Songs of Syx News

V58 progress

UPDATE:

I'm set on releasing 25th of June. This has been the longest update interval yet, my apologies, but hopefully it will be worth it.
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This update is taking quite a bit of time, and in fear of nightly pitchforks and torches, I'll attempt to explain a bit what I'm working on and what you'll get to play soon.

I finally caved to the pressure of the community that wanted expansion of the battle mechanics of Syx. My reluctance was based in the fact that city building stuff is pretty solid ATM, and adding the few more features I want in would be fast. The world management were still just loose ideas I had, and seeing them to completion would take a lot of effort. And it has!

So, having said that, this update will take some time. I'd say at least another month. But hopefully, it will be worth it.

As we all know, the world map is divided into regions. What's new is that each region now has an urban centre. If you control that, you control the region.

You'll now conquer regions with world armies. A world army is a marker on the world map, which you attach garrisons from regions / cities. You then move around with your armies, fighting other armies in field battles, or conquering rebel/AI regions.

Your regions make up your kingdom, and you can tax and manage them. And there is depth here, to satisfy all our needs. You'll be forced to focus on different things to achieve a strong kingdom.

On the city-building side, there will be two new rooms.
Army Depot - works like a trade depot. Battlegear, food and clothes will be collected when your city garrison is attached to an army somewhere else. this is your supply line. If you fail to deliver stuff, your army will fail.
Administration - This will employ clerks, that produce administration points, used to control your regions. It will work the same way as with knowledge.

Apart from this there will be some QoL improvements.

Cannibals, Slaves and Drunks

This was supposed to be a small update, but it turned out big. And I don't remember what I was supposed to do, half way through, I decided to flesh out the slave mechanics. The results were marvellous.

This is now in the default branch, meaning the game will update. If you wish to continue on old saves, you need to manually check out V56 in the steam client

We've also got a bunch of new stuff, cannibalism rooms, taverns, eateries, funeral services. I've had a lot of fun playing through it. It took me 3 days to reach 750 people. Here's a video about it:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Build a spell checker that checks for spelling/typos whenever I build the game.
Room production overhaul. Enables us to specify in-rates, so that bread can cost 0.5 wood and 1 grain for instance.
Added a "do what I did last" Button and hotkey for the build menu.
Clarified and fixed squareness a bit.
Clay exavatable resource + claypit
Ability to mod occurrence of exavatable resource based on terrain.
Happiness screen overhauled.
Info on city selection refined.
Trade adjusted and balanced.
Potter Workshop and Pottery. Coal + clay = pottery
Alcohol resource and brewery. Wood+pottery+grain/fruit = alcohol
Eatery room. Very basic food distribution place. Replaces kitchen.
Canteen room. Now works as a kitchen with tables.
Tarven is now for drinks only.
Alcohol limit to dictate. Adds happiness, but can make subjects drunk an unproductive if set too high.
Changed so that all rooms that needed wood to run now requires coal instead at a lower rate.
AI faction trade and production overhauled. Still needs some work, but better now.
Well room, a simple bath.
Jewelry and jewelers. Jewelry can be worn.
Proper slaves. Can be gained through beating Krull, or as a form of punishment. Slaves have a collective happiness that is still based on the racial composition of all your slaves. You set work priorities for slaves, same as citizens. Slaves have simpler demands in general. They don't have expectations, but the more slaves you have per citizen, the happier you must make them. Slaves can run away if too unhappy. Will revolt in the future.
Slaver room for punishing criminals and gain slaves.
New slave UI screen.
Unique slave happiness based on the number of citizens compared to slaves.
Lots of rebalancing around happiness and a few stats added/removed.
Touched up some icons.
Slaves will run away, while citizens will commit more crimes and not emigrate if unhappy.
Slaver event, lets you buy slaves.
Notifications reworked, some new added.
Death statistics and death causes added.
New grave alternative - Crypt
Cannibal room that butchers corpses for resources.
Mass grave for corpses.
Hover info for room copier.
Room category UI remade.
industry storage visible on hover.
mines/woodcutter proper errors.
Guard post placed inside fixed.
Forgetting techs now disables all dependent techs.
Horizontal scrolling of tech tree with ctrl + mousewheel
Notification when nobles die.

