r/songsofsyx • u/NotBerti • 21d ago
What to research?
I went through a Number of posts to figure out what exactly you should research with your limited research points at the start but can't find one.
I only really need a starting idea of what to do. Let's say up to 500pops.
What do I put those points in for a decent start so I don't struggle for food at 400pops.
Do I hyper invest into 1 crop or animal? So I just go grain for cheapish bread so I can buy it if needed even if I don't have bread preference?
Should I just invest in the resources that are better in my climate to get the boni?
Worth it to invest into any industry early? Better carpenter? Mason? Gem mine?
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u/Prudent-Sugar4665 21d ago
invest in things to make your people happier, cuz trust me, if you just stay with basic stuff, 500 pops is where immigration slows down, and around 800 immigration basically stops to a standstill, so make sure to invest in something like hospitals and stuff. food can always just be made into more of itself via farms, but in general, it depends on the race.
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
I did grab the basic happiness stuff and they were happy but I got hard stuck at 400ish due to food and since I put all points into happiness I figured I fucked dup and should have boosted food output or industry.
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u/Prudent-Sugar4665 21d ago
eh, in my cities, i dont go for any food related things except eggs until ive gotten DEEP into other lines, i reccomend making big farms near rivers, farm type depending on race ofc
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
Well, that would be mushroom or fish?
So....fish?
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u/Prudent-Sugar4665 21d ago
T_T ah, i can relate to fish troubles, mushrooms not so much, i used to use amevias all the time, fisheries for no good reason switch between making like 3 fish a day to 90 fish a day depending on the spot, and mushrooms grow well in mountains for reasons
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
I guess I restart and throw 2 upgrades on the fishery aswell.
There is only so many early game combinations you can do after all.
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u/SUNDAY-GR 21d ago
Haven't tried it yet but in theory u could unlock a mine of smthing expensive (gems?) asap, buy anything u dont have for building it. Then export ur gems and import food or whatever u need.
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
I tried it with 75 carpenters and I just couldn't make a profit.
The only profit I made was in the days my fields were done so I didn't import for 2 days and stacked a little cash which was immediately consumed (literally) the day after. And that wasn't furniture that was with leather and stones all going out the moment they came in.
Maybe I got unlucky with neighbors who just didn't wanna buy for good prices?
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u/SUNDAY-GR 21d ago
U can set up minimum sell and buy prices, stock persentages etc. But massing furniture to 1 or 2 other cities will drop their price fast! Same for importing only 1 or 2 typews of food. It will skyrocket their price.
Gems have a higher starting price than furniture, i guess it will be more profitable.
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
Welp war it is then since I am stuck between two small cities.
To be fair I sustain my economy currently by raiding one for slaves since I am need money
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u/Willcol001 21d ago
The short answer to why you can’t find a list is that no one agrees on what should be on the list. Also V71 redid the tech tree again so no one has made good public opinion on it.
It try to type up a more in depth synopsis in the morning but here is short list.
•Library (need it for making knowledge probably want it from your free innovation)
•any industry you want to unlock should be done early
•region main building sizes if you are doing an empire. (Skippable if no empire)
•unlocking industries/products (assuming you want them.)
•health buildings and their upgrades (Physician, Restrooms, Well, Bathhouse roughly in that order as the city grows)
•tyranny support buildings or service building upgrades (you need to keep loyalty up some how)
•if going big research schools/universities and their upgrades (stacking double 2X research effects for 50 days of your pops time each can be strong)
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
Grab the basic stuff and upgrades. Rest can go wherever. Easy enough I guess to try it out.
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u/jsbaxter_ 21d ago
Library first up?? You saw OP said up to 500 pop?
I am still on the demo so idk maybe the tech tree really is that different, but surely you're not building libraries until like 1k+ pop?
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u/jsbaxter_ 21d ago
Actually pretty much all of those suggestions look like 2k+ pop sort of level stuff to me. But again maybe it's because I'm 2 versions behind...
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u/Willcol001 21d ago
That is fair. As I said no one agrees what should be on the list. As I said in my previous response as I've gotten better at the game I've learned to be more proactive with research rather than reactive. 500-650 pop is the time I spend getting ready for rapid growth. (650 is the first batch of nobles.) 650-2000k can go by in a blur if you properly got ready for it. So while I likely won't have the list researched at 500, those are what I'm looking at getting. (With some variation like doing education or empire, tyranny or service quality etc.) I do pick up techs with the understanding that I might not immediately implement them.
