Citadel

Lore & Background

Some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley civilisation, where citadels represented a centralised authority. Citadels in Indus Valley were almost 12 meters tall. The purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive against enemy attacks. Rather, they may have been built to divert flood waters. Several settlements in Anatolia, including the Assyrian cities of Kaneš in modern-day Kültepe, featured citadels. Kaneš' citadel contained the city's palace, temples, and official buildings. The citadel of the Greek city of Mycenae was built atop a highly-defensible rectangular hill and was later surrounded by walls in order to increase its defensive capabilities. In Ancient Greece, an acropolis, which literally means 'high city', placed on a commanding eminence, was important in the life of the people, serving as a lookout, a refuge, and a stronghold in peril, as well as containing military and food supplies, a shrine or temple, and a royal palace. The most well known is the Acropolis of Athens, but nearly every Greek city-state had one – the Acrocorinth is famed as a particularly strong fortress. In a much later period, when Greece was ruled by the Latin Empire, the same strong points were used by the new feudal rulers for much the same purpose. In the first millennium BC, the Castro culture emerged in northwestern Portugal and Spain in the region extending from the Douro river up to the Minho, but soon expanding north along the coast, and east following the river valleys. It was an autochthonous evolution of Atlantic Bronze Age communities. In 2008, the origins of the Celts were attributed to this period by John T. Koch and supported by Barry Cunliffe. The Ave River Valley in Portugal was the core region of this culture, with a large number of small settlements (the castros), but also settlements known as citadels or oppida by the Roman conquerors. These had several rings of walls and the Roman conquest of the citadels of Abobriga, Lambriaca and Cinania around 138 BC was possible only by prolonged siege. Ruins of notable citadels still exist, and are known by archaeologists as Citânia de Briteiros, Citânia de Sanfins, Cividade de Terroso and Cividade de Bagunte.

Reader's Guide

Citadel is built around a central fortified structure with multiple elevation tiers, surrounded by open ground and a few secondary outcroppings. The core tactical loop is vertical: the lower courtyard is a killbox for anyone who lingers, the mid-level corridors offer flanking routes and cover, and the upper terraces plus the central spire provide the dominant sightlines. Holding the top is powerful but exposes you to jetpack rushes from below and from the flanking ramps.

The open ground surrounding the structure is deceptively dangerous. It looks like free movement, but it's a long, flat corridor with no cover—any player crossing it is a sitting target for someone on the mid-levels. The smart play is to use the structure's own geometry: hug the walls, use the archways as cover, and time your jetpack bursts to pop over corners rather than flying in open arcs.

Teams that treat the Citadel as a single point and funnel into the main entrance get punished. The secondary ramps and side corridors let a small squad rotate to the rear or the flanks while the main push draws fire. Community players tend to call the courtyard "the oven" and the central spire "the throne," and the common meme is that anyone who holds the throne for more than ten seconds is either a ghost or on a different server.

Jetpack fuel management matters more here than on open-terrain maps because the vertical transitions are frequent and short. You'll burn fuel constantly moving between tiers, so a player who conserves and times their bursts will outlast one who spams thrusters up and down the structure.

Did You Know?

• The Tribes franchise is built around jetpacks as a core movement mechanic, making every map—Citadel included—a three-dimensional space where vertical positioning is as important as horizontal.
• The series transitioned from Dynamix's original 1998 title through Volition's subsequent entries, each iteration expanding the map roster and refining team-based combat.
• Tribes: Ascension (2012) shifted the franchise to a free-to-play model, broadening the player base and keeping the community active well beyond the original retail releases.
• Maps in the Tribes series are designed so that jetpack traversal creates constant vertical negotiation—there is no 'safe' altitude, and the player who controls transