After taking part in the brand new city-builder sport Citadelum for simply over 4 hours, I can definitively say that it’s proper for a particular type of particular person: those that are obsessive about the Roman Empire.
The sport is ready in Historical Rome and was launched on Thursday for Home windows PC. It’s, general, a fairly customary city-builder — you collect assets, place buildings and roads, and discover the map — however with the Historical Roman twist, every part takes on a barely extra beatific and sinister air.
In Citadelum, as an alternative of putting a fortress on the heart of your metropolis, you place a Discussion board. You possibly can construct aqueducts, water mills, and reservoirs. As a substitute for the usual housing of the style, which is usually differentiated by dimension, in Citadelum, you construct Plebeian (commoner) and Patrician (aristocratic) housing relying on whether or not you want staff or to gather taxes. You get the purpose.
To unlock new buildings, you should stage up your metropolis by attracting a sure variety of Plebeians and Patricians — and also you want them each to maintain your metropolis working. To make the Plebeians joyful, guarantee they’ve jobs. To make the Patricians joyful, guarantee they’ve loads of leisure to replenish their days. If you happen to don’t preserve each castes occupied, issues can get a tad murder-y, with a pop-up notification telling you that somebody in your metropolis has been killed.
With a purpose to appease your Patrician inhabitants, you may select from various leisure and leisure actions. You possibly can construct baths and wineries — or you may practice up actors, gladiators, and chariots, after which construct theaters, arenas, or a Circus Maximus for them to carry out in.
Your residents aren’t the one ones you need to appease, nevertheless. In true Historical Roman vogue, you may construct temples to the gods — Minerva, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, Apollo, and Ceres. As soon as their place of worship has been constructed, you should increase the religion stage in that god by both throwing a competition of their honor or making a sacrifice. Within the latter case, you may select an animal or determine to sacrifice any variety of your Plebeians and Patricians. Doing so can please the god and bestow a blessing in your metropolis.
If you happen to determine to look outdoors of your metropolis, you may discover the map and set up commerce routes with different Roman cities that you simply discover. It is a option to collect luxurious supplies resembling marble and silk — then you may select to ship these assets to Rome (the ultimate objective in most of the missions).
There’s nonetheless a lot left to discover in Citadelum — I’ve barely made a dent within the general content material obtainable — however to date it’s a enjoyable tackle the style for historical past buffs and followers of Historical Rome alike. The one query that continues to be is whether or not you’ll cater solely to the Patricians, or be an Emperor for the individuals.
Citadelum was launched Oct. 17 on PC. The sport was reviewed on PC utilizing a obtain code offered by Abylight Studios. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought by way of affiliate hyperlinks. You’ll find further details about gamerjive’s ethics coverage right here.
