Songs of Syx — The Complete Walkthrough

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Songs of SyxWalkthroughsupdated 2026-09-2914 min read

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Home/Songs of Syx/Walkthroughs

Songs of SyxWalkthroughsupdated 2026-09-2914 min read

GWGridworks Guidesguides stay free

Home/Songs of Syx/Walkthroughs

Songs of SyxWalkthroughsupdated 2026-09-2914 min read

GWGridworks Guidesguides stay free

Home/Songs of Syx/Walkthroughs

Songs of SyxWalkthroughsupdated 2026-09-2914 min read

A year-by-year survival guide for the fantasy city-state simulator. From a handful of settlers to a mighty empire.

Release: Sep 2020 (Early Access) Dev: Gamatron AB Price: $24.99 (free demo on itch.io) Current Build: v71 "Reign of Terror" (June 2026)

⚠️ Patch status — V71 "Reign of Terror" (15 June 2026). This guide was written against V66/V67. V71 reworked law and order, slavery, family and the tech tree, and replaced the tax-rate slider with "Squeeze". The sections it changed are marked inline below. Saves from earlier versions do not load into V71 — use the beta branch if you want to finish an old run.

Chapter 1: Pre-Game — Race & Map Selection

Phase 0: Setup

⏱ Before you press "Start"

Goal: Pick a starting race and map that won't kill you in the first winter

Songs of Syx is a slow-burning colony sim where you start with ~30 people and can grow into the thousands. Every citizen is an individual with a name, job, mood, friends, and personality. Tiny mistakes snowball — an understaffed well or a missed harvest in Year 2 becomes a mass death in Year 3.

🎯 The Golden Rules

1. Build only what you can maintain. An empty building slots, an unfilled job, a road that doesn't connect — these all cost you.

1. Don't rush. Food, services, then industry, then expansion. In that order.

1. Pause constantly. The simulation runs whether you watch it or not. Pause, plan, place, unpause.

1. Read the tooltips. They tell you exactly what a citizen needs.

1.1 Pick Your Starting Race (The Royal Race)

Your starting race becomes your royal race — they get happiness bonuses, shape your culture, and determine your early strengths. You can recruit other races as immigrants, but the royal race is the spine of your city.

💡 Recommended First Run Humans. You'll see the most mechanics, the fewest edge cases, and you can lean on admin/research advantages for your first expansion. If you want combat flair early, go Tilapi — their archers are devastating once you get a barracks running.

1.2 Map Selection

1. For a first run: Temperate climate, forested, with mixed terrain. You need food, wood, and stone nearby.

1. Avoid: Pure desert (food scarce), pure tundra (heating costs), pure mountain (limits food production).

1. Look for on the map preview: Berry bushes, fruit trees, ore outcrops, and water (for fishing — your most reliable early food).

1. Check the edge connections. Raids come from predictable directions. A map with forests blocking one or two sides is easier to defend.

Chapter 2: Year 1-2 — Survive the First Winter

Phase 1: Survival

📅 Year 1-2 (Pop 30 → ~75)

Goal: Don't let anyone die of hunger, cold, or disease before spring arrives

2.1 Food — The #1 Priority

You need a stacked food source. Don't rely on any one thing. Aim for 3 of these running by the end of Year 1.

Hunting (Free Food Immediately)

• Hunters drag animals from the map edge and butcher them at a butcher building

• Build a butcher next to a stockpile immediately

• Diminishing returns after ~15 hunters — don't over-invest

• Best for: bridging the gap until farms/ranches stabilize

Fishing (Best Long-Term Yield)

• 1 fisher per ~16 water tiles, plus auxiliary tiles

• +10% productivity in cold climates — very underrated for northern starts

• Fish are loved by several races; great for rations

• Build piers on water tiles near your starting area

Farming (The Long Game)

• Vegetables — easy, long-lasting, safe base stockpile. Start with these.

• Fruit — spoils faster but popular; used for alcohol production later

• Grain — best yield per tile, but must be turned into bread (spoils faster than raw grain)

• Build farm plots → designate tiles → set crop → build mill (grain) or kitchen (bread, meals)

• Rotate crops — soil fertility matters

Livestock (High Effort, High Reward)

• Pasture + feeding area + slaughterhouse. Expensive to set up.

• Eggs last a LONG time and build the best buffer stockpile

• Set up one pasture by Year 3-5 at the latest

• Keep breeding stock — random events can wipe your herd

⚠️ Stockpile Strategy Vegetables + eggs + rations = a stable year-round food supply. Eggs have the best shelf life. Rations (vegetables + herbs cooked in a kitchen) have one of the longest shelf lives. Cretonians especially love rations. Do NOT rely on a single food type — one blight or raid can wipe it out.

