Start to finish: 'Give me back my legions!' (1) in Citadelum

In this mission of Citadelum, you will play through the Roman expansion of Germania.

As with the previous DLC, it does require knowledge of the game. Only start this mission if you have completed - or at least played - the Rise of the Roman Empire campaign. 

Story

Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD. Roman rule over Germania had been extended for years after a fragile peace. However, the Germanic tribes were planning an uprising.

Legate Varus asks you to build a camp in which to take refuge during the winter with his legions, oblivious to the plans of the warlord Hermann.  

Objectives

• Build 2 Iron mine
• Build 4 Watchtower
• Train 20 Guard
• Defend against 6 attacks

In short

• Difficulty: Hard
• Region map: Big
• Trading routes: 8
• Initial resources:
  • 18.000 Denarii
  • 650 wood
  • 650  stone
• Enemy presence: 2 armies
• Fighting required: Yes (at least defending your own region)
• Time limit: 25 days

Walkthrough

For this walkthrough, I'm going to assume you have already played the The Rise of the Roman Empire campaign and have finished all 10 levels. This means you are familiar with the gameplay mechanics of Citadelum and know how to build your city.

Exciting stuff: it seems like developers have read my mind (or articles) and added time sensitive objectives to Citadelum! This is a great addition and we'll just have to see how it plays out.

This first campaign mission for The Lost Eagles of Germania straight off sets us on a time limit of 25 days. You only have to build 6 buildings and train 20 guards, which should be doable. More problematic is that you have to defend against 6 attacks. This means 6 attacks will have to be triggered, which is a random event. 

Once you start this mission, you start with a small settlement already set up. A reservoir, 2 Temples and a couple of houses are already waiting for you to be used. This is great, as your starting resources are very low. 

Add 4 more Plebeian houses, a Logging camp, Stone quarry, Iron mine and Warehouse if needed. Wait for Prestige Level II (2) and add 6 Patrician houses and a Tax office. Build a Cabbage and Melon farm to set up your basic city. 

8 Plebeian houses can get you to Prestige Level III (3). This will unlock the Hedge decoration, which unfortunately doesn't add a lot of decorative value more than the gardens. But hey, at least you have more choice to spruce up your city. 

To the east you'll find a small mountain with both a stone and iron deposit. Build a resource hub with a Logging camp, Stone quarry, Iron mine ✅. Don't forget to add the Warehouse, Engineers Post and Fire Station. Add a Stonecutter and Sawmill for the higher quality building materials needed very soon.

By now, you'll probably run out of Plebeian workforce. Add another 4 or 8 Plebeian houses to attract more workers and reach Prestige Level IV (4). Fire hazard seems to be high in this mission, so assign some extra workers to the Fire Stations as soon as you have them available. With the newly unlocked decoration items, increase the housing level of Patricians to level 3. This will set you up for some decent income. 

It could well be that you will fail the first time playing this level. To make it easier on yourself, save your game in a separate file around day 5 when you've set up your basic economy. 

Trading in the region

If you are in need of some extra cash - or just like to trade with other cities in the region - explore north of your city. To the north-west lies Piepenkopf, north-east is Rodenstatt. Even more north, you'll find Nammer Lager, Amelungsburg and Herlingsburg. 

• Piepenkopf
  • Buys 325 Wood for 3 Denarii
  • Sels 175 Pork Steaks for 5 Denarii
• Rodenstatt
  • Buys 255 Stone for 2 Denarii
  • Buys 400 Wheat for 2 Denarii
  • Sells 150 Swords for 8 Denarii
• Hanenburg
  • Buys 285 Eggs for 5 Denarii
  • Sells 120 Bows for 7 Denarii
  • Sells 145 Honey for 6 Denarii
• Amelungsburg
  • Buys 95 Pigs for 8 Denarii 
  • Sells 235 Onions for 2 Denarii
• Herlingsburg
  • Buys 215 Iron for 4 Denarii
  • Buys 125 Bread for 7 Denarii
  • Sells 275 Animal Hides for 6 Denarii
• Nammer Lager
  • Buys 145 Honey for 13 Denarii
  • Sells 210 Clothing for 11 Denarii

Your best trading endeavour is to buy honey at Hanenburg to the south and sell it to Nammer Lager in the north. Be careful where you explore, as Hanenburg is wedged in between the two enemy armies on this map. This will land you a neat profit of 1015 Denarii per day. 

The region map of mission 'Give me back my Legions' from the third campaign of Citadelum.

Triggering raids

Expect your first raid early in the game. Even with a raid chance as small as 10% from Prestige Level 5, raiders could show up as early as day 5 or 6. 

To defend against raids, you will need guards. To train guards, you will need to build a Guard training building and supply it with 8 Wheat, 2 Pork steaks, 1 Sword and 1 Bow per guard.

Build a Swordsmith and a Bow Workshop to fabricate the weapons. Add a Recruits' barracks and a Guard training building to be able to train the guards. 

On the food front, make sure you have excess wheat production and set up your steak production. You don't need much of that yet, unless you've been advancing your Patricians to higher housing levels. So just a single worker will do just fine for now. 

Select the Guard training building and queue 20 guards. They'll just remain in the queue until you have enough resources for a single recruit to train, so it's just a matter of waiting until all 20 guards have been trained. ✅

Once you've got a few guards, build at least 4 Watchtowers ✅ throughout your settlement. There is already a wall protecting your city, so why not use it and adorn it with some watchtowers? Build another couple of towers spread out, so that they cover all of your buildings together. 

Building watchtowers on the existing wall gives you a solid initial line of defense.

From here, it's just a matter of waiting for the raids to occur. To tempt enemies, increase your Prestige Level and discover the map. The more enemy armies you discover, the higher the raid risk.

Unfortunately, there are only 2 enemy armies to discover. They aren't too far away. You'll find the first one by going south > west > west from your city. It's to the north of Hanenburg, if you happen to find that first. 

The other army is to the south-east of Hanenburg, so south > west > south from your city.

Neither army is very large, but that's okay. You don't need to fight them, you just want the raid risk to be as high as possible. With 80% enemy raid risk (20% for Prestige Level, 60% for 2 enemy armies), you can expect a raid every 1 to 2 days. 

Defending against raids

Now, you might think just being raided is enough. It's not.

The mission statement clearly says 'Defend against 6 raids'. Just being raided isn't enough. You will need to successfully defend against the raid. This means you will need to kill every raider before they demolish a building or run away with 3000 Denarii out of your treasury. 

To give yourself the best fighting chance, be sure to invest in walls. Build a wall around any area you've built buildings in. Preferably a double wall with plenty of Watchtowers to cover the walls. Assign double guards. Don't be stingy on the walls, they don't count towards the failure of defense if they're broken down. Watchtowers however do. 

This is the main objective of this mission and the hardest one to beat. It could well be that you will fail the first time playing this level. To make it easier on yourself, save your game in a separate file around day 5 when you've set up your basic economy. If you do fail, you can restart the level at a point you were still safe and try again with better defenses. 

Once you've successfully defended against 6 attacks ✅, you are victorious and can continue to the next level. Congratulations!

Ave Caesar!

Building double walls with watchtowers will prevent enemy raids from doing any damage.