To create content for Citadelum you will have to use different editors that will allow you to create all the elements that make up a Mission. In the following diagram you can see all the types of items and the relationship between them:

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As you can see, some of the content depends on other content in order to be created. For example, in order to create a Battle you will need to have previously created a Battlefield.

Another example is the creation of a Mission, for which you will need to have previously created a Map and a Region Map.

All this will be better understood with the following explanations of the different content creation tools you will find in the Citadelum editor.

With this editor you can create the map where the player will build his city.

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With the buttons at the top left, you can create new files, save the current map you are editing or load a map you have previously created.

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It is always advisable to make sure you’ve saved your changes using the save button, before returning to the main menu using the arrow button on the left. Otherwise, the last unsaved changes will be lost.

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To begin with the creation of the map, the first step will be choosing a biome by selecting it from one of the three Biome buttons on the right. You must save your file first in order to be able to change the biome. By default, the Italy biome will be selected.

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After choosing the biome, it‘s time to create the terrain. The map is made up of chunks arranged on a grid. To start painting these chunks, click on the Add or Remove Chunks buttons:

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With the Add Chunks tool active, the list of available chunks will be displayed on the right:

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Once you have selected the type of terrain you want to place, move the mouse to the map grid and place the chunks on the grid tiles.

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Remember that as in the game, you can rotate the pieces by pressing the ‘R’ key before placing them.

To place them, just left-click on the tile of your choice on the grid.

When you are painting the terrain, you should keep in mind that the player will not be able to build outside the playable area of the map. You will be able to see the playable area of the map if you deactivate the add/remove chunks tool. It is represented by an area defined by a dotted line:

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Chunks that fall outside that dotted line will not be enabled for building during a game.

Although you can build freely, there are a few key points that you will need to take into account in order to make a functional map.

While you can supply water to buildings using Wells in the game, it is advisable to build a body of water in the buildable area of the map, so that the player can draw water from it with Aqueducts. You can make rivers, lakes, coasts and anything else you can think of with the different pieces of terrain, but make sure that everything connects well when placing them.

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Regarding terrain types, if you take a look at the list of chunks you’ll be able to see that some of them are green, brown or a mix of both. The green represents fertile land, suitable for the player to build crops, and the brown will be barren, not suitable for building crops. Bear in mind that the player will need at least some fertile area in order to generate food, so it’s advisable to place some, even if you make a map in the Africa biome. Unless you want to make it a challenge!

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Another aspect to take into account with the terrain types are mountains and elevations. The player will not be able to build on mountains, but they will be able to build on the flat part of the plateaus:

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Another important element to consider during the settlement map creation is enemy attacks.
With these two buttons marked in the image below, you can add or remove points on the edges of the map where the enemy will spawn to attack you:

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To define enemy entry points on your map you must mark in blue at least one of the boxes shown on the perimeter using this tool.
In addition, for the enemy attack system to work properly, the land must connect to the edge of the map at least at one point. As you can see in the following image, there are no enemy entry points at the boundaries where there is water.

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Let’s not forget one of the most vital elements: the resources. With the tools shown in the image below, you can place the resource extraction points: trees, stone ores and iron ores.

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It is important that the resources are placed within the buildable area limited by the dotted line, and that there are enough of them for the normal development of a game.

Once you have a functional map, it’s time to decorate it to improve its appearance. It is important to note that the more detail you add to the map, the more it will affect the performance of the game, so it is recommended to add some details to break the pattern of grass in the environment but don’t go overboard so that it won’t a problem for players on less powerful machines.

To decorate your map, you can use the Detail Painting tool, which has a variety of plants, flowers and other details. The player will be able to build on top of these elements.

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You will also have at your disposal the tool for painting blocking rocks, which can be placed freely. The player will not be able to build on top of them:

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https://youtu.be/8VeTHuMdmwk

In this editor you can create a Battlefield that will later be used in Battles. Here you only define the terrain, not the placement of troops.

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This editor works with a grid and painting system very similar to the one seen in the Map Editor.

As with all editors, note that you will be able to save and load your creations, as well as create from scratch by deleting what you have not previously saved. Also, remember that you will lose any unsaved changes if you go back to the main menu with the left arrow button without saving first.

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To begin the creation of the Battlefield, we advise you to choose the biome using the three buttons on the right. You must save your file first in order to be able to change the biome. By default, the Italy biome will be selected.

