I’ve been following the development of Citadelum since… well, since Abylight itself exclusively introduced it to Gamereactor at Gamescom 2023. Back then the game didn’t even have a definitive name, but last year it did, Citadelum is spreading its nascent empire among the community of simulation game enthusiasts, and now its legions are ready to march. And the truth is that most titles fade when they see their flags on the horizon.
Let’s start from the beginning. Citadelum is the next step in scale and ambition from Team Abylight Barcelona, a studio specializing in management games. And I say next step because this apparent city-building game from ancient Rome also hides trading and conquest systems that we might expect in strategy titles like Civilization. I mentioned size and ambition because there are so many systems that have to work simultaneously to go from a miserable village on the banks of the river to a huge city from which legions rise to conquer the world, which is just his can was considered worthy of Caesar.
The best way to get your bearings is to dive straight into the Citadelum campaign, which consists of 10 levels or scenarios spread throughout the empire that Julius Caesar left behind after his death. Although the narrative has little weight in the story, in the campaign we play the role of Gaius Octavius, Caesar’s adopted son, who must take revenge on his father’s murderers and confront Mark Antony himself throughout the empire, from the walls of Rome to the Desert of Equipo and ultimately in the campaign in Hispania.
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As I said, the most important thing is not the story as such, as there is no dialogue or interaction between the characters. To complete the mission you just need to complete the objectives, nothing more.
Well, it won’t be easy, but luckily Citadelum’s own campaign is designed as a great tutorial mode to teach you the basics. First of all, every Roman villa begins with the construction of a forum, which forms the central core from which the paths and branches of the streets emerge. To get off to a good start, we built our first town houses, workers who will feed all agriculture and industry, from agriculture to crafts, education and medicine. And for all of them, it will be necessary to provide enough food, set up farming areas, transport water with aqueducts, and regularly set up fire protection systems and engineering offices to keep everything running.
But no empire is sustained solely by citizens and full pantries. Denarii (or sesterces, I don’t remember now) are needed and these are obtained by collecting taxes from the patricians (who do not work but must be willing to pay) or by establishing trade routes with other cities.
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What has been said so far seems simple, but here I have simplified countless systems that must remain balanced and thrive for the city to thrive. The essential and important thing is to regularly use basic services such as water (construction of aqueducts and tanks), but also fire barracks, engineering offices, warehouses, markets, schools, medical consultations and, in short, everything that a resident of the century has to offer I BC In addition, everything on both sides of the tracks must be properly connected and organized, with a sufficient level of attractiveness or comfort for residents, and with enough space between homes and production facilities for everything to function and thrive.
As the city grows and wealth increases, you will also need to build and maintain facilities to entertain the residents, such as theaters, libraries, and temples to worship the gods. The Roman pantheon will pay great attention to this part, and each deity requires due attention and sacrifices or feasts. When favorable, the gods can provide more additional resources, luck, or armies in times of need. But if you worship certain gods and ignore others, they can descend to earth and destroy your city with starvation and fire. It’s not the most complex Citadelum system, but it offers an additional layer of complexity in shaping your sustainable economy and, if necessary, a boost to your desire to conquer.
There will come a time when self-sufficiency will no longer work and certain materials or products will have to be imported from other distant cities to create trade routes. They also allow you to get rid of some surplus and earn some money, but in most cases, enemy armies will be placed in your way as you explore the world map, and then the swords will speak.
Combat is another layer of Citadelum’s city-building system. Once you can start forming troops (which, by the way, requires several special infrastructures and industries, which greatly affects the city’s progress), you can organize them into legions that face each other in battle. It’s a simplified system with auto-battles and only a few unit types, but it’s again a new space for the studio to test itself and expand its formula. Maybe I missed more unit variety, but I think that could make resource management even more complicated and rock the whole house of cards.
While the campaign and custom map editor will provide you with many hours of challenge in Citadellum, I see the greatest future for the game in community-created content. As with One Military Camp, testers have provided regular feedback to developers, and while user-created maps and missions are now scarce, each one I’ve seen has a unique flavor. I’ve even seen one where the user had changed the environment and colors of the map as if it were an alien world. Not to mention detailing the game’s localization in multiple languages… including classical Latin.
With a thorough, complicated, yet robust management system, Citadelum promises a lot of fun for lovers of city building and management titles. What I regret most is that there is no multiplayer option to compete against my friends’ empires, but the creations that we can download from the Steam Workshop make up for this lack. It’s time to crown a new Caesar.
