Songs of Syx is not a quick “build city, done in 2 hours” game. It is a slow-burning colony sim where: You start as a tiny settlement with a few dozen people, You grow into a huge multi-species metropolis with thousands of citizens.
You manage economy, races, laws, military, world diplomacy, and more. If you rush like in a normal city builder, you will collapse from food shortage, disease, or morale problems. The key mindset: start small, build only what you can maintain, and expand in layers.
2. Picking Your Starting Race (Royal Race Guide)
Your starting race becomes your royal race, gets happiness bonuses, and shapes your early playstyle. Here is a simple beginner-friendly breakdown using the info you pasted.
Humans – Easiest “All-Rounder” For Beginners
Strengths:
- Great scientists, scribes, and administrators (strong research and bureaucracy).
- Fast learning (Learning 2.0), so they level up quickly.
- Tolerate other races well.
- Weaknesses:
Average fighters.
- More crime and insanity than some races.
- Want gem stockpiles and education, which adds extra demands.
Humans are a safe first choice: you get research rolling early, can mix with other species later, and you get used to the education system which only humans demand.
Tilapis – Great If You Want Strong Archers
- Strengths:
- Amazing hunters, woodcutters, herders, orchard workers, and bow crafters.
- Best archers in the game, plus ranged combat bonuses.
- Decent learning, cheaper temples and shrines.
- Weaknesses:
- Want meat stockpiles.
- Hate Dondorians and Garthimis, dislike many races.
- Want lots of slaves and like cannibalism (can cause tension with more civilized races).
Tilapis are strong but push you into a “meat, slavery, bows and forests” style. Good if you like aggressive and thematic play.
Cretonians – Chill Farmers, Weak Fighters
- Strengths:
- Great farmers and ration makers.
- Highly submissive (excellent for slavery systems).
- Easy to keep happy, tolerate most other races.
- Weaknesses:
- Very weak in combat.
- Eat more often than others.
- Poor learners, bad in extreme temperatures.
They are great for peaceful, agricultural play, but you will need other races or slaves for warfare later.
Garthimis – War-Like Swarmers
- Strengths:
- Great miners and melee fighters.
- Fast breeders, low demands, easy to please.
- Good in warm climates and mountains.
- Weaknesses:
- Short lifespan, terrible learning.
- Want meat stockpiled, low morale, like cannibalism.
- Do not get along with many species.
They are perfect if you want lots of soldiers and a brutal kingdom, but they are not ideal for late-game research.
Dondorians – Advanced, Not Recommended For First Run
- Strengths:
- Amazing crafters and miners.
- Great melee fighters, long lifespan.
- Love mountains and do not care about noise.
- Weaknesses:
- Cold climate preference means heating and clothing are critical.
- No children; you rely on immigration and slaves.
- Very slow learning, expensive temples, want Sithilon Ore stockpiles.
Extremely powerful, but they are tricky and punishing if you mess up. Try them later once you understand the game.
A Simple Recommendation:
First playthrough: pick Humans or Tilapis. They let you learn most mechanics without weird edge cases like no children or extreme climate issues.
3. Your First Years – Survival Priorities
Think of years 1–5 as “survive and stabilize,” not “build everything.”
3.1. Food Comes First
If you fail food, nothing else matters. Combine several sources:
- Hunting (Very Early Game)
- Great starting food. Hunters go to the map edge, drag animals back, then butcher them.
- Hunting efficiency drops after about 15 hunters, so do not spam too many.
- Excellent for bridging the gap until farms and ranches are stable.
- Fishing (If You Have Water)
- Very solid, especially in cold climates (+10% productivity).
- Rough rule: about 1 fisher per 16 water tiles, plus auxiliary tiles.
- Fish are loved by several races and last decently, especially when turned into rations.
- Farming (Long-Term Backbone)
- Start farming early even in cold climates.
- Vegetables: easy, long lasting, good base stockpile.
- Fruit: spoils faster but popular and used for alcohol.
- Grain: best yield per tile but must be turned into bread (bread spoils quicker than raw grain).
- Livestock / Husbandry
- Expensive to start but powerful long-term.
- Try to set up at least one pasture within the first 5 years.
- Do not oversell your animals; random events can kill a lot of livestock. Always keep a breeding stock.