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As you can see, in the center of the map there are two areas marked with a box. The one marked Player Zone is where the player will place his troops when playing the game, and the other is where you’ll place the enemy troops, using the battle editor.

Always keep this in mind when creating your battlefield, as depending on how you build it, there may be blocking situations such as land areas isolated by water or heavily wooded areas that allow very little space to place troops.

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With the biome chosen, it's time to create the battlefield terrain. Our map will be made up of chunks arranged on a grid. To start painting these chunks, click on the add chunks buttons and the list of available chunks will be displayed:

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Once you have selected the type of terrain you want to place, move the mouse to the map grid and place the chunks on the grid tiles.

Remember that you can rotate the pieces by pressing the ‘R’ key.

Among the types of terrain there are bodies of water and mountains. These pieces don’t allow the placement of troops.

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In addition to the limited space to deploy troops, you can decorate the rest of the battlefield with trees, but you will not be able to place troops on tree areas.

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As the last step, you can decorate the map with decorative elements. To do this, you can use the buttons marked in the image below:

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These decorative elements will allow you to place troops on them, so you can decorate player and enemy areas without fear of affecting battle formations.
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https://youtu.be/EZ_stBxxK4E

This editor will allow you to create battles that then can be placed on the territories of the Region Maps. It requires a Battlefield, you can use one previously created by you or one of the Battlefields already included in the game.

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As with all editors, note that you will be able to save and load your creations, as well as create them from scratch by deleting what you have not previously saved. Also, remember that you will lose any unsaved changes if you go back to the main menu with the left arrow button.

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The first step is to choose a Battlefield. By clicking the ‘Load’ button in the image below, you will see the list of Battlefields you have previously created and the ones already included in the game. If you want to change the loaded battlefield to another one, click on the red X button.

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Having chosen the battlefield, the next step is to choose which type of enemy you will face in this battle. When you make a change of enemy, you will have to save and load the battlefield in order to apply the changes in the editor.

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The only thing left is to determine the number and types of enemies for this battle. To do this, select the troop class you want to place and then go to the ‘Enemy Zone’ and click, drag and drop to determine the shape and number of soldiers you want to place. If you want to remove a formation, use the remove troops tool.

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As with all editors, note that you will be able to save and load your creations, as well as create from scratch by deleting what you have not previously saved. Also, remember that you will lose any unsaved changes if you go back to the main menu with the left arrow button.

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To begin the creation of the map, the first step is to choose the biome by selecting it from one of the three buttons on the right. It is important to do this first, because changing the biome will erase all the terrain you have placed.

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If we start a map from scratch, the default grid will be full of water chunks. If we want to start creating our terrain, we will use the Add/Remove chunks tools. The different types of terrain will appear on the right. Once you have selected the type of terrain you want to place, move the mouse to the map grid and place the chunks on the grid tiles.

Remember that it is possible to rotate the chunks using the ‘R’ key.

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Once the terrain has been created, you can begin to create the territories that will make up the map. To do this you must know that the territories are made up of a series of points that must then be joined together to determine the area of the territory.

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Once you have defined the points that will make up a territory, choose the territory creation tool selected in the following image and then click in order on all the points that make up the territory to create it.

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Keep in mind that the order in which you select the points when you are creating a territory will be important, so do it taking into account how their border will be.

When placing points, keep in mind that two territories can share points. It is best if two territories that are going to be next to each other share the border points between them.

Once you have created the territories, you will need to connect them. You can do this using the routing tools, which are marked in the image below. To connect two territories, you will have to start from the crossroad of one territory and make at least one intermediate point between it and the crossroad of the other territory, as shown in the image below:

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It is not necessary to make many intermediate points to create a well-defined route, as the system will then take care of smoothing them with curves, so it is advisable to simplify a route and reduce its number of points. If you want to simplify an already existing route, you can use the route optimisation tool:

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Now comes the interesting part: defining the content of each territory.
To do this, you will need to activate the magnifying glass tool. Once activated, clicking on a territory will open a menu on the right with all the necessary information to provide the territory with all the data that make up its behavior.

Below, we explain the different elements that can be defined in the metadata of a territory:

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1. Initial territory information. You can determine if the default territory is already discovered at the beginning of the game, if it will have a relic or if it will have a scout present at the beginning of the game if we want to make things easier for the player.
   IMPORTANT: Each map must have at least one territory discovered by default to work properly and it must be the territory in which the player's city is located.
   
   
2. We will also be able to assign a battle to it that will appear once the player explores the territory. These battles will have to have been previously created using the battle editor.
   