2.2 Basic Services — Don't Neglect These

People will die without these. Build them in the first 10-14 days:

📌 Layout Rule for Services Spread service buildings in clusters throughout your city, not in one central hub. Walking distance kills productivity AND happiness. Every housing block needs its own nearby well, latrine, food stall, and small entertainment. Slaves (V71): their fulfilment and happiness now work almost identically to citizens', so the services that keep citizens content keep slaves content. You can still skip the luxury end — no entertainment, no high-end goods — but the old “bare minimum” list no longer holds.

2.3 First Winter Preparation

1. Build housing (beds + walls) BEFORE the first cold snap. Pause the game if you have to. Homeless citizens die in winter.

1. Stockpile food in autumn. You need enough to last 2-3 months of reduced production.

1. Stockpile fuel (wood) for hearths. You'll burn through it fast in cold weather.

1. Produce warm clothing (cloth at a tailor). Citizens without warm clothes take happiness penalties and work slower in winter.

1. Check your housing quality. Stone walls > wood walls > no walls. Floor material matters. Unfurnished rooms make people miserable.

Chapter 3: Year 3-5 — Building Your Foundation

Phase 2: Growth

📅 Year 3-5 (Pop ~75 → 150)

Goal: Lock in food + service coverage, start industry, prepare for first raids

3.1 Happiness, Law, Health, Loyalty

Happiness

• Drives growth. Unhappy citizens leave or rebel.

• Furnished housing > empty housing. Carpets, furniture, decorations all matter.

• Food variety beats food quantity. Multiple food types available = happier citizens.

• Entertainment (taverns, amphitheaters) is a happiness multiplier.

• Race-specific needs matter: Tilapi want meat, Cretonians want veggies, Dondorians want stone housing.

Law & Crime

• Crime causes theft, assault, murder. It escalates if ignored.

• V71 rebuilt law from the ground up. It is now a straight trade of happiness for loyalty: you set the punishment for every crime, and each crime/punishment pair moves happiness and loyalty differently.

• Guards are assigned soldiers now, not citizens on a patrol job — put them on duty, train them, equip them. Two types of guard room radiate a law-improving aura, and guard coverage multiplies every punishment you have set.

• Execution sites are placeable items, not staffed buildings: gallows need no workers (guards carry out the sentence) and radiate a “dread” aura that raises loyalty.

• Secret police deter crime for a further happiness cost — the other half of a tyranny build.

• A happy utopia needs almost no law at all; deep investment in law pays back exponentially if you would rather be feared than loved.

• Rule of thumb: coverage beats raw count — overlapping guard-room auras through the housing blocks you care about, then 1 guard per 30 citizens early, 1 per 50 as you grow

Health

• Disease spreads fast in crowded cities — especially in winter when people stay indoors

• Physicians, latrines, and clean water are your first line of defense

• Build a hospital in the mid game for serious outbreaks

• If disease hits a housing block, quarantine it by removing access

Loyalty

• Now has two sources: good rule (services, happiness) and feared rule (law, guards, dread). V71 made the second path real.

• Drops when you mistreat people, squeeze the city too hard, or commit atrocities

• Low loyalty → people leave → your city dies

• The tax-rate slider is gone in V71. It was replaced by Squeeze — a temporary resource grab that costs heavy city devastation. An emergency lever, not steady income.

• Check your Loyalty tab regularly — if it's below 40%, fix it before expanding

3.2 Industry — First Workshops

Don't rush heavy industry. A small setup is enough for Year 1-5:

• First workshop: Carpenter (8-12 workers). Furniture is needed everywhere. Chairs, tables, beds — all use furniture.

• Small smelter (~10 workers) is plenty until Year 5. You don't need huge metal output yet.

• Tailor for cloth and warm clothing. Critical for winter survival.

• Mid game additions: Smiths (tools/weapons), Masons (stone blocks)

• Late game: Large production halls with 50-100+ workers

3.3 Immigration

• More immigration = faster growth. A well-run city gets waves of new immigrants.

• Immigration is driven by: housing availability, happiness, jobs, services, race reputation

• If immigration stalls, check: are you missing services? Is housing ugly? Is the city being squeezed too hard? Is there a race tension issue?

• Tip: Keep a few empty houses with beds. Immigrants need somewhere to go.