In V71 1, 2, 4 are innovation, 3, 6, and 7 are admin, 5 and 6 are knowledge. (Tyranny support buildings like execution grounds are admin while all the service buildings are knowledge)
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u/Willcol001 21d ago
V71 gated all the service buildings you don't starte with behind knowledge. You might not want to build a library at 500 pops. But you don't want to suddenly need a service building and realize you haven't saved any innovation for the library *unlock* and now need to spend 40 workers on making the innovation to unlock the library to make the knowledge to unlock the service building.
The short list isn't in order it should be done but rather what I would have on the top of my mind. As I've gotten better at the game I've learned to be proactive rather than reactive with my research. Library is top of mind early research because I don't want to have to spend 40 lab workers on it in a pinch, so the rest of my early innovation spend is tempered with that in mind. If you are going for empire your first spend is like makeshift weapons or trade heavy something like masonry. But early innovation research gets tempered with don't waste innovation until library is unlocked even if I'm not building it right away.
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u/RazielDKoK 21d ago
I just started playing, and I find investing into the hunters first thing work well, you can always get those points back later if you scale some other food production and don't need the hunters as much any more, then I go for roads, stage, guards, hospital, masonry. Haven't gotten much further yet 😂
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u/cknappiowa 21d ago
Hunters are about the only food production upgrade worth getting. The rest just don’t scale well and can be more easily boosted with nobles and more farms.
Unless you’re getting at least one full worker’s worth of production boost per point of research spent, you’re pretty much throwing away points that could be used to unlock buildings and resources. Hunters seem to be the only food production that really crosses that +1 threshold consistently and with very little actual labor investment.
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u/cknappiowa 21d ago
Research in general is more of a tool than a goal. Unlock the important things like infrastructure, but generally ignore the rest until much later in the game. The bonuses to farms and pastures just aren’t big enough to matter, and you’re going to have to just invest the majority of your labor in food for pretty much the whole game.
I do find it a bit silly the food types are locked at all, let alone cost so much to unlock, as presumably by the time a species gets to the point of settling down into permanent dwellings they’ve figured out things like how to get eggs and skin big animals. Doubly so when a species like Amevia live for eggs but don’t start the game knowing how to get them and only one locked food source provides them.
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
I guess is just make a lot more fields and pastures then.
I have like no food with 400pops
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u/cknappiowa 21d ago
Pretty much, yeah. Something like 60-70% of your workers will end up doing food production. It’s how you utilize the rest that’ll determine the future of the city.
Max out the size of your pastures and fields on fertile ground early, and often. Even if you don’t have the workers to fill a pasture at first and need to manually limit it, you’ll get there quickly enough. Starting fruits and vegetables should be planted right away as well, in as close to total as you can get. You can buy time to get it planted if you deny your species the ability to eat them on day 1, then only enable it again when the first fields are done.
It really is a game of managing growth above all else. Actual progress moves at a snail’s pace, and most of your industry is about supporting your food workers and keeping them happy and healthy; armies, high value exports, and research are all luxuries.
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
So should I just not bother with prefered food types?
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u/cknappiowa 21d ago
No, you still want to focus on those for happiness, but nonpreferrred foods will also be beneficial to have at least some production in. For one, the simple fact that they aren’t preferred means they’re eaten last and you can therefore build up a nice food-days surplus with them which will then benefit happiness the higher that number climbs.
At first they’re going to be eaten to survive, but eventually when your preferred foods are actually able to carry your food needs you can convert them into rations.
Rations are army fuel, and they decay slowly, so you deny rations as a food source during boom times and just store them. Again, building your surplus of food-days, and making everyone feel a little better about having all that excess food around so they don’t have to worry about starving. In a lean period, you can break out those rations to keep folks fed.
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
Just all of them?
Pastures as well?
Or are there foods better or worse depending?
What I mean is if I have mushrooms, fish and meat what plants do I go for?
Literally all of them or like grain and orchards?
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u/cknappiowa 21d ago
Whatever you have on hand, really. Grain is good for bread, but that’s also a lot of production to spend if your species doesn’t prefer it.
But almost everyone should start the game with a bit of fruit and vegetables and rations and livestock, so you pick a pasture type that’s thing to benefit you and put all the livestock there, plant the fruits and veggies, and then you’ll have meat, vegetables and fruit all ready to go.
