Greetings, Tyrants!
You have waited patiently and now, the time has finally come. V71 Reign of Terror is now available. V71 is about law, order, slavery and family. Keep your population loyal through fear, or bring them happiness instead through mercy. The choice, as always, is yours.
To mark the occasion, poor Bob is back. You thought him dead on the battlefield, but alas for Bob, his gods were not that merciful. I hope you enjoy his unfortunate tale.
The Sacrifice of Bob Part II: The Enslavement of Bob
I write it at the end of this post, but I will mention it here as well: As usual... the update became much larger than I had planned on. There was a longer closed testing phase to make sure I managed to fix bugs and balance. But if you still find issues please go to the Discord and report them. I will spend some time after the release to fix bugs and balancing.
MAIN FEATURES
REIGN OF TERROR
Keep control and inspire loyalty in a population that fears you. Punish the disloyal with methods only those strong enough to rule would consider. Slavery has been reworked from the ground up, with slaves now becoming both a special type of subject and a fully tradeable good. Their fulfilment and happiness now work more or less exactly as they do for citizens.
If your subjects grow unruly, station guards to patrol the streets and impose order. Or be merciful, and focus on happiness instead of loyalty.
LAW AND ORDER
Law has been completely remade, and is now primarily about trading happiness for loyalty. A utopia with full happiness needs no law at all, and you can play the entire game without touching any of it. But ruling is rarely that clean. You dictate a punishment for every crime, and each crime and punishment affects happiness and loyalty differently. Guards, guard post coverage, execution places, secret police and more all multiply these effects.
Invest deep into law and the returns become exponential, opening the door to full tyranny: forsake happiness for absolute loyalty and build your dystopia. New guard rooms radiate an aura that improves law, gallows are now simple placeable items worked by your guards, and a dread aura helps keep the rest of your subjects in line.
FAMILY AND LEGACY
Most races now have children naturally, replacing the old breeders. Parents care for their offspring at home until they come of age, with education and services evolving to support children while boosting innovation, knowledge and admin.
You can also trace the lineage of your subjects throughout history. A family tree holds up to a million entries, tracking ancestors and siblings, so each subject finally has their own story to tell. The old nurseries have become a single global nursery where children spend their days, lowering child mortality and giving fulfilment to slaves and citizens alike.
TECH AND TRADE RENEWED
The tech tree has been remade once again. Techs are 50% cheaper in general, but common nodes are gone and rooms with multiple recipes cost more, with new consumption technology for each recipe.
Trade has been refactored alongside it. Tariffs now work both ways as a percentage of the goods price, tolls let you sell cheap wares at a good price, and every resource carries a per item price addition to account for logistics. Early trade is more expensive, but in the late game every resource can turn a profit depending on circumstance, and where you allocate your emissaries starts to matter a great deal.
DISCORD, FEEDBACK AND OTHER STUFF
As usual I was overly enthusiastic making this thing. The update became much bigger than first anticipated. As you can see in the patch notes, I have made many, many changes. As a result, we had to have an long period of closed testing.
Still, bugs and balance issues may appear. If so, and if you wish to tell me about any issues, go to the Songs of Syx Discord and report them. I try to read as much as I can.
Also worth noting:
Saves: Your saves will break
Rolling back: You can roll back the update to V70 if you want to finish your run before updating
Mods: Many mods will break. We have invited many modders ahead of time so they can update their mods before the release, but far from everybody. Give them some time to make their mods compatible.
MIDWEEK DEAL 25% OFF
My partner Sterling who runs marketing and stuff insists we have to do stuff like this. So for the first time ever we have a Midweek Deal starting at the same time as we are releasing this thing. The discount will run for 10 days, then we enter the Summer Sale as well. So tell your friends... and all that.
Devlog video
Patchnotes are at the bottom of this post. As usual, I have also made a video log where I walk through all the features. Or so I hope...
Sterling tried to fix the sound this time with a bunch of magical filters. As revenge, I shot the thing in a wide format to give the video that cinematic flair, with black bands on the top and the bottom. I like it.
V71 Devlog Video
PATCHNOTES
FAMILY MECHANICS
Most species now have natural propagation: individuals can become pregnant and will care for the infant (without working) for a set number of days until the infant becomes a child.
Added a full family tree that can track up to a million entries (maxed tree is roughly 6 MB). You can browse ancestors, siblings, and relatives.
Accessible from each subject’s panel.
Infant age is now shown in the subject’s panel.
Children inherit their parents’ last name.
Natural propagation is based on the boostable stats “Reproduction Speed” and “Reproduction Age.”
New setting to control maximum reproduction rate.
Added a new unhappiness stat for subjects who want children but are blocked by the reproduction setting.
New dedicated Garthimi Breeder building (works like a normal production room). A Garthimi child requires 2 days of work and 2 meat.
Children use a subset of normal services and inherit the same access rights as their parents.
Old nurseries have been replaced with a global nursery system. Children can spend their days there, which greatly reduces accidents and child mortality while providing fulfilment to both slaves and citizens.
EDUCATION & ADMIN OVERHAUL
Child education in schools is now separate and unique to childhood. When toggled, children remain in “child” status for the defined number of days. University education is counted separately.
Education limit is now measured in days and has diminishing returns.
Education now multiplies innovation, knowledge, and admin output based on education level and room quality.
Indoctrination increases subject loyalty.
Added speed and limit upgrades for education (costs admin).
Admin has been fully repurposed: it is now a simple tech point producer. The old resource drain from admins has been redistributed to other systems.
Admin points can optionally consume paper.
LAW & ORDER REWORK
Law has been completely redesigned. It is now primarily about trading happiness for loyalty. A perfect utopia with 100% happiness needs almost no law enforcement (very low crime). You can play without guards or harsh punishments if you want.