3.4 First Defense

Around Year 3-5 you may get hit by raiders — small groups of hostiles from the map edge. (V71 hard-locks raiders until your city passes 200 population, so on the current build the opening years are quieter than this chapter assumes — have the barracks standing before you cross that line.)

1. Build a barracks and recruit some soldiers. Even 5-10 soldiers make a difference.

1. Prioritize archers — especially Tilapi. A few archers will shred early raiders before they reach your walls.

1. Build walls and gates on the sides enemies approach from. Watch the first raid to see their path.

1. Watchtowers slow enemies and give your archers a height bonus.

1. Militia (drafted citizens) are an emergency option — they have low skill but can tip a fight.

Chapter 4: Base Layout Guide — Optimal City Organization

Phase 3: Infrastructure

📅 Year 2-10 (start planning immediately, build in stages)

Goal: Organize your territory into efficient zones for maximum productivity and happiness

Songs of Syx doesn't have a strict grid — rooms can be any shape and size. But without a plan, your city becomes a tangled mess of noise pollution, long walking routes, and misery-inducing factory-adjacent housing. The following layout principles come from community-tested setups and the game's own mechanics.

4.1 The 5 Key Layout Principles

Principle 1: Noise Management Is Non-Negotiable

Workshops, taverns, and archery ranges produce noise that reduces happiness in nearby housing. This is the single most important layout rule in the game.

• Two-tile thick walls fully block noise. One tile thick is NOT enough.

• Warehouses act as natural noise buffers between industry and housing

• Taverns and archery ranges are the noisiest buildings — isolate them

• Dondorians and Gathrimis care less about noise — house them near industrial areas

• Humans, Cretonians, and Tilapi are sensitive — keep their housing far from workshops

Principle 2: Cluster by Purpose

Group buildings by function into distinct districts. This minimizes walking, simplifies service coverage, and makes expansion predictable.

• Residential clusters — each needs its own well, latrine, food stall, and hearth

• Industrial district — all workshops, smelters, tailors, smiths together

• Farming zone — fields, pastures, mills, kitchens together at map edges

• Administrative center — administration building, courthouse, treasury near city center

• Military quarter — barracks, training grounds, armory near the main entrance

Principle 3: Service Radius — Don't Make Citizens Walk

Citizens measure walking distance to services. Long walks = less time working = less productivity.

• Every housing block needs a well, latrine, food stall, and hearth within ~20 tiles

• One giant service hub at city center fails — by the time citizens at the edge walk there and back, half the work day is gone

• Rule: Build 4-5 small, distributed service clusters, not 1 big one

• Each cluster should serve ~30-50 homes before building the next cluster

Principle 4: Room Size — Start Small, Expand Later

💡 Rule of Thumb Small rooms while you're under 100 population. Build larger rooms once you're past 150 — the space efficiency and worker capacity matter more when your city is big.

Principle 5: Room Quality — Decoration Counts

Higher quality rooms = more happiness = more immigration. Room quality depends on:

• Floor material: Stone > wood > dirt

• Walls: Stone > wood

• Decoration: Carpets, paintings, plants, furniture

• Temperature: Heated rooms are higher quality

• Adjacent rooms: Adjacent to high-quality rooms gives a bonus; adjacent to noisy industry gives a penalty

4.2 The 6-Zone City Layout

4.3 ASCII Reference Layout

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║               🌾 FARMING ZONE (fields, pastures)        ║
╚══╤═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
   │
   │  ┌────────────┐      ┌────────────┐      ┌────────┐
   │  │ 🏭 INDUSTRY │      │ 🏛️  CIVIC   │      │ 🏠 RES  │
   │  │ (noisy)    │      │ (admin)     │      │ BLOCK  │
   │  │ warehouse──│牆墙 │             │      │ A      │
   │  │ buffer     │      │             │      │        │
   │  └────────────┘      └────────────┘      └───┬────┘
   │                                              │
   │  ┌────────────┐      ┌────────────┐      ┌───┴────┐
   │  │ 🏠 RES     │      │ 🏠 RES     │      │ 🏠 RES  │
   │  │ BLOCK B    │      │ BLOCK C    │      │ BLOCK D │
   │  │ 🛒 services │      │ 🛒 services │      │ 🛒services│
   │  └────────────┘      └────────────┘      └────────┘
   │
   │                     ┌───────────────────────┐
   │                     │ 🛡️  MILITARY QUARTER    │
   │                     │ barracks, training     │
   │                     │ armory, watchtowers    │
   └─────────────────────┤                        ├────────
                         │        🚪 GATE         │
                         └────────────────────────┘
                    🗡️ Defensive line / towers

📌 Layout Implication Notice the noise buffer between Industrial (🏭) and Residential blocks — that's a row of warehouses or double-thick walls. Without it, your citizens in Block A will be unhappy from the noise. The Farming zone at the top keeps food production away from pollution. Military anchors the expected raid direction. Services (🛒) are distributed within each residential block, not centralized.

