Dev Blog

The Dwarf Warriors are one of the first two units you can summon. There will always be some present when you begin the level.

The Basics.

Dwarf Warriors are brave dwarves equipped with mythril-like plate armor. This means that they are very resistant 8)

Use your Dwarf Warriors to stop the enemy before they reach your TumbleStone (the hotspot of the game).

Each has 200 health points and thanks to their armor the effects of all kinds of damage are reduced. Each warrior costs 2 mana points and 10 seconds, which, in this game, is not expensive.

They can't attack flying enemies but they provoke them anyway. Don't let the Drakes (the flying enemies) attack your Dwarf Warriors because they not be able to withstand such an attack for long.

The tricky points.

One DW can hold off a goblin attack but not for long. Using as many DWs as you can against goblin attacks is very important.

However, don't put too many DWs on an Ork stream because they will dig all the Ork zone damages (the Ork will still manage at least one hit in most cases). Such a strategy would lead to carnage 8)

Instead, put 2 DWs on Orks and put some in reserve.

Beware of holding off an enemy attack with a substantially weakened Dwarf army: one Ork or Drake zone attack could completely annihilate you DWs and what you thought was a solid wall could quickly become a considerable breach in you defense.

Finally, bear in mind that you have to control everything, Citadel Wars is a strategy game.

In the next article, we will meet the Crossbowman, the second of the first units of Citadel Wars. With it, we will see how you can wreak CARNAGE!

Today, I will talk about the TumbleStones, one of the main thing in the game.

The Basics.

The TumbleStones are huge magic gems. They are the heart of the Citadels, the hotspots of the game. Your mission is to protect them: if they are destroyed, you loose the game.

The magic stone allows you to summon armies. It costs you both mana and time.

In Normal Mode, the TumbleStone has 800 health points.

In Expert Mode, the TumbleStone has only 400 health points.

The goblins are the only enemies that will explicitly target focus your TumbleStones and they have a big search radius. Therefore you should aim to stop the surge of goblins as soon as possible.

The tricky points.

When I designed this version of the game, one of my main concerns was to avoid camping around the TumbleStone with a sort of bio-ball of allies. This is because I think a good strategy game should feature multiple battlefronts.

In Normal Mode, if you are camping, your only chance of surviving the goblins' repeated assaults is if you are incredibly fast. This however is not possible in Expert Mode (or at least this would be an admirable achievement).

In Expert Mode, you must contain the waves of enemies at a gerater distance from the TumbleStone. The radius of the battlefield is much larger and the game possibilities become greater.

In conclusion, the TumbleStone is more vulnerable in Expert Mode. Don't "tank" with it 8). Take charge of all the fronts.

In the next post, I will talk about the Dwarf Warriors, one of the first two units you can summon. We will see that they can be used to drain enemy hordes by "tanking" them...

Hello. My name is Fred Brach. I am the Lead Programmer, Lead Artist and Community Manager of the indie developer FireWhirl Entertainment.

The game, Citadel Wars is produced by a 6-man team and run on our in-house game engine. It is an epic strategy FPS (First person shooter) in its first phase of development. The game is already on sale for $9.90 (50% off). Note that buying the game gives you access to all future updates for free.

Citadel Wars’ innovation is its engine. Having decided to launch a video game, I was very aware that even 20 years after the emergence of the 3D game, the environment was still not completely interactive and static. The surroundings are simply pretty façades. We are proud to be taking part in a new era : that of 3.5D. Citadel Wars is made up not just of images, but of objects with substance, that are completely destructible and interactive. The gameplay possibilities are far greater than in classic 3D games. You can try out the destructive capabilities in our free demo available on the site.

Our vision : breathtaking, immense Citadel assaults and wars: the storming and great battles of the Citadel which leave it completely destroyed/obliterated. This is the future…

When I first thought about creating Citadel Wars, I envisaged a multiplayer FPS  based on earning XP and acquiring new skills. Since then, developments in this type of game have been vast. And so I was attracted to the idea of a strategy game.

But is FPS suitable with strategy too? We were faced with a challenge : no game up until now had succeeded in merging the two. Driven by enthusiasm and after many sleepless nights, I discovered the four basic keys to game strategy : finite data, balancing, management and parallelization.

1. Finite data is the lesser known aspect of the strategy game.  It means that you, the player, have complete control over everything.  Winning or losing does not depend on the roll of a die, nor something else out of your control, but simply your skills of calculation.
    
2. Game balance is the most exciting part. The key of balancing is that you can only balance things you can quantifiably compare. 
   If you like this feature, please message The Team on the Citadel Wars forums.
    
3. The backbone of the FPS is management. This part is the trickiest one as expected. We are not concerned with micro-management, which will leave to RTS. So no "hit and runs", no need for precise placement according to differences in range etc. For us, only macro management is more important.
   You can summon your units through the TumbleStone. Once they are constructed, you can use these units like any classical FPS weapon : you can invoke them by pressing the corresponding keyboard keys. Once they are invoked, you can move them if necessary.
    
4. Finally, parallelization. Pretty easy. But it is important. Basically, if you can do only one thing, you do not have to make strategic choices.

The Citadel Wars Team