Citadelum REVIEW

Citadelum is an urban strategy game that takes us to Ancient Rome. The development and release of this game was handled by the independent studio Abylight, whose previous portfolio mainly consisted of small but quite high-quality projects.

Citadelum is clearly inspired by classic games from the beginning of this century. He certainly pays homage to them visually, although he does it in a better and more detailed manner appropriate to modernity.

The gameplay is made in the classic style of urban planning simulators: You are building a city consisting of a population with two classes, plebeians and patricians, whose needs you will need to meet. To provide food and an assortment of other amenities that a good Roman citizen expects — access to water, public baths, entertainment, and so on. You should also decorate your city with gardens and statues to increase the attractiveness rating of the areas, which will lead to better homes. These improved dwellings will provide more space for more people, resulting in higher tax income and a larger workforce, but in turn will require more sophisticated food and amenities.

Where some imbalance can be observed is, for example, in the number of resources and production chains. It seems that it is relatively easy to access all available products on any map. Some goods are only available through trade routes (although trade itself is quite limited), but it seems like it would be a more trivial way to get most of the resources needed to build a thriving city.

The deity system is also implemented in the game. You can build temples for several different deities from the Roman pantheon and celebrate holidays in them to gain their favor. Once you complete the scale of God’s favor, you can summon them from heaven, forcing them to bestow gifts and bonuses to the residents of your city.

A little grain and money sacrificed to Ceres will make her come down and fill the vaults of all your farms to the brim with the gifts of nature. Apollo descends and delivers food directly to the houses of the city. Mars will create legions of troops for you.

But ignoring one or more gods makes them unhappy and descend to bring destruction to your city. So be careful.

Now let’s talk about the research and the combat system. You can send explorers to dispel the fog of war from its territories, discovering potential trading partners, enemies, and even artifacts that you can dedicate to the gods, increasing your favor to them.

You can also deploy the troops that you create in your city into legions, going up against enemies and challenging them in field battles.

In addition to the main gameplay, Abylight provides its community with a powerful map editor that allows players to create their own challenges and scenarios from scratch.

Citadelum successfully captures the spirit and charm of classic games in the genre such as Pharaoh and Zeus, bringing this iconic style of urban planning into the modern era, but someone may not have enough variety and content to stay in the game for a long time. Abylight’s take on this style of play is great for those looking for a rush of nostalgia. The game is also very friendly to beginners. The user interface is intuitive and useful. Experienced city builders may laugh at the simplification of some elements, but for many it is a very affordable threshold for entering the game.