4.4 Building Order — What to Place First

1. Housing block #1 — 8-12 beds + walls + hearth + well + latrine + food stall. This is where your starting citizens live.

1. Basic industry — carpenter (furniture), butcher (meat processing), tailor (clothes). Keep small and near housing initially.

1. Service cluster #1 — expand the first housing block with a physician, a small tavern, and a market.

1. Second housing block — when pop hits ~75, build a new residential cluster away from the first, with its own services.

1. Permanent industrial district — once you have 100+ pop, move industry to a dedicated zone with warehouse noise buffers.

1. Walls and defenses — after identifying raid direction from first 1-2 attacks. Build walls, gates, and towers only where needed.

1. Administration building — unlocked at "Chieftain" status. Build it large in the city center. Add shelves and carpets for efficiency bonuses.

1. Farming expansion — push fields and pastures to the map edges to free up central space for housing and services.

Chapter 5: Mid Game (Pop 150-500) — Economy & Trade

Phase 4: Economyth

📅 Year 5-15 (Pop ~150 → 500)

Goal: Stable economy, trade network, slavery optimization, research

5.1 Trade — The Hidden Win Condition

Trade is the most profitable activity in the game and most new players ignore it. Your trade post (called "Merchant" or similar) should be at your city edge.

• Auto-trade is OK early, but switch to manual to maximize profit once you understand the system

• Each race wants different goods at different prices — watch the price charts and sell when prices are high

• Inflation exists — printing too much money or stockpiling too much value devalues it

• Sell what you have excess of, buy what you can't produce

• Critical trade goods: gems (Humans love them), meat (Tilapi), grain/bread, ore

• V71 refactored trade: tariffs now work both ways as a percentage of goods value, tolls let you sell cheap wares at a good price, every resource carries an added per-item logistics cost, and the old trade caps are gone. Where you send your emissaries matters far more than it used to.

5.2 Slaves

A whole economy can run on slaves. You can capture them from raids or buy them from traders.

• V71 made slaves a fully tradeable good and rebuilt slavery from the ground up. Their fulfilment and happiness now track a citizen's almost exactly, so plan their services the way you plan a citizen block.

• Use slaves in: mines, farms, workshops, and building construction

• Cretonians are the best slaves (submissive, work hard, easy to keep)

• Dondorians are the worst slaves (rebellious, but skilled)

• Slaves need the same basics as citizens (housing, food, water, physicians) — the patch note is explicit that their fulfilment works like a citizen's. Skip the luxury end and they are still content.

• Don't over-rely on slaves — if you mistreat them, you'll have a rebellion

• Tip: Keep a guard post near slave housing areas

5.3 Research Priority

You earn knowledge points from scholars and libraries. Don't spread thin — pick a track.

• V71 remade the tech tree again: techs are roughly 50% cheaper, the shared “common” nodes are gone, rooms with several recipes cost more (each recipe gained a consumption node), and admin is now a plain tech-point producer.

Chapter 6: Military & Conquest

Phase 5: Expansion

📅 Year 10+ (Pop 300+, after basic economy is solid)

Goal: Build a standing army, conquer neighboring regions, gain access to the world map

6.1 Army Composition

6.2 Army Requirements

• Weapons — made at smiths. Can be smelted back if you change loadout.

• Armor — smiths + tailors. Heavy armor is expensive but makes your soldiers last much longer.

• Food — soldiers eat on campaign. Pack rations (long shelf life) before marching.

• Training ground — soldiers need to train to raise their skill. Raw recruits die fast.

6.3 Battlefield Tactics

• Melee in front, ranged behind. The classic formation wins battles; pure one-type loses them.

• Let them come to you. Defensive fights on your terrain are easier than offensive sieges.

• Use terrain. Rivers, hills, and forests give combat bonuses.

• Archers are your MVPs. A well-trained archer corps can decimate enemies before they reach your line.

• Prepare for prisoner waves. Captured enemies become slaves or get exiled.

