A Beginner's Guide/Tutorial

Welcome to the Songs of Syx Tutorial/Guide, valid as of writing, February 2nd 2020.

This tutorial will be split into various parts, each roughly looking at a different stage of the game.

Part 1

The first part of the tutorial will take you into the game.  

Once you launch the game you will be greeted by a launcher. Go into the settings tab. Here you will be able to choose to do full screen or windowed mode.

There are two types of full screen. One which allows you to tab out and the other not. Disable the full screen button and you will uncover the Fill button. Activate the fill button to have a full screen which you can tab in and out of.

After selecting the above settings, you can launch in Vanilla. Once in game, select single player, and go on Generator to start a new game.

On the Random Game Settings.

• The size determines map size;
• Latitude determines the environment, whether desert, grassy and so on;
• Water determines the amount of water that will be present in the map;
• Race chooses the species you will command; and,
• Population determines the amount of wildlife in a map.

Once you select “Go!”, you will be sent to a world map.

To the top left you will find a mini map where you can zoom out and in. Find a spot you like, and select fund settlement.

Choose your location and then select yes to found your settlement.

Your start should include the following in and right outside the initial stone throne room:

Resources from left to right, and top to bottom: Cotton, Stone, Wood, Grain, Vegetables, Fruit and Eggs.

Note: In an upcoming edition of the game you will be able to choose the location of your start.

You start with the following resources:

• 4 piles of 30 wood;
• 2 piles of 30 cotton, stone, grain, and vegetable;
• 1 pile of 20 eggs and fruit;
• The Throne, from which the 10 starting citizens and all others derive directives; and,
• 10 citizens.

The HUD.

• On the bottom left, you have 3 buttons, a humanoid symbol with a number near it, currently 10, which displays the population.
• Then there is a hammer symbol, detailing the amount of jobs.
• Lastly there is a column, which symbolizes your reputation. You need more reputation to gain more people.
• To the Bottom Right, you have a calculation of how much your food stocks will last you.
• Top Right consists of the mini-map and mini map and map controls, from left to right, snap shot, super snapshot, zoom in and zoom out, and map on off and toggle for the mini-map on or off.
• Top left there is the Technology tab and Storage tab, from left to right.
• Top center there is the speed bar and pause button. To its left there is the manage state button while to its right there are the world map and main menu.
• To the button center, there is the battle mode, the structure tab, the services tab, and the facilities tab.

Part Two - In this part we will be looking at map functions, reputation, and policy.

This is the mini-map set large. The white dots are animals, dark green dots are trees, brown dots are forage patches, including wild fruit, veg, mushrooms, and others. The blue and dark blue are shallow and deep water. The charcoal grey is an ore or stone. In the normal map you can right click to find out what the tile you are selecting offers in terms of resources, terrain, wild plant and so on, such as:

You’ll want to start by setting some such patches for foraging (limited to Summer and Autumn).

Then harvest some trees and then set up a fence enclosure with 3, 12x8 fields of grain, fruit and veg as below:

After establishing this you need adequate storage for your first 200 people: a 22x22 storage room will suffice. First you have to build the room:

(note I set my town already, in grey blocks, and I just activate parts as I go along by the relevant keys found in the structures tab.

This is a room under construction. Workers come from jobs which are in down time.

Once you finish it, and start filling it with food, you get your rep up and people will start joining. Build more farms, and now, a kitchen which I am doing in the room on the right.

Planning and Sectoring

This is my town plan. It is a long-term plan and I activate and use rooms as necessary. My goal is to set up a large food surplus and for the first year or two, this depends on expanding my population and getting more food stored. The plan was made by setting up the town and then using the suspend construction command.

I also established a mushroom farm, which will start stockpiling mushrooms for a mushroom farm I want for food later on.

I like planning out my towns from the start, to have an idea of what my town will be like around pop 5-600.

I will fast forwards till securing 100 persons, and get my farms up and running.

How to Plan.

Many like to have an idea what their town will look like later on in the game. Many like to plan and then build it in parts. This can be done in game as follows. First, construct the town while paused, and then suspend the constructions you want to be built later, activate those you want to be built and you can prioritize some constructions to be built earlier than others too.

Important in this is the Structures tab. The buttons from left to right, top to bottom are as follows:

Structures: Stone: Structure (walls and roof), Wall and Ceiling. Wood: Structure, Wall, and Ceiling. Fine: Structure, Wall, and Ceiling. Wood Fortification, Stone Fortification, and Great Fortification.

Terrain: Fell Tree, Clear Rock, Remove all Resources (harvest both stone and wood), Harvest Wild Edible Resources, Remove Water, Dig Canal, Dig into Mountain, Refill Mountain Cave, Beautify Cave Wall, Dismantle Structure (dismantle constructed walls, roofs, etc.).

Tools: Activate Job, Suspend Job, Prioritize Job, Repair, Turn Maintenance On, Turn Maintenance Off, Room Copier (to copy the internal structure of rooms), Delete Jobs (deletes the actual jobs placements), Delete Rooms (deletes rooms, farms, or in other words, what you put inside structures).

Note: currently it is not possible to prioritize rooms or farms, this is a known issue and should be rectified later on. You can however suspend room construction.

It is important to monitor food reserves. Once there is enough food for 10 days, you can go into policies.

Open the Reputation Icon (the Column) and in the window that pops up, select the 20 citizens from the Dondorian Category.

