Start to finish: 'Holding a wolf by its ears' (6) in Citadelum

In this sixth mission of The Rise of the Roman Empire campaign, you will mainly be building up your city and discovering part of the map.

You can play this mission very aggressively if you want. Plenty of enemy legions to defeat to test out your battle tactics.

Story

Alexandria, 30 BC. Octavius' military force has penetrated into the suburbs of Alexandria. At dawn on the first of August, Marcus Antonius marched his army to the outskirts of the city and placed it on high ground, but was defeated and took refuge back in the city. You have been assigned the mission of founding a settlement around Alexandria to supply Octavius' troops and help them complete the siege.  

Objectives

• Upgrade 5 plebeians' houses to level 4
• Sell 500 Fish through trade routes
• Send 25000 Denarii to Rome
• Discover 4 relics

In short

• Difficulty: Normal
• Region map: Big
• Trading routes: 15
• Initial resources:
  • 20.000 Denarii
  • 1400 wood
  • 1100 stone
  • 200 wooden planks
  • 200 stone bricks
• Enemy presence: 11 armies
• Fighting required: No

Walkthrough

When starting the mission Holding a wolf by its ears in Citadelum, you will be pleased to see a large fertile area in the west side. The whole east might be a desert, but that doesn't bother us any more.

It does have a lot of raised plateaus, which means there is not really a large space in the eastern half of the map to build a large city. 

Basic city layout

Maybe the best bet is in the north-west, where there's a deserty outcropping in the fertile area. Or somewhere else. Once you found the right spot for you and built the forum, start with building a basic city layout.

Starting position for the forum in the map Holding a wolf by its ears in Citadelum.

We need at least 5 Plebeians' houses at level 4. That is nothing too worry about. As we've seen in previous missions, 8 houses per citizen tier is plenty. More Patricians are always welcome, they bring in a lot of money.

As with previous levels, just build up the city. Add Patricians, make sure they have food. Continue collecting basic resources like stone, wood, iron, wooden planks and stone bricks and work your way through to Prestige Levels 2, 3 and 4. 

Build an extra Fishing dock. Normally you don't have to produce a lot of fish to keep fishmongers busy. But now, you need to trade away 500 pieces of fish. You will need the overproduction. 

Prestige Level 5 & 6 and up

With just the Plebeians' houses at level 4 ✅ you will have enough room for your population to grow to take your city to Prestige Level 5.

With this increase in prestige, there is also an increase in your city being the target of an enemy raid. You now have 2 choices:

1. You don't care about the raids. Suffer through the raids, rebuild razed buildings and go on with your life; or
2. Build a Swordsmith and Bow workshop, a Recruits' barracks and Guard training building. Assign them to strategically placed Watchtowers and start protecting your city.

Regardless of what you choose, keep up with the demands of your citizens. Just make sure you have enough income to get those 25.000 Denarii. ✅

Discover 4 relics and a fish trader without meeting an enemy

Now, the only objective left is to discover 4 relics and a city that will buy fish. With just the 1 explorer, you need to be  extra careful.

The good thing is: you won't even have to run into enemy armies, which will keep the chance of being raided very small.

If you intend to play on after you completed all 4 objectives, I suggest you protect your city with guards before you start exploring the map. You can discover 4 relics and a city to trade fish with without running into enemy armies. But there are plenty of legions on the map, and you can easily find them if you misclick.

To start, follow the blue line and go west, south-west, south and finally east. You will find the city of Psenemphaia, which buys 250 fish per day at 3 Denarii per unit. Aside from making the objective, it will also give you some extra income. Set up the trade route ✅ while you start exploring the rest of the map. 

The discovered region west of your city. Following the blue, orange, purple and green lines in order will bring you victory.

Want to know how to discover 4 relics in Amid arms without running into an enemy army? On the region map, follow these steps to discover the cities:

1. From Psenemphaia, go east to find the first relic.
2. Continue along the orange path, going north, and then three times west to discover Psenamosis. Once you do, go south to discover the second relic.
3. Follow the purple curve by going north (back to Psenamosis), then west, west.
4. Lastly, travel along the green path by going back east 1 step, then north to discover your final relic. 

4 relics found, not a single enemy spotted. Well done! ✅

And once again, victory is yours!

Continue after finishing the objectives

This choice is yours. If you want to expand your empire, here are some pointers:

• There are 11 enemy legions on this map. They are stationed all across the world, so plenty of fights to pick.
• Schedia and Andropolis will both sell armour. Taposiris Mikra and Papremis will buy it, but neither of them will really bring in any money. Best not to bother.  
• At the far ends of the map are Taposiris Megale, selling honey, and Bolbitine, buying honey. The profit is 1400 Denarii per day. But seeing as you will only discover these after defeating several armies, which means you probably have enough Patricians to live comfortably... you won't really need it any more.
• Deep down in the south-east lies Sebennytos, selling Ivory. You can sell this closer to home to Schedia for a hefty profit of 2200 Denarii per day. 
• Schedia also buys silk, which is sold by Naukratis. It'll be profitable at 1280 Denarii per day. 

Region map

This is the full region map of mission 6, Holding a wolf by its ears, in Citadelum. It had to be turned slightly, otherwise it wouldn't fit on the screen. 

The full region map of Holding a wolf by its ears, the sixth mission in the Citadelum campaign.