   
3. Once we select each of the points of interest, clicking on the map will determine their position in the territory. It is necessary that all these points are within the territory to which they belong.
   
   The position of the crossroad will be the center of the territory and from where all roads will start. The legion's resting point defines the point in the territory where the enemy and player armies will appear. The same goes for the scout position, so if you want to make it look good, try not to place these points on decorative elements such as mountains or trees as the units will go through them.
   
   Finally, the ‘military camp’ will be unique to the territory in which the player's city is placed and its location needs to be determined in order for the map to function correctly.
   
   
4. This is a button which will allow you to link the current territory with another (empty) territory. By doing this, if the player discovers this territory he will also reveal all the territories linked with this tool. This is used to generate maps with an interesting visual appearance so that if we clear a territory, the surrounding decorative territories can also lose their fog of war.
   
   
5. Finally, with this button we will determine if the territory will have a city or not. Everything related to editing the cities is explained below.

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https://youtu.be/xZ_mlvnGVIs

To better understand the tool to link the discovery of territories, we should know that we can create empty territories around the boundaries of the map, for example, as in the image below. These territories will be foggy by default.

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The fun thing about this is that it will allow you to remove their fog too when the player discovers a specific territory.

This is just for aesthetic purposes. For this, we will have to select the territory that, when discovered, will clear the fog in one of the territories we have created in the periphery of the map.

Once selected, we will press the button ‘Link discovery to other territory’ and with this button selected, we will click on the territory to which we want to link the discovery.

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In addition, you can also create fog of war manually using the fog decorator. You have 3 different sizes at your disposal and they are the elements marked in the image below.

It is advisable to decorate with fog ouside the defined territories, as the game will not automatically generate fog there.

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Let's talk about when a territory has a city. If we edit a territory to have a city, then we will see a series of options to configure it, which are listed in the following image:

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1. In this section we can name the city. At least the English field will have to be filled in, but you have several options to localize it, which is recommended. You can also put the name in Latin and it will fit better with the different language localisations.
   
   
2. If we select this option, we will make this the player's starting city! IMPORTANT! To be functional, every region map must have at least one player city and not more than one either. We also recommend that at least this territory is initially explored by default.
   
   
3. In this section you can modify the appearance of the city and the rotation. Don’t forget to apply the changes.
   
   
4. Finally, we have the trade section. Here you can determine which resources the city will buy and sell. In addition to each of them, we will tell the daily amount that will sell and the unit price. Fill in these fields carefully and do not leave them at 0 if you want the player to interact with these elements in an interesting way in the game. This field does not need to be filled in for the player's city.

Once we have our map with everything we need, we can improve its appearance with the tool to add or remove decorative elements. We will do this using the tools selected in the image below.

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Remember once again that you can use the ‘R’ key to rotate the decorative elements and insert them as needed to decorate the map.

And with all this, you have everything you need to create the maps that come out of your imagination. Remember to save from time to time so as not to lose progress.
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https://youtu.be/xZ_mlvnGVIs

Next, we will explain how to create new missions for Citadelum.

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As with all editors, keep in mind that you can either save and load, or create a new one from scratch by deleting what you have not saved from the current one. Also, remember that you will lose any unsaved changes if you go back to the main menu with the left arrow button.

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The mission needs to have a map associated with it. You can select one of the maps you have created previously using the load button in the marked area of the following image:

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It will also need a Region Map, which we can also choose using the load region map button:

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Once you have chosen these two maps, you must define the mission parameters. First of all, we will set the amount of money available for the player at the beginning of the mission. And then, we can decide the amount of resources that player will have at the beginning of the mission. Keep in mind that there’s a total resource limit of 5000.

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Next, we can choose the starting level of favor for all the gods. We recommend that they all start in a neutral position, but you can create interesting situations by modifying these values.

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Next, we can set the objectives of the mission. To the right of this area, we will see a button with a green plus sign to add a new objective and a button with a red X below it to delete the objective we have selected at that moment. We can also change the order of the list of objectives using the arrows once we have one selected.

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Adding a new objective will open the window shown in the following image. First, we will have to choose what kind of objective we want to add and, depending on the type of objective, it will show us some values that we will have to fill in. The maximum number of objectives that can be added to a mission is four.

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In this section, we can set the difficulty of the mission. It will indicate the player how big the challenge he will face will be.
This is just informative and it is totally up to the designer to evaluate the difficulty of the content and set it correctly so that the players know what kind of challenge they are going to face.