Now, you can see what gives and deducts reputation. For now, all you get is from food. Select policy.

As your food surplus starts exceeding 5d (day) reserves, consider increasing the rations per day.

As your population reaches around 50 consider making a cemetery. It will add to your rep.

Kitchens ought to be built just before around pop 100.

Part 3

In this third part we shall be looking at the various workshops, meat production, and other facilities.

A note on food production:

Disclaimer: Numbers are averages, taking the lowest numbers and conservative estimates.

Meat Production is most important. It provides a considerable amount of food at a relatively fast rate, and it is most worth it when cooking. You begin with only 20 eggs, so you will need to make a small pen. Then place another larger one after it is completed, and it will slowly be built. 

Note: This was based on an observation carried out over some time and is a rough estimate of the reputation benefit that the food item provides. The observation was carried out by the increase in reputation between agricultural farms like grain, and pastures, the meat source, with a kitchen available to cook the food. While not conclusive that this is the case, it seems to be so.

Kitchens – Kitchens provide meals to your citizens which are more beneficial to your citizens and give you significant amounts of reputation.

In order to get the kitchen, you will need to build other facilities. It is also a good time to look at getting a dormitory and for that you will need also extra workshops.

The Services tab is where you will find these structures.

From left to right, top to bottom these are as follows:

Services: Dormitory, Graveyard, Lavatory;

Health: Bathhouse;

Knowledge: Library;

Entertainment: Feast Hall, Tavern;

Infrastructure: Stone Road, Dirt Road, Wooden Fence (useful to fence off farms to keep wildlife from nibbling your produce), Stockpile (this is the facility that is used for storage it is most important that you have ample such facilities), Throne (used to move your Throne), Door (a gate/door that can be built with different sizes), Monument, and Torch (lighting).

Filling storage facilities is most important. Filling them with food will increase your reputation considerably especially early on. Storage facilities will be filled gradually by workers. Having the fetch function on will allow these stockpile workers to secure resources from other stockpiles.

Your build order should be as follows when you reach the following populations:

• 40 – Carpenter
• 50 – Metal Smith (Coaler is optional, especially if you have abundant coal around your location)
• 60 – Tool Smith (Necessary for the Stone Cutter)

Note that the Coaler requires Metal, so you will need to have the Metalsmith up and running.

Upon completing construction;

• Kitchen (this is most important as it will provide a significant population boost).
• 70 – Dormitory

Note, that having beds totalling around 1/3 of your population is enough. Not everyone sleeps at the same time.

Along with the Kitchen it is important to create an adequate Tavern and Feast Hall. Taverns are the facilities needed for your citizens to eat cooked food. Feast Halls are used according to what policy you set in terms of frequency and are both also important for your reputation, the Feast Halls most especially. For size, they should roughly be the same size as the kitchen.

At this point, your population should have exceeded 100, and possibly have already reached 200.

Part 4        

This part will look at less essential facilities that you will need to continue increasing your population.

Note. Dormitories technically are one such type of facility but they are more essential as they are an early facility that is easier to construct needing only the Furniture resource.

This will involve the following structures: Lavatory, Bathhouses, Library, Weaver and Tailor.

The Lavatory and the Bathhouses are perhaps the most important of these, needing resources built by previous facilities.

The Bathhouse will need both metal and cut stone, so needs as prerequisite the Metal Smith and the Stone Cutter. As Aforementioned, the Tool Smith is a prerequisite for the Stone Cutter as tools are necessary for it. For the tools, metal is necessary.  

Lavatories need only Furniture and apart from ordinary stone. They do however require workers which earlier on are more useful working in farms, Kitchens, Taverns, Metal Smiths and so on. Two decent sized lavatories and two bathhouses should be sufficient for a population at around 200 persons.

Once again, the point of these structures is the increase of Reputation, which increases the population of your city. This is something that in the future may change such that such facilities and reputation itself will do other things.

The Tailor is necessary to make clothes, and for this the Weaver is necessary. The Weaver needs cotton to function, and at this point one should have enough population to support such a farm.

The Weaver requires metal to be created. Hence must be built after the establishment of a Metal Smith.

The Tailor requires both Furniture and Metal, as well as the Fabric produced by the Weaver. It will produce clothing, which in turn can be given out according to the relevant policy.

At this point, one should be at least at around 250 citizens, and surely, well above.

In order to maintain this population in the immediate term, more farms, cemeteries and dormitories will be needed. In time, one will also need more boathouses, more lavatories, and so on.

The last, possibly least important in the immediate term, but significantly in the later term is the Library, which will be dealt with in entirety in the fifth part of this tutorial.

To construct a Library, one will need Fabric, hence needs the existence of a Weaver.

Libraries produce nothing themselves, but generate tech points. A Library of size 35x20 will generate up to 2,000 points.

As with all other facilities, multiple Libraries can be build to generate multiple points (or multiple items for the others). However, as with all facilities in this part, the Library requires many people to work in it, an amount which will not easily be supplied by a population any less than 200.

Part 5

This part of the Tutorial shall deal with Technology. There are multiple technologies. The technologies shall be explained by means of the following table.

Note that currently not all technologies are implemented, hence they will be left blank.

*Currently Opiates do not have any purpose in-game

This is the end of the Tutorial for now, however it will be updated with future renditions updates, having modifications, and parts added as necessary.

Thank you for reading.

Commissar Gaius Julius