Roman Empire city builder Citadelum just got a lot bigger with a substantive overhaul from developer Abylight. The historical strategy game has launched its 2.0 ‘Julius’ update, a big, free upgrade packing in a wealth of new items, features, and systems. Having already earned itself a very positive reception from players since its launch in October 2024, Abylight has now delivered a tremendous package of extras to play around with as it thanks players for their “trust and commitment” so far.
The new Citadelum 2.0 update starts with a technical overhaul designed to improve game performance across many PCs, but that’s just the beginning. The list of additions to the city-building game includes new resources and production buildings – salt, olives, clay, and clay bricks have all been introduced, along with a total of eight structures to process both those and other resources such as oil and cheese. Additionally, some products such as bread have been given more involved production lines (in that example, you’ll now need both wheat and salt).
At certain prestige grades, you’ll now have the ability to spend materials to upgrade your city’s technological level, which will pay dividends with improved returns from your production buildings and increased capacity for your warehouses. If you’re after goods from elsewhere, you’ll now be able to forge diplomatic relations with other cities and earn better trading prices and troop recruitment options as your friendship builds.
To help expand your campaign, you’ll now be handed lesser missions by city councilors that must be fulfilled within a set time period. Do so and you’ll earn rewards, but fail to meet your targets and you’ll face repercussions. Upon constructing a Palace of Justice, you’ll sometimes be called in to maintain order by determining a verdict in a trial. This means choosing from two potential outcomes – do you merely fine a thief for stealing food from your soldiers, which might upset the affected troops, or order a public execution that could result in revolt from the lower classes?
Citadelum’s public health system also gets an overhaul, with a focus now placed on two factors. You’ll have to deal with the dead – whether from natural causes or more violent ones such as assassinations and revolts – by constructing morgues and ensuring bodies don’t line the streets. You’ll also need to ensure that all of your housing has coverage from the likes of maintenance buildings and medical centers in order to keep their occupants healthy and happy.
Two changes to gods and religion have been made based on community feedback. Firstly, a new building will allow you to automate religious festivals, with the ability to set priorities based on the deities you’re most keen to appease. While you’ll still be able to make sacrifices to raise faith, you’ll only have the option if your overall belief level is falling dangerously low, in order to bring the popular pig-sacrificing exploit to an end.
Beyond that comes a selection of other smaller upgrades and quality-of-life improvements. There are three new wonders to build, and you now have the ability to simulate battles automatically without the need to play them. More achievements have been added, a new construction mode filter shows you similar buildings, and you can shift-click to assign workers.
The Citadelum 2.0 update, ‘Julius,’ is out now and free to download for all players. You can look through the extended patch notes courtesy of Abylight to check all of the adjustments in detail.
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