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In the map window we can determine the location of the mission. This is just flavor, it won't affect the gameplay, but it helps to give coherence to the story of the different mission campaigns that we generate.

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Finally, in order to finish the creation of the mission, we will have to write the Location, the Title and a Description. At least the English language fields must be filled in.

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https://youtu.be/09z3e04ZI5U

With the Content Uploader tool, we can make everything we have created, be it missions or saved games we are proud of, accessible to other players.

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Once inside the tool, there are two buttons. On the one hand, the one for missions, and on the other, the one for saved games. To determine what you want to upload, simply select the items from the list below the filter buttons.

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Once you have selected what to upload, you must give it a title and a description. By default, at least this should be done for the English language section, but it is advisable to enter a localisation for as many languages as you can.

Additionally, you can add tags that will help players to understand what they will find in your content. For example, you can tag it as ‘Relaxed’ if you have designed a more casual experience or ‘Challenging’ if you want the players to test their abilities with a true challenge. We recommend to add tags, as they will make your content easier to find.

Once we have everything ready, we simply click on the ‘Upload Item’ button.

The first time this is done, you will be asked to sign the Steam Workshop End User License Agreement.

Finally, please note that it can sometimes take a few minutes for items to appear in the Steam Workshop.

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Lastly, if you want to have control of what content you have uploaded, on the right of the window you will see the list of items that are in the workshop, and you can see their status, including the votes you receive from other people. You can also manage them by deleting them, for example if you no longer want them to be available to the public.

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https://youtu.be/SBzpJcGUv_c


But what if you have fixed a bug in your maps and you want to update your item?
In that case you will have to select the item you have published from the list:

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You will see that the upload content button has changed to “Update existing”:

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The steps are now simple:

• Select the mission or saved game with which you want to update the item you had uploaded.
  
• Review the title, description and tags
  
• Press the upload button.

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Always try to test your items before publishing them.

Below are a number of best practices that we recommend when generating content for Citadelum:

Map:

• You can start creating content by loading one of the included starter pack maps. Just load the map and then save it with another name to modify its contents.
  
• Remember to add spawn points if you want to allow enemy raids.
  
• Decorate your maps with small details to break up the visual pattern of the environment and use some large stones as blocking elements to make the building area more intricate.
  
• Use plateaus and terrain elevations to make maps more interesting.
  
• Add water, trees, stone and iron to make your map rich in natural resources from which to extract the raw materials that will help the players build their settlement.

Region map:

• You can start creating region maps by loading one of the included starter pack maps. Just load the map and then save it with another name to modify its contents.
  
• It is recommended that you create different towns that you will need to name. We recommend using Latin names to make them work well in all languages.
  
• The resources that different towns buy and sell can be paired in interesting ways so that towns sell and buy at different prices, allowing the player to trade and profit from the trade.
  
• If you want the player to be able to please the gods you will need to introduce relics into some territories.
  
• The size of the territories should be enough to be readable and interesting in gameplay. You can open the official files to get a sense of scale.
  
• You can add battles but this is not mandatory. There are players who like a more peaceful experience so we encourage you to design the type of content that you would like to play. We are sure there are more people with the same tastes as you who are willing to play it.
  
• Remember to decorate your region maps to make them appealing to players.

Battlefields:

• Some Battlefield starter pack maps are also included, so remember that you can always start creating your map by modifying a previous map.
  
• Creating intricate terrain is tempting, but after testing many games it is more interesting to have a fairly uncluttered combat terrain so that troops can spread out and fight more freely.
  
• Remember to decorate your maps with details to make them attractive to players.

Battles:

• Battles with more than 150 enemies are not recommended, as the player will be able to assemble an army of 200 soldiers at most, and it is advisable to give them the option of being able to win even if it is by brute force by outnumbering the enemy.

Missions:

• It is recommended to set objectives that require interaction with different parts of the game: Resources, Map Exploration, Battles to generate more varied content, however some creators prefer to generate a map with a very specific challenge that focuses the experience in a specific area of the game.
  
• We have experienced among our community that the optimal length of a mission is between 1 and 2 hours, so think about how long it will take to complete the objectives when designing your mission.

Uploading new content:

• It is good to give a descriptive title to the content and explain what experience the player is going to experience through the description of the package.
  
• If you can translate the title and description in more languages, you will be able to reach more people.
  
• Before uploading a content pack it’s a good idea to give it a first try yourself from the ‘New Game’ menu.