Start to finish: 'Bull skin' (7) in Citadelum

In this seventh mission of The Rise of the Roman Empire campaign, Bull Skin, you will only have to focus on city building.

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

Story

Asturica, 29 BC. With the civil war over, Octavius looks to Hispania, where the Cantabrian and Asturian tribes have rebelled. To ensure his dominion, he needs to establish camps for his legions, so Rome orders you to prepare the arrival of new troops with a camp that serves to monitor the movements of the enemies.  

Objectives

• Reach Prestige Level 8 in your city
• Upgrade 5 plebeians' houses to level 6
• Produce 250 Wooden planks
• Send 200 Furniture to Rome

In short

• Difficulty: Hard
• Region map: Big
• Trading routes: 12
• Initial resources:
  • 20.000 Denarii
  • 1400 wood
  • 1100 stone
  • 200 wooden planks
  • 200 stone bricks
• Enemy presence: 12 armies
• Fighting required: No

Walkthrough

When starting the mission Bull Skin in Citadelum, you'll immediately notice the difference in region. Where previous missions were around Egypt and the climate there isn't too fertile, we've now moved on to Spain. 

This means enough space to develop your city, no worries about where to place farms and plenty of resources to chop wood or mine stone. 

Basic city layout

On this map, it really doesn't matter where you build your forum and start your city. It's totally up to you.

We need at least 5 Plebeians' houses at level 6. That means that apart from the goods you've produced so far, we're now moving on to clothing. For now, just build a basic city layout with room for 16 houses: 8 Plebeians and 8 Patricians (to bring in the money)

For the Patricians, you don't want to upgrade higher than level 3. This unlocks the requirement for consuming pork steaks and grapes, which means extra production of those goods. And you want to be able to focus on furniture and your Plebeians. The Patricians are just there to avoid you going bankrupt. 

Build some extra Logging camps and Sawmills. You'll need them for producing the wooden planks ✅ and  furniture needed to send to Rome.  

Prestige Level 5 & 6 

To upgrade Plebeians to level 6, they will need access to a school. The range is quite large, so you should be able to just build 1 to cover all your Plebeians. Funnily enough, Patricians don't need this access. 

The furniture workshop only unlocks at Prestige Level 6. That means 120 Plebeians and 60 Patricians. 

While you're waiting to hit that target, start setting up the clothing production. You will need Flax fields and Weavers, both from the Materials production building menu. You only need a clothing production of 40 per day. This is based on 8 Plebeians' houses and a consumption of 5 clothing per day per house. 1 Flax field with 2 workers and a Weaver with 2 workers will be enough.

At Prestige Level 6, the Furniture workshop unlocks. At 4 workers, they produce 48 furniture per day. Now it depends on how many workers you have and how impatient you are. Build 2 or more Furniture workshops and start producing furniture ✅.

Prestige Level 7 & 8

Once the clothing starts to be produced and distributed to the Plebeians, your houses will slowly be upgraded to level 6. ✅ You only need 5 of them. Most likely, all of them will be upgraded though. 

At level 6, they'll desire Pork steaks and furniture. Don't bother about the steaks, you won't be in this level long enough for them to get angry about it. 

The furniture is a bit of a bugger: aside from having to produce furniture for Rome, now your own population starts digging into your stock. 

To reach Prestige Level 8, you will need 200 Plebeians and 105 Patricians. The first isn't going to be a problem. With all the upgrading you've been doing, the population limit should be crossing 200 already. 

For Patricians, that means you either have to:

1. Build more homes - this is probably the easiest option, just make sure you produce enough cabbages and melons; or
2. Upgrade existing houses - build a theatre to satisfy the level 3 requirement and open up level 4. You don't even need to train actors, but of course you can. 

Once you figured out a way to get enough Patricians, just fast forward until you have enough Plebeians living in your city. With a bit of luck, you'll manage to complete all objectives before the first God gets angry.

At 200 Plebeians, you will reach Prestige Level 8 ✅ and will complete the last remaining objectives. 

Hooray, 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 12 enemy legions on this map. Feel free to kick their butts.
• Gigia and Equosera are available to reach without fighting. They buy wood and furniture, if you want to make a quick profit.
• Behind the enemy army to the north is Bergidum Flavium, this city buys wooden planks.
• The only real challenge you'll face is to the west, below Forum Limicorum. A 180 man strong army made up of mainly infantry and cavalry is protecting Aquae Flaviae. Have fun!

Region map

This is the full region map of mission 7, Bull skin, in Citadelum.

The full region map of Bull skin, the seventh mission in the Citadelum campaign.