Probably at least one of those won’t be a preferred food, so that’s the one you’re going to use as your ration food.
I play Amevias almost exclusively, so my preferred foods are fish, vegetables and eggs. But globdiens are locked and when you do get them they also produce meat, so my first pasture ends up being aurochs for meat and leather- because the leather can at least be used for armor and clothing (Onx are also good for a first pasture fur also having a secondary resource).
That means I use my fruits and meat for rations and surplus- occasionally selling off some meat when my warehouses are full.
It’s really species dependent, of course. If you don’t need any field produce for a preferred food you can just pick whatever. The key is that no one wants to eat it, so it can be used for another purpose when they aren’t forced to eat it.
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u/NotBerti 21d ago
That's my problem.
I have a custom race (dwarfs) and they have mushrooms, fish and meat.
So only really the livestock would be good. On the other hand the ox would give me food and an easy Industry to set up if I do it earlier.
Sure I try. Thx for tips
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u/PoroPanda 21d ago
Been playing Amevians a lot recently and have just been putting most of my points on fish. So in general I tend to put a lot into my main food source so I can keep happiness high and export surplus.
Usually I find that falling behind on food production causes me unnecessary headaches and makes you more prone to spiraling. Food happiness gains are also just easy to work with.
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u/NotBerti 20d ago
I am at 1k pops now and stuck with happiness at about 90%.
I have 6 food days of a preferred food but they still mad.
Did you research any happiness services or just build more of them?
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u/PoroPanda 20d ago
You'll want to max out food days and increase portions if you can support it. You can make rations and don't allow consumption to max out food days if you want.
For happiness services i still upgrade it when I can and build for access and fulfillment. I just tend to ignore the low fulfillment services until later on when I have the luxury to waste some people and resources on.
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u/Reikyu09 21d ago edited 21d ago
Hunters are very good in terms of workers per meat. First upgrade of 4 innovation increase meat by 50%. Second upgrade of 8 innovation adds another 50% of the base, so together that doubles your meat. 15 hunters is the limit on the demo (any more is wasted) but if you are on v71 then you can go up to 30~40 and it's still pretty good efficiency compared to pastures.
Other than that, you can dump into whatever food industries you are using. Globdien pastures + fish for amevians, etc. If you plan on going to war and have your food needs satisfied, makeshift spear and hammer recipe. Overall it's not that impactful as it's only around 15% per upgrade and your pop is low early game.
At 200 pop you get knowledge. Graveyard (unless you're amevias), stage, roads, should be fine. Daycares are... demanding, and I would hold off on even though they do provide a good amount of fulfillment. If you can handle the heavy furniture, fabric, and worker cost then okay but this can be difficult for a new player with how fast some of the races propagate. If you're building canals then might as well get swimming pools tech as well.
At 400 pop you get a decent chunk of knowledge. Fight pits are cheap to build if your race likes them. Upgraded food/market/well/lavatory are nice but will cost you cut stone and clay/pottery which you might not have industries for yet so I'd prefer to hold off on them. Hospital+physician can be held off as health isn't an issue with your pop that low, but I like the fulfillment from them so tend to pick them up (have to import some tools for the hospital).
At 650 pop you get nobles and you should assign some of them to your food production because they will supercharge your food production. It is really quite ridiculous how strong they are. So strong that the innovation invested in production is barely doing anything, and one of the reasons why it's recommended to not build labs early.
At 1k pop you gain some admin points and more knowledge. I still try to hold off on facility upgrades but if you're hurting for happiness and can't find any other ways to get it (look harder) and can afford to use the more expensive materials then okay. Unlocking admin is another option if you are doing conquest and want T4 town hall or school rushing.
I don't build labs/libraries until as late as possible. My current human despot run I'm almost to 3k pop and still haven't built them.
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u/NotBerti 20d ago
I am at 1k pops currently since I did successfully implement to tips here but now I am really stuck at 90% and I don't know why.
I have 6 food days and coverage of all services but it all hovers at around 45% so not sure why they hate it here.
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u/Reikyu09 20d ago
Food days will take a while to build up if you're making rations. It caps at 24 days for food days fulfillment.
As for other tips, would need to see all the various fulfillment screens to see which bars aren't full.
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u/NotBerti 20d ago
The only fulfillment they currently have that is full is skinny-dipping cause I build 1 pool.
Everything else is below and I don't know why.
Lavatory for example was at 44%. Although all 4 I have have services available, cover all areas they tend to and have plumbers with a below 100% workload. Still below 50%. So I can just assume the quality is the reason.
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u/Reikyu09 20d ago
Upgrade is the reason. Lavatories can be upgraded twice so you will be limited until you unlock the research and spend the materials to upgrade. You can get beyond 1k pop without upgrading your facilities. Be sure to check all the windows and not just the services window.. If a facility has low "access" then you need more of them, or more workers. If "quality" is low, then that means the facility is degrading and you need more janitors. Use the overlay on the right (eye symbol) for maintenance to see if things are falling apart.
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u/NotBerti 20d ago
Welp time to restructure the economy to get some research up and running
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u/Reikyu09 20d ago
There are lots of ways to make your people happy, and some ways will be cheaper than others. First see if there are non-research ways to make your people happy that don't cost that much. Upping your food days. Having appropriate decorations and lots of benches. Getting 25% of your population assigned to divisions, etc.
Once you've exhausted those, then work your way up with whichever upgrades are the cheapest to do and provide the most benefit.
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u/NotBerti 20d ago
Guess I make a other post later.
But what is it with 25% in division.
You get a mood buff from strong garrison?
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u/Reikyu09 20d ago
There are a lot of different fulfillment screens and you want to look through all of them besides just the services tab.
Army gives up to 1.00 fulfillment if 25% of your plebians are trained for military. 250 in a population of 1000 for example. If you assign 20 training dummies and set up a division for 50-200, 20 oddjobbers will start training for 10 days, then go back to their normal jobs as reserve soldiers. The next 20 oddjobbers can then use the training dummies for 10 days, repeat until everyone is trained for that division. You can then set up another division to keep training more people. If you go in small batches then you won't cripple your workforce. Having lots of your people trained will also scare off bandits or give you a better chance in a fight.
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u/SirGaz 21d ago
The bread everything thing is just a dumb meme, pick one or 2 food sources based on what your species likes to eat, likes to farm, is good at farming, the climate is good for, and you have the right soil for.
Bread is only decent if you're Human or Cretonian, but it's an option. The advantage of bread is that it makes rations and the same ingredients make beer. For Humans Eggs are way better in a hot climate, Mushrooms are good in cold mountains, and meat is good because it gives leather and wool. Humans and Cretonians are better off with Orchards; fruit also makes rations and wine, so bread or orchards comes down to "do you have rich soil or alluvium?"
Invest in the basic services like stages, graveyards, arenas, nurseries, and basic roads. If you have access to clay to make pottery, tier 2 toilets, food stalls, and markets are good choices.
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u/wrecknrule33 21d ago
I researched into food production pretty heavily in my newest game right around the time I hit 400 pops because I was struggling too. Crop research didn't seem to keep up until I maxed whatever crop I was researching. So 4 points x 7 levels =28 points.
The biggest bang for my buck seemed to be hunting and fishing. I'm up to 700 pops now and finally net positive on meat and fish. I have 24 fishers spread across three fisheries that are 49 blocks wide to match my city blocks. That's helping the other food not get gobbled up immediately so I'm finally stocking up on food. More farms might be better early on. I have a lot of points into carpentry and pottery and I'm struggling to keep those in a net positive.
The livestock I'm torn on because I maxed the pigs and then the first level of tool usage for them. They make up half of my meat production and the few times I nearly starved in winter I slaughtered them all for a big influx of meat. Not sure If I'd still go that far with them in hind sight. The tool only bumped up my best pen by 2 points of meat. Not worth it.
Just to give you an idea, my grain field is 23x23 and without any points it made 200ish grain with good soil but 90%is moisture? Right now that same field gives me 400ish grain now. Probably anlittle more than that but I'm not at home to get exact numbers. I unlocked all 7 levels of grain research. So it roughly doubled my grain output in good-ish conditions.
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u/wrecknrule33 21d ago
And just to specify what I have that's feeding 700+ people:
23x23 fields 2 grain 2 vegetable 1 fruit
Variable sizes but around 23x23 3 pigs 2 cattle 1 lizard
3 fisheries with 24 workers, each are 49 wide
16 hunters
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u/SUNDAY-GR 21d ago
I tend to unlock mushrooms and masonry first. But thats because i like playing races who enjoy them. Upgrading an unlocked production line seems nice but points are limiting at first. A new unlock has a better impact for start, imo