6.4 World Map Access

Once you hit a population threshold (~500), you unlock the world map (the 4X layer):

• See other kingdoms, cities, and roaming armies

• Send emissaries for diplomacy

• Build embassies for better relations

• Conquer regions and turn them into satellite settlements

• Extract tributes from vassalized regions

• Assassinate rivals if diplomacy fails

Chapter 7: Late Game (Pop 500+) — Empire Management

Phase 6: Empire

📅 Year 20+ (Pop 500+, multiple regions controlled)

Goal: Juggle homeland city + conquered regions, admin points, loyalty, tributes

7.1 Administration Building

Unlocked at "Chieftain" status. Clerks work here, generating admin points.

V71 note: admin has been fully repurposed — it is now a plain tech-point producer (it can optionally consume paper) and the old resource drain on admins was redistributed. The empire-side actions below are decrees and build-point investments in V71; the patch notes do not say whether any of them still consume admin, so I have left the old wording out rather than invent it. Check the panel in your build.

• Elevation — promote species to higher rights (boosts happiness)

• Prosecution / Exile / Massacre — purges (drops loyalty hard — use sparingly), now with automatic settings per decree

• Building upgrades in your home city and conquered regions

• Region investment — build points and loyalty buildings

🔥 Build Admin Buildings Large The administration building should be as large as a palace — you can never have enough admin points, and in V71 they are your tech rate. Add shelves, carpets, and decorations for efficiency bonuses. An understaffed admin building is a slow tech tree; your regions are held together by services, garrisons and a light squeeze instead.

7.2 Conquered Cities

When you take a region, it becomes an Empire City (or vassal). Managing it requires:

• Loyalty — services, a garrison, no atrocities and a light squeeze (V71: admin points are tech-only now, so they no longer pay for this)

• Workforce — citizens assigned to manage it from your home city

• Build points — for region upgrades and loyalty buildings

• Army supply depots — needed to recruit conscripts there

• Tributes flow back to your capital — food, ore, leather, gems

7.3 Loyalty Is Everything in the Late Game

Conquered cities will rebel if:

• You commit atrocities (massacres, forced exiles)

• You squeeze the city too hard

• You leave them without services or administration

• You abandon them / don't invest build points

💡 Integration Strategy Keep conquered regions on a light squeeze and a light decree burden. Don't purge their population — they'll integrate faster if you treat them reasonably. Build loyalty-boosting structures (temples, entertainment) in new territories. A loyal vassal produces more tribute than a conquered, resentful one.

7.4 Endgame Goals

Songs of Syx doesn't have a single "you win" screen yet (Early Access). Self-defined victory:

• Domination: Conquer all rival factions on the world map

• Diplomacy: Vassalize everyone through treaties and influence

• Economic victory: Become the wealthiest city-state

• Tower (your own goal): No specific win condition — build the city you want

📌 Developer Note The developer has stated ruling the entire world alone is not really intended. Vassals and diplomacy are the planned long-term path. The 1.0 release (targeted within a year) will likely add more endgame structure.

Chapter 8: Quick Reference & Cheatsheet

At-a-Glance

Print this page. Stick it next to your monitor.

8.1 First 5 Years — Checklist

8.2 Population Milestones

8.3 Population by Services (Rule of Thumb)

Appendix A: Race Reference Table

Appendix B: Common Mistakes & Solutions

Appendix C: Research Tree Priority

Appendix D: Useful Resources

• Official Wiki: songsofsyx.com/wiki

• Fandom Wiki: songs-of-syx.fandom.com

• Discord: discord.gg/eacfCuE

• Reddit: r/songsofsyx

• Mods: songsofsyx.mod.io

• Starting Race Tier List (YouTube): Search "Songs of Syx starting race tier list"

• Treyex Gaming 2026 Beginner Guide: treyexgaming.com

🎮 One Last Tip The game is a slow burn by design. Your first settlement will probably fail. Your second will limp along. By your third, you'll have a feel for the rhythm of seasons, citizen moods, and the way the economy breathes. Don't get discouraged by failure — it's part of learning the simulation. The depth is what makes the game rewarding.

Have fun, Justin. — Magius

Gridworks Guides · text-first guides because a coordinate beats a paragraph.Leave a tip · [email protected]

Gridworks Guides · text-first guides because a coordinate beats a paragraph.Leave a tip · [email protected]

Gridworks Guides · text-first guides because a coordinate beats a paragraph.Leave a tip · [email protected]

Gridworks Guides · text-first guides because a coordinate beats a paragraph.Leave a tip · [email protected]