  
• I've rebuilt and rebalanced everything regarding battles. It is now much better, but far from perfect. It is important that you give me test cases where the AI is acting weirdly. Save before a battle, and if possible before the oddities occur.
  
• 
  
• MISC
  
• 4 new sound tracks
  
• new day-night cycle, kinder to the eyes.
  
• New lock and unlock mechanics for everything, which makes the possibilities of the tech tree much more interesting and increases modability. For modders, full syntax examples should be in the tech files. Also works on titles and player levels and world buildings.
  
• Improved fonts, especially for non-latin languages.
  
• Visually improved main menu.
  
• New icons for everything. Improved icon rendering.
  
• Increased maximum resource types from 64 to 128. It can be increased further without hassle, but I think 128 will be enough for modders.
  
• New and improved titles, totalling 20. Titles have a 1:1 relationship to steam achievements.
  
• Steam achievements are now automatically updated when starting and exiting the game.
  
• Timed super screenshots
  
• Launcher is now translatable, with a new look, and a live language select.
  
• Quarter speed added by double tapping 1x speed
  
• Fixed the "non shading" option.
  
• 
  
• MODDING
  
• First off, I've ruined a lot for current mods, and I apologise for this. I will most probably not do such a big change as this again, it is close to 1.0.
  
• The biggest thing is the new bonus system and unlock. It is much more versatile and broader, but has a different syntax.
  
• Added optional flag "AI_BUILDS" to world buildings.
  
• Made world generation heightmaps able to have any size (256px is the current world size) for better precision.
  
• Added default liking for other species.
  
• Better moddability for ranged weapons.
  
• Moddable damage and armour types
  
• All projectiles are now moddable, one can mod the damage done, velocity, etc. Added max arch angle as well (for muskets and cannons).
  
• Services are now tied to needs, and needs are moddable. This means that you can add a service and tie it any existing or new need you come up with. A physician can be reskinned and repurposed to deal with some other need for instance, very similar to industries, where you can change input/output.
  
• Water pool buildings available to be modded.
  
• Moddable city map size
  
• 
  
• NOTES
  
• Brawls can not be a crime in the game. A crime needs an intent, while brawls are a sporadic thing, and will not work in the current law system. We will have to live with them going unpunished.
  
• Fishing boats can indeed bump around in an ugly fashion in your fisheries if you build these in weird shapes. Please let me know.