- Stockpile Strategy
- Vegetables + eggs + some rations make a very safe and stable stash.
- Eggs last long and are excellent for building a buffer.
- Rations have one of the longest shelf lives but need herbs; Cretonians especially love rations.
3.2. Basic Services – Keep Them Alive and Clean
Your people need:
- Wells
- Latrines / lavatories
- Food stalls / markets
- Hearths (especially in cold climates)
If you add slaves early, remember slaves only need basic services: hearths, wells, food stalls, markets, latrines, physicians.
Keep these service buildings spread throughout your city to reduce walking distances. Long travel times kill productivity and make everyone unhappy.
3.3. Do Not Rush Heavy Industry
- Early on, you do not need a huge mining or smelting operation.
- Only build a large metal smelter if you have strong ore deposits. Otherwise, a ~10 worker smelter is enough at first.
- The first workshop is usually best as a carpenter with space for 8–12 workers. Furniture is used everywhere.
Think in phases:
- Early: wood, basic stone, simple furniture, minimal tools.
- Mid: more advanced workshops like tailors, smiths, masons.
- Late: large production halls with 50–100+ workers.
4. City Layout Basics – Noise, Distance, And Room Size
4.1. Noise Management
People hate sleeping and studying next to loud refineries and taverns.
- Two-tile thick walls fully block noise.
- Warehouses can act as a noise buffer between workshops and housing.
- Taverns and archery ranges are especially noisy. Place them a little away from homes or behind thick walls.
- Dondorians and Garthimis care much less about noise, so you can house them closer to industry.
4.2. Distance To Services
Every citizen measures how far they must walk to:
- Toilets
- Wells
- Food stalls / restaurants
- Entertainment
- Healthcare
Do not build one giant service hub for the whole city. Instead, create small clusters:
- Example: a housing block with a nearby well, lavatory, food stall, and small entertainment.
4.3. Large Rooms vs Small Rooms
- Large Rooms
- More efficient use of space.
- Easier to track output.
- But accidents in large rooms can injure or kill many workers at once.
- Small Rooms
- Faster and cheaper to build and upgrade.
- Shorter walking times inside the room.
- Lower maintenance cost and easier to abandon or repurpose.
Early game, favor smaller rooms. As your economy stabilizes, you can move to larger “factory” layouts.
5. Housing And Population Management
5.1. Basic Housing Rules
- Housing is single-race only. You cannot mix species in the same home.
- Early on, simple apartments and houses are enough:
- Apartment (3×3) for 3.
- House (3×5) for 5.
- Longhouse (6×6) for 10.
Match housing materials and style to race preferences when possible:
- Cretonians and Tilapis like wood and round shapes.
- Dondorians want square shapes and mountain proximity.
- Humans like grand buildings and a mix of round and square shapes.
5.2. Procreation And Nurseries
Each race has its own preferred food for babies:
- Amevias: Fish
- Cretonians: Vegetables
- Garthimis: Meat
- Humans: Fruit
- Tilapis: Fruit
Key nursery tips:
- 1 furnishing supports 4 cribs.
- Distance from food warehouse to nursery matters a lot for wet nurses. Keep food nearby.
- Do not overbuild schools early. Babies only enter school as kids, and slow-learning races need less school capacity overall.
6. Labor, Slaves, And Jobs
6.1. Slaves – Who Makes Good Slaves
Slaves cannot be educated or turned into soldiers. They only need basic services. Some species are better slaves than others:
- Best slaves:
- Cretonians – High submission (1.25), amazing farmers and ration makers.
- Good slaves:
- Garthimis – Solid miners and warehouse workers, but also great soldiers if not enslaved.
- Tilapis – Strong ranchers, woodcutters, orchard workers, and bow makers, also top archers if free.
- Humans – Okay slaves, but you lose their education potential.
- Less ideal slaves:
- Dondorians – Good crafters but less submissive and expensive.
- Amevia – Low submission and better used for fishing or specialized roles.
Use slaves for repetitive, low-skill jobs: farming, hauling, low-tier workshops.
6.2. Tools And Experience
You can give tools to many worker types: farmers, herders, fishers, woodcutters, miners, crafters, refiners, scientists, and scribes. Tools significantly boost productivity; prioritize key industries.
Experience works by having many workers in the same job:
- At 100 workers in one industry you start getting an experience boost, up to around 600 workers.