Crime And Punishment

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hauler room added. Can be placed for free on cleared ground and will employ haulers, that will fetch resources to the room.
Proper Woodcutter room added. Now fully renewable and with fixed output, same as other industries.
Much easier to reach 0% squareness.
Logistics mechanics overhauled, added a "empty to" mechanics which lets you empty resources to specific warehouses.
New Janitor room with maintenance now separated from construction. Only janitors can do maintenance. Janitors need construction materials in the vicinity, or they will become less effective.
Auto employment for some rooms, which will make the AI fire/hire 1 subject per day based on workload. Workload calculations improved.
Normal speed triggers when there is a message
Immigrant value now decreases more slow, allowing you to fulfil the needs of new immigrants.
Onx pastures for cold and temperate climates.
Hotkey for getting to the throne/capitol.
Status concept. New profile screen.
Level (title). You now increase your level according to your population, which unlocks bonuses and rooms. The throne visually upgrades with these levels.
Faction visuals. Change faction name and colors while playing.
Faction banners. Randomized banners for all faction and a banner editor for the player.
Added on "available services" tooltip. How many are used and how many that needs work.
Fixed various crashes from streaming. Requires you to uncheck "debug" in the launcher.
Remade light engine and prettier fires/candles
Recoloured ore
Huge AI refactoring. Not that anyone cares, but it allows for faster AI progress.
Criminals. Come in three flavours: thieves, vandalisers, streakers, and murderers. Each race has a property on their chance to become criminals. The amount of criminals spawned depends of law and happiness.
New guard post room. Guards will catch criminals in their vicinity, or if they happen to stumble into one on their patrols. Guard posts also deter crime in their vicinity.
Prison. Employs guards that bring food and empties latrines of the cells. Criminals will go here after being caught, if your policies are set up that way. Prisoners will stay there for a number of years before being let out and become citizens again (average 6 years).
Game will now save to "new_city" before you place your throne, allowing you to restart at any time by loading it.
Scaffolds room. Employs executioners. Prisoners will go here to be executed according to your policies.
Courts. Prisoners will go here before going to either prisons or scaffolds. Improves justice. Can also instantly turn some prisoners back to friendly subjects.
Added a width/height restriction to rooms.
Made so that the tunnelling bonus actually works. Dondorians tunnel into mountains twice as fast.
Rearranged resources categories a bit.
Law. Law is gained by apprehending criminals, having courts for them as well as Prisons and scaffolds. Law makes your citizens happy and deters the spawning of criminals.
New algorithm for determining build order when constructing massive walls now enables you to build as thick a walls as you'd like without people getting stuck.
The above also holds true when building rooms with inner walls.
Added demography to understand retirement better. Also made it more clear that retired people doesn't work.
Returned rock ground under mountains that had disappeared.
Moved key settings to in-game menu.
Touched up the happiness screen in an effort to make it more understandable.
New tech tree with unlockable buildings.
Made room construction render above terrain.
Decreased snoring sound.
Deleting room blueprint no longer removes roads beneath.
New employment mechanics with new priority system and panels. AI will now distribute workforce evenly.
A bit more UI info about service rooms.
New trading mechanics for stabler trade and prices.
When Krull dies, his son will take up his arms and continue raiding you.
optional resources shown as optional on hover when build.
Harvest jobs can be placed, but only performed when ripe.

Crime and Punishment 0.56

Hello fine folk!

I'm finally done. Focus has been on introducing a new law mechanics, but also did a lot of other stuff.

Here's a video about it:

If you'd like to continue your old saves, older versions of the game can be checked out in properties -> betas

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here's the changelog:

Hauler room added. Can be placed for free on cleared ground and will employ haulers, that will fetch resources to the room.
Proper Woodcutter room added. Now fully renewable and with fixed output, same as other industries.
Much easier to reach 0% squareness.
Logistics mechanics overhauled, added a "empty to" mechanics which lets you empty resources to specific warehouses.
New Janitor room with maintenance now separated from construction. Only janitors can do maintenance. Janitors need construction materials in the vicinity, or they will become less effective.
Auto employment for some rooms, which will make the AI fire/hire 1 subject per day based on workload. Workload calculations improved.
Normal speed triggers when there is a message
Immigrant value now decreases more slow, allowing you to fulfil the needs of new immigrants.
Onx pastures for cold and temperate climates.
Hotkey for getting to the throne/capitol.
Status concept. New profile screen.
Level (title). You now increase your level according to your population, which unlocks bonuses and rooms. The throne visually upgrades with these levels.
Faction visuals. Change faction name and colors while playing.
Faction banners. Randomized banners for all faction and a banner editor for the player.
Added on "available services" tooltip. How many are used and how many that needs work.
Fixed various crashes from streaming. Requires you to uncheck "debug" in the launcher.
Remade light engine and prettier fires/candles
Recoloured ore
Huge AI refactoring. Not that anyone cares, but it allows for faster AI progress.
Criminals. Come in three flavours: thieves, vandalisers, streakers, and murderers. Each race has a property on their chance to become criminals. The amount of criminals spawned depends of law and happiness.
New guard post room. Guards will catch criminals in their vicinity, or if they happen to stumble into one on their patrols. Guard posts also deter crime in their vicinity.
Prison. Employs guards that bring food and empties latrines of the cells. Criminals will go here after being caught, if your policies are set up that way. Prisoners will stay there for a number of years before being let out and become citizens again (average 6 years).
Game will now save to "new_city" before you place your throne, allowing you to restart at any time by loading it.
Scaffolds room. Employs executioners. Prisoners will go here to be executed according to your policies.
Courts. Prisoners will go here before going to either prisons or scaffolds. Improves justice. Can also instantly turn some prisoners back to friendly subjects.
Added a width/height restriction to rooms.
Made so that the tunnelling bonus actually works. Dondorians tunnel into mountains twice as fast.
Rearranged resources categories a bit.
Law. Law is gained by apprehending criminals, having courts for them as well as Prisons and scaffolds. Law makes your citizens happy and deters the spawning of criminals.
New algorithm for determining build order when constructing massive walls now enables you to build as thick a walls as you'd like without people getting stuck.
The above also holds true when building rooms with inner walls.
Added demography to understand retirement better. Also made it more clear that retired people doesn't work.
Returned rock ground under mountains that had disappeared.
Moved key settings to in-game menu.
Touched up the happiness screen in an effort to make it more understandable.
New tech tree with unlockable buildings.
Made room construction render above terrain.
Decreased snoring sound.
Deleting room blueprint no longer removes roads beneath.
New employment mechanics with new priority system and panels. AI will now distribute workforce evenly.
A bit more UI info about service rooms.
New trading mechanics for stabler trade and prices.
When Krull dies, his son will take up his arms and continue raiding you.
optional resources shown as optional on hover when build.
Harvest jobs can be placed, but only performed when ripe.

Hope you enjoy! Next up is going to be kids and procreation. I'm also going to overhaul eating and everything with it + alcohol, education, elderly care and a profile that you get to keep between games.

/Jake

Fantasy RTS city-builder Songs of Syx has sold over 11 thousand copies

After a Kickstarter success back in May 2020, then an Early Access release on Steam in September 2020 - the fantasy grand-strategy city-builder Songs of Syx has continued to be a big indie success. Here's a look over it.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/12/fantasy-rts-city-builder-songs-of-syx-has-sold-over-11-thousand-copies