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 form of individual: 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, total, a fairly customary city-builder — you collect assets, place buildings and roads, and discover the map — however with the Historical Roman twist, every little thing takes on a barely extra beatific and sinister air.

In Citadelum, as a substitute of inserting a fort 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 often differentiated by dimension, in Citadelum, you construct Plebeian (commoner) and Patrician (aristocratic) housing relying on whether or not you want employees or to gather taxes. You get the purpose.

To unlock new buildings, you want to stage up your metropolis by attracting a sure variety of Plebeians and Patricians — and also you want them each to maintain your metropolis operating. To make the Plebeians blissful, guarantee they’ve jobs. To make the Patricians blissful, guarantee they’ve loads of leisure to refill their days. For those who don’t hold 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’ll be able to select from various leisure and leisure actions. You possibly can construct baths and wineries — or you’ll be able to 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, nonetheless. In true Historical Roman vogue, you’ll be able to construct temples to the gods — Minerva, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, Apollo, and Ceres. As soon as their place of worship has been constructed, you want to elevate the religion stage in that god by both throwing a pageant of their honor or making a sacrifice. Within the latter case, you’ll be able to select an animal or resolve to sacrifice any variety of your Plebeians and Patricians. Doing so can please the god and bestow a blessing in your metropolis.

For those who resolve to look outdoors of your metropolis, you’ll be able to discover the map and set up commerce routes with different Roman cities that you just discover. This can be a solution to collect luxurious supplies corresponding to marble and silk — then you’ll be able to select to ship these assets to Rome (the ultimate aim in most of the missions).

There’s nonetheless a lot left to discover in Citadelum — I’ve barely made a dent within the total content material obtainable — however thus far it’s a enjoyable tackle the style for historical past buffs and followers of Historical Rome alike. The one query that is still is whether or not you’ll cater solely to the Patricians, or be an Emperor for the folks.

Citadelum was launched Oct. 17 on PC. The sport was reviewed on PC utilizing a obtain code supplied by Abylight Studios. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. Yow will discover further details about gamerlifemedia’s ethics coverage right here.