- This encourages specialization: focus on a few industries for export rather than doing everything badly.
6.3. Auto-Employment
Do not auto-employ everything. It can mess up your labor balance.
Good candidates for auto-employ:
- Warehouses and logistics
- Service buildings
- Dungeon and slaver
- Some variable-demand jobs
Critical factories and farms are often better with manual oversight, especially early on when every worker counts.
7. Janitors, Maintenance, And Decay
Every building and decoration slowly decays. Janitors keep them from falling apart.
Key points:
- Maintenance uses the same materials that were used to build the structure (furniture for certain rooms, stone for stone roads, and so on).
- Janitors have a maximum effective range of about 135 tiles.
- City cores usually do fine with around 10 janitors in the area; rural or low-density zones can work with about 5.
If your city suddenly feels like it is crumbling, check janitor coverage and your stockpiles of maintenance materials.
8. Basic Security And Law
Crime rises with population, wealth, and unhappy citizens.
- Place guardposts near important warehouses to prevent theft. Small ones are often enough early.
- Build a small dungeon with a couple of cells; you do not need a giant prison for a normal city.
- Use courts, stockades, and scaffolds carefully:
- Some races dislike executions (Cretonians).
- Others do not mind dread and fear-based laws.
Aim for a light law system at the start and only scale up if crime becomes a real issue.
9. Early Military And Defence
You do not need a massive army right away, but you should not stay completely undefended.
- Trees block about 50% of projectiles. Use forests and terrain in battles.
- Archers need multiple bows to be useful. One bow is nearly worthless; give at least 3–4 per archer.
- Be careful with mixed units (archers and melee in one unit). Too many bows slow them down and lower melee skill.
- Armour slows units:
- Light armour for skirmishers and mobile archers.
- Heavy armour for frontline melee.
Build small training grounds early, then upgrade once your economy can support a standing army.
10. Trade And The World Map (Basic Approach)
On the world map, you interact with other kingdoms and trade hubs.
- Early game, it is usually better to:
- Import cheap raw materials (ore, wood, etc.)
- Export finished goods (clothes, furniture, crafted items).
This fits the experience system: specialized industries with many workers produce more efficiently.
Embassy tips:
- Aim for about 20 emissaries early to manage relations and gather support.
- Better relations reduce tariffs and open trade, roads reduce tolls.
Do not start wars early. Focus on stabilizing your city, then slowly project power.
11. Titles – Long-Term Goals To Aim For
Titles are like achievements that also give permanent bonuses to your ruler. Some beginner-friendly long-term goals:
- The Ruler
- Unlock: reach 100 population.
- Bonus: +10 settlers at start of new games.
- The Leader
- Unlock: 1,500 people in your settlement.
- Bonus: +45 settlers and +1000 base knowledge in new starts.
- The Crafter
- Unlock: craft 100,000 items.
- Bonus: +0.10 to all crafts.
- The Great
- Unlock: 10,000 population.
- Bonus: +0.10 happiness empire wide.
Think of titles as “campaign goals” for your whole playtime: pick one or two and build your strategy around reaching them.
12. A Simple Beginner Game Plan
Here is a rough step-by-step outline you can follow in your first game (assuming Humans, but it works with others with small adjustments):
- Year 1–2
- Set up hunting and a bit of fishing if possible.
- Build simple houses, wells, and latrines near housing.
- Build a small carpenter workshop (8–12 workers).
- Make a basic warehouse near your industrial zone.
- Year 2–4
- Start vegetable farms; add grain or fruit if climate allows.
- Start a small pasture with a reliable species (Entelodont or similar) for meat.
- Add a few slaves for farming, hauling, and basic workshop jobs.
- Build a small guardpost near your warehouse.
- Year 4–6
- Expand farms and pastures to secure food.
- Build a tiny lavatory upgrade, one tavern for morale, and basic entertainment.
- Start a lab with a handful of scientists if you are Human-focused.
- Expand production: tailor, mason, basic smelter if ore is available.
- Year 6–10
- Stabilize multiple species if you want more diversity.
- Improve roads, janitor coverage, and service density.
- Establish a small standing army and a training ground.
- Start trading finished goods for raw materials profit.
Once that loop feels comfortable, you can scale into massive cities, bigger armies, and deep world conquest.