Songs of Syx patch v54
At the time of writing this patch is still in beta mode, or unstable. It might seem a bit silly to write updates about patches for an early access game, but as there are some significant changes it’s all well worth a look.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the changes:
- Nobles and slaves as new population types.
- Enslavement of invading armies.
- Completely reworked interface.
- Completely reworked reputation (happiness) system.
- Another race added.
- Rooms and buildings reworked a bit.
A better interface
This one was much needed, and the way things work now is a big improvement over the original system. Sure enough, there’s still room for improvement, but what’s there is definitely going in the right direction.
The update includes both menus and information. Everything necessary, such as your army, trade, research and so on can be found on the upper left-hand corner. All building options and other similar functions are at the bottom of the screen, with the right-hand side of the screen left for remaining information, such as a tally of your resources.
Especially trading has received a major improvement, no longer forcing you to click ten times when you should only click once. This is the general take on all of these improvements – decreasing the number of clicks and screens you have to go through…you know, what any interface should be all about.
A lot of statistics have been added to the mix too, allowing you a better overall look of what is being produced, what is being used and what is going spoilt. Obviously, something that is very important for a city-builder like this.
Reputation aka Happiness
This is probably an even bigger change than the interface itself. As you might know from our earlier Songs of Syx review, the way to gain population is to increase the quality of life of your existing peasants (and now nobles too).
The happiness is now calculated separately for each race (of which there are now two). A lot of things go into this, or in short, pretty much anything and everything goes into this: food, amount of food, types of food, kitchen access, places to sleep, lavatories, tavern access, roads, light, and everything else the game has.
It’s a small miracle the game doesn’t freeze just for calculating all these values constantly.
Slaves, Nobles and other additions
Slaves can ask for nothing and nobles can ask for everything. Your peasants are somewhere in the middle. Obviously, this is a very barebones system for now. Nobles, for now, will increase production, with more features to come in years to come. Slaves can be gained from battles, which are likewise extremely limited now (Krull and his raids).
Besides these improvements, there are a host of smaller changes and bug fixes, such as the way rooms are built, how doors are used, or how your population retires.
The game is still lacking the empire-building and all that, but it’s easy enough to lose a few dozen hours into managing your sprawling city already. If you’re not scared of early access titles, go ahead and buy the game. Remember to read our Songs of Syx beginner’s guide to get started!