If you want an easier experience, some tyranny helps: small happiness costs in exchange for loyalty via guards and punishments.
You now set specific punishments for each crime. Each crime and punishment combination affects happiness and loyalty differently.
All law effects are multiplied by guard count, guard post coverage, execution site coverage, secret police, etc.
Result: A true utopia is possible but difficult. You can choose between a balanced normal route or a tyrant route. Deep investment in law gives exponential returns, enabling a dystopian high-loyalty playstyle at the cost of happiness.
OTHER MAJOR CHANGES
Slaves are now fully tradable goods.
Trade system has been heavily refactored with much more information shown in the faction goods panel.
Work preferences are now more extreme — some jobs are highly desired, others strongly disliked.
New game modes + full settings support for random maps.
Guards completely reworked: Two types of guard rooms that radiate law-improving auras. Guards are now active soldiers you assign to duty. Training and equipment improve law enforcement. Guards actively patrol streets.
Gallows replaced with simple placeable execution items. They require no workers — guards handle executions. They radiate a “dread” aura that boosts loyalty.
Added natural trees, flower monuments, and new death monuments.
New Gargoyle monuments by Orange Blue Hue
Automatic settings added for all decrees (handouts, persecution, etc.).
Cannibalism now only slaughters living prisoners (not corpses). Added a setting to allow slaughter of condemned prisoners + new “flavour profile” stat for cannibals.
Secret police added to deter crime (with some happiness/loyalty penalties).
Slave fulfilment and happiness now work almost identically to citizens.
Diplomacy UI, war mechanics, and trust system improved. Low trust increases risk of sabotage or war.
Added yearly economic summary at the start of each year.
ECONOMY, PRODUCTION & BALANCE
Accident rates are now reduced and disabled below 150 employees, but scale up exponentially with larger populations. Use tech to mitigate.
Added more forest to cities even on dry maps.
Removed rich soil variation based on moisture on generated maps.
Added moisture-derived pathogens that affect health of people working on bare ground (farms, pastures, etc.). Arid maps give better health but cost more to irrigate (and vice versa). Industry-heavy cities are mostly unaffected.
Agriculture rooms now receive irrigation bonuses to compensate compared to mines. Farms unchanged. Orchards and woodcutters get smaller bonuses from canals (max +5%). Pastures are less dependent on moisture but can gain up to +10% from full irrigation.
Food stalls, markets, taverns, restaurants, hospitals, physician, janitor, and bath houses all streamlined with “free fetch” (no need for warehouses directly adjacent — normal proximity is enough).
Hospitals: Fabric and opiates now locked behind tech. Using them significantly improves patient survival.
Emissary office added for nobles.
Tax rate replaced with “Squeeze” — temporarily gain a lot of resources at the cost of high city devastation.
Mineral richness is back. More deposits generated at 85% efficiency.
Tech tree remade again: All techs are ~50% cheaper, no common nodes, rooms with multiple recipes are more expensive, and Consumption Nodes added for each recipe.
Tariffs now work both ways (percentage of goods value). Early trade is more expensive, but late-game trade is much more interesting and situational.
All resources now have an added per-item logistics/toll cost (e.g. grain price increased to reflect real transport cost).
Toll upgrades help cheap goods, tariff upgrades help expensive goods. Importing grain + baking bread is now viable. Making your own grain into bread is the most profitable but requires the most tech investment.
Trade caps have been removed. Instead, ai factions are more reluctant to trade their excess with others, meaning local prices and each faction contributes to your profit from trade.
MISC & QUALITY OF LIFE
Raiders hard-locked below 200 population.
Warning when selecting mods.
Old p is now remapped to '1' key now toggles pause / old speed.
Production predictions much more accurate.
Resource proximity estimation and auras greatly improved.
Farting sounds toned down.
Adjusted AI region population sizes (now moddable and randomized).
Increased potential capacity bonus from area for regions.
Subjects now hang out more outside their homes, which should encourage more neighbourhood decorations.
Launcher buttons refreshed.
Messages no longer reset game speed to x1.
New work priority screen (max priority reduced from 20 to 5).
Many fixes to work groups.
Subject list UI + all detail panels fully remade.
Added borderless support for scaled Macs.
Manual FPS settings added to launcher.
Fixed road maintenance calculations.
Indoor pastures much easier to build and manage.
Moisture can now go above 100%. Rooms benefit from the excess.
Ores no longer spawn on map edges or overlap.
Broken walls and rooms now auto-set to repair.
Added boost icon to every room’s main panel.
Improved orchard UI + added storage. Farmers now automatically store harvest and will notify you if no storage is nearby.
All services now have free fetch.
Max carry capacity increased from 4 to 7 for all jobs.
Restaurants take longer to cook but have higher carry capacity and free fetch.
Import depot capacity: 250 → 600. Export depot: 200 → 500.
Trade prices rewamped with more randomness to balance climate/race bonuses.
Decorations grouped together. Added more natural trees and flowers.
Monuments can now be placed on fortifications.
Every citizen can now bury corpses.
Graveyards and Tombs still need employees for respect.
No lights in degraded rooms.
Various diplomacy, loader, station, and army supply fixes.
Armies can only transfer divisions when on the same tile.
Fixed archer arrow blocking issues.
Updated lwjgl to 4.1, and java temurin to the latest patch
MODDING
Max name pool increased from 255 → 2047.
New modding system: Mods now overwrite individual fields, making it possible to have files with just 1 property you want to change. You can also specify to add to lists or arrays instead of completely overwriting them. _ARRAY_ADD: true, _JSON_ADD:true, respectively.
Mods can also have their own translation files.
Increased max jobs (better modding support for new resources/rooms).
Animals sprites are now 32x32 pixels instead of 24x24
Enjoy.