The one thing most new players do not know before they place their capital: Health is boosted in cold climates and in warm climates, but not in temperate ones. Temperate looks like the safe default because the most common species prefer it, and it is the only one of the three that gives you no Health tailwind at all.
This page is written against V71 “Reign of Terror”, current on Steam since 16 June 2026.
The three climates, side by side
| Cold | Temperate | Warm | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | Boosted | Not boosted | Boosted |
| Species that prefer it | Dondorians | Cretonians, Humans, Tilapi | Garthimi, Amevias |
| Crops boosted | Mushrooms, Herbs | — | Cotton, Opiates |
| Crops penalised | Cotton, Opiates | — | Herbs, Mushrooms |
| Livestock boosted | Warbeasts, Onx | Entelodonts, Aurochs | Globdiens |
| Livestock penalised | Aurochs, Entelodonts, Globdiens | Warbeasts take a minor production penalty | Aurochs, Entelodonts, Warbeasts, Onx |
| Other boosts | Fish, Hunters | — | — |
| Mandatory building | Hearths, which keep every species alive | Both hearths and wells, for less frequent spikes in both directions | Wells, because of frequently extreme temperatures |
| Wildlife note | Wild Stagbeasts present; wild Globdiens and Dinoris absent | — | — |
Reading the table as a decision
Cold is the beginner-friendly extreme. It boosts Health, it boosts three separate food sources at once — Mushrooms, Fish and Hunters — and the wiki says plainly that hearths keep all species alive in it. You are not restricted to Dondorians just because they prefer it. What you give up is the cotton and opiate branch, which means Fabric comes from trade and your Tailor runs on leather instead.
Warm is the specialist extreme. Health boosted, cotton and opiates boosted, but wells stop being an optimisation and become a survival building. The wiki’s phrasing is that extreme heat is frequent, not occasional. Amevias are fairly heat-resistant and will still overheat and die without a way to cool off.
Temperate is the widest species overlap and the thinnest safety margin. Three species prefer it, so your immigration pool is broadest. In exchange the temperature can be dangerously hot and dangerously cold across the year, so you build both hearths and wells, and you get no Health bonus to offset either.
The temperature mechanic that kills first cities
Extreme temperatures can kill large numbers of citizens if the city is unprepared, and the reason it happens to prepared-looking cities is a range problem:
- Hearths and wells are range-limited. Citizens must be within reach. Somebody working a distant farm or mine during a spike may simply not make it back.
- Clothes are the exception. Clothes help a citizen stay warm or cool and provide a benefit in any temperature, regardless of where the citizen is on the city map. That makes clothing the only location-independent defence you have — and clothing is a Tailor output, from Leather or Fabric.
So the ordering is: hearths and wells in the residential core early, and a working Tailor chain before your workforce spreads out across the map. The production chain map shows what the Tailor needs upstream.
Climate is a food decision more than a comfort decision
Look again at the crop rows. Climate does not slightly adjust farm output — it moves entire crops in and out of viability. Mushrooms only grow efficiently in a cold climate. Cotton is strongly boosted in hot and worse in cold. Herbs boost in cold and suffer in hot. Opiates are easier in hot and harder in cold.
That matters because of the food variety mechanic: there is an additional health bonus and fulfilment for food variety when multiple preferred foods are available. A climate that removes a crop from your menu is quietly removing a happiness source too, not just a tonnage figure. Whether your remaining crops actually cover your population is arithmetic — the food balance calculator takes your own field and population numbers, because days of food is a ratio and it falls while your barns fill.
Consumption gives you the demand side of that ratio: citizens consume roughly one food unit every two days, varying by species. Amevias sit around 0.375 units daily; most other species land around 0.4 to 0.5 per day at standard access levels.
And it is a happiness decision
Every species has heat and cold resistance stats matching its preferred climate, so climate is one of the inputs to whether your population is content. But it is only one input, and fulfilment does not average — happiness follows your worst-covered need, not the mean of all of them. If your city is cold, well-fed and still unhappy, climate is not the culprit; the need-floor calculator will name the category that is.
What is not verified here
The wiki gives directions, not magnitudes, for almost all of this. There is no published number for how much Health a cold or warm climate adds, no percentage for each crop’s climate modifier, no tile radius for a hearth or a well, and no temperature threshold at which citizens begin to die. Every figure above that has a number attached — the food consumption rates — comes from the Food page and is quoted as written. The rest is direction only, and this page does not convert directions into invented numbers.
Sources
- Songs of Syx Wiki, Climate — the three climates, Health boosted in cold and warm, per-climate crop, livestock and wildlife lists, species preferences
- Songs of Syx Wiki, Temperature — deaths from unpreparedness, range-limited wells and hearths, clothes as location-independent protection, species resistance stats
- Songs of Syx Wiki, Farming — mushrooms in cold only, cotton hot-boosted, herbs cold-boosted, opiates easier in hot
- Songs of Syx Wiki, Food — consumption of about one unit per two days, Amevia 0.375 daily, 0.4 to 0.5 for most species, the variety bonus
- Songs of Syx Wiki, Health — Health as a score governing sickness frequency
- Steam news, V71 - Reign of Terror - Available Now — version baseline for this page
