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Citadelum
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Citadelum - Abylight Studios Gamescom Interview
When we first learned about it a couple of weeks ago behind closed doors, it didn't even have a name, but here Abylight Studios' David Martínez talks us through the whole, three-layered strategy that plays into Citadelum, from the Romans day-to-day, to the mischievous Gods.
Audio transcription
"Okay, we're at Gamescom 2023 at the Spain booth, Games from Spain, and you know as we said with One Military Camp we normally learn a lot about a lot of resource management games and strategy games and city builders in Germany, but this is interesting because we come from talking about One Military Camp, but you guys now are going deeper and grander in a scale and more systems thrown into it, and when you see this it means we can talk about your new game, which so far has no name."
"Yeah, and I'm not telling you anything because then everyone is calling us a name we probably don't like, but you people at Gamereactor are probably one of the first in the world watching what's new for Abylight Studios, so yeah This is our third base building game in a row, a city building game, which is very special. Right now for the first time it has a historical setting, it is set in ancient Rome in times of the Republic before the Empire, and it is a game based on classic works such as Aeneid by Virgil or Metamorphoses by Ovid. That means we have myths and gods and heroes in our game, and I'm telling you a lot about it. Yeah, I got this little brief presentation because it's a lot of things to take in, right? So you have several layers, you start from the very from the base, you can get into the rooms, into the buildings, you can see the people doing their things, and then you've got the city building, and then you've got some strategy to it, some combat, you can have your crops, you can have your resources, and on top of that there is the gods layer to, you know, they have fun with humans, right? So how would you describe these three different layers? What you did perfectly, the idea is having strategy in different levels, I would say in different speeds at the same time. So you have the first layer is classic city building style, gathering resources, refining resources, building and also recruiting people for your settlement, which eventually will become a huge city. Then over that basic layer you have to build walls and design patrols and, you know, have sentries because those barbarian hordes can come to your city and attack you and, you know, you don't want to lose anything you've been building so far. So we have these two basic layers, then over this we have this strategy layer. So imagine you are watching the whole peninsula and you have at your disposal one of the biggest armies of the era, which is the Roman Legion. So you will be able to, you know, design strategies, it is closer to an RTS, it is not purely a strategy. It's not turn-based, it's always real-time. Yeah, it is real-time and you will be able to, you know, explore and then after that attack or defend different villages and once you have freed those villages you will also be able to set commercial routes between them. So there's military expansion and at the same time economic expansion. Seems a lot, but then over everything we have the final layer, which is the gods. You will be able to see the Roman Pantheon with the six main gods, including Jupiter and Mars and Ceres, Apollo, everyone. So they in some way play with the humans. They are jealous, they are passionate, they are playful. Yeah, they behave the same way we have seen in classic works. So the idea is build a temple to your god, worship him, make sacrifice for him and then he will grant you gifts. But on the other side, if you got a favor from Jupiter, you may have a jealous Pluto who is, you know, punishing you because you are, you know, worshiping his brother. So you will have to keep like this balance and you will be able to watch the most spectacular actions for a base-building game, which is volcanoes and earthquakes and fires and armies becoming invincible because, you know, they have the favor of the gods. So we think these four layers at the same time, this is something no one has seen before. Two things I don't know if you can confirm. What are you as a player? Are you another god seen all from above or you're just like an agent, like playing with all the layers and then relating to gods somehow?
Definitely you are under the gods because, you know, they can punish you."
"You won't be able to control them. Their ideas and their passion is what is the...
Well, it is what drives the main story. It's a non-linear storyline in which you will have some historical events and some non-historical and completely mythical events at the same time. So the idea is you are under the gods and you have to, you know, try to get the best out of them. But on the other hand you can control this population of yours and the armies, so you should be like some Caesar before even that started. And then getting back to the intermediate layer that you mentioned, which is combat and the more tactical thing, there's also classes to the units, right? Yeah, that is. We want to have a game which is not..."
"You don't have to get to an historical event or something like that. You have like the freedom to have, you know, different things. No need to get to Romulus and the foundation of the city or five mounts. Nothing like that. But we have some attachment to history. So you have troops carrying gladius and pilum and bows and arrows, cavalry, the legions, centurion, things that, you know, almost everyone can relate if you have seen movies. So yeah, more or less it is relatable but not completely accurate. And finally, even though it seems to me like much more ambitious and deep and complex and perhaps broader than One Military Camp, the roadmap you're following, is it similar to what you guys did with One Military Camp in terms of, you know, releasing first on PC, then considering other platforms, then perhaps adding multiplayer. What can you tell us about that at this stage? Well, this is work in progress. It is difficult to confirm anything. But yes, in some ways maybe similar. We cannot confirm if we are going to early access or direct release, which should be very different for us. Still, our studio is working on One Military Camp. We will have more content coming to the game and we want to do the same with this other game, which still has no name. But the idea is you put out out there the game and once the community started playing and they are telling you, okay, we like your game but why don't you add this and this? Okay, we are hearing them and yeah, we want the game to be as possible, to be as good as possible. And then when the systems are balanced, perhaps multiplayer as well? Yeah, that's it. Sometimes, eventually, multiplayer will come and console version will come. I cannot confirm when."
"All right, I think that's a nice piece of a teaser for this game, which we don't have a name for, but it's godly and it's divine in a way. So it looks nice. I've seen some art, it looks nice and it sounds fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. Oh no, thank you."
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