At primary school, we had a single Acorn computer in our classroom, and if you finished schoolwork early, the teacher let you play on it. The game that fascinated me the most was simply called ‘Romans’ and covered Roman history. It was the graphics that fascinated me the most, in truth, as they were a huge step up from the NES and BBC Micro. I’d never seen anything before with so much detail. I don’t ever remember playing the game itself. I must have, but in the end, it was the tidy visuals that left the longest lasting impression.
The chance to play and review Citadelum on Switch 2 was a real no-brainer, recalling the hazy days of games used in the classroom as educational tools.
I used to love management sims (nee “god games”) when I was younger, but since becoming a console-only player, I’ve barely touched the genre. These games are information-dense, and that rarely translates well to playing from the comfort of a sofa. Mobile phones aren’t the ideal place either. Touch inputs designed for the fingers are simply not suited for small, fiddly interactions. Trying to play RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic on mobile was maddening, and I haven’t touched one since. That is, until the Switch arrived in 2017. Suddenly, I had proper controls and a sharp screen that I could zoom in on by simply bringing it closer to my face. Still, building games chugged on the original Switch, and that console never felt fully capable of running them properly. All this is a long preamble to say that the Switch 2 is the perfect platform for intricate management sims. And Citadelum has been chewing away at my free time for a fortnight.
Firstly, the basics. It begins with extracting resources such as stone, wood, and iron which calls for plebeians to work for you. They need housing, too, and food. Not content with their newly planted wheat fields, the plebeians also want money for their toil. So, you need to build some patrician housing and charge them taxes for living in your wonderful city. Patricians need cabbages(!) and entertainment, resulting in gladiatorial arenas and vegetable patches…which duly need granaries for storage. Before you know it, you’re managing a huge city, with hundreds of citizens, butcheries, honey farms and even cheese-making facilities.
The need to keep on top of things makes Citadelum incredibly addictive, and the basics of city building are sturdy. You’re constantly balancing the needs of your population and trying to expand further into new reaches. Citadelum manages to generate fun from constantly trying to balance the books, whilst supplying your citizens with everything they need, and it isn’t long until there are near countless things to build.
Supply enough of what your citizens need, and make their environment look beautiful enough, and buildings will start levelling up. Enhanced buildings pay more tax and can hold more people. I never ran out of things to do or things to think about.
Citadelum also layers on some extra mechanics. It’s possible to build temples and hold festivals to gain favour with the gods. If you’ve celebrated enough, the gods will come down and bless you, but if you ignore them too long, they’ll smite the living heck out of you.
The ‘Palace of Justice’ pops up occasionally with dilemmas. Upon catching a thief, for example, the quandary is posed whether you should accept a bribe to let them off, deal with angry villagers, or execute them to placate the city. There’s also the need to ensure enough guard tower coverage, as barbarians will occasionally invade.
It all adds up to a game that’s addictive in the best possible way, sucking you in because it’s fun, and not because you need to maintain a streak or need to keep clicking to unlock a reward. In fact, I just picked up the game now to check some facts and got sucked in all over again.
Smart quality of life touches make you appreciate how much love has been poured into Citadelum. I especially like how buildings can be relocated freely, so making a placement mistake never feels fatal, and you can rearrange your city as it grows. It also looks and runs great, boasting crisp and bright graphics, along with mouse support.
A few negatives do spring to mind. The army building aspect and Total War-style battling never gelled with me. It’s perfectly functional, but I never really felt that toying with tactics was very important. I just kept making units until my numbers overwhelmed the opponent.
I would also say the campaign’s structure doesn’t really work. To be fair, it could just be me. I like sandboxes rather than on-going campaigns where each chapter begins anew. I just wanted to build my city and make a little flourishing civilisation. Missions do have some nice flavour text if you’re interested in Roman times, though. The music is also quite repetitive for something intended to be played for dozens of hours.
Overall, Citadelum is a brilliant addition to the Switch 2’s library. It scratches the itch for something deep and involving on a handheld system. The ‘spinning plates’ gameplay still held appeal after 15 hours. If you’ve kept up with the city building genre, Citadelum may feel as if it treads old ground. However, if you haven’t touched the genre for a while, like me, and want to give it another go, this comes highly recommended. It’s perfectly balanced to hook the more casual genre tinkerer. Even though this review has been turned in, I’m going to go back to it until I’ve stripped mined the soil and paved over Rome entirely.
Abylight’s Citadelum is out now on Switch 2. It was originally released on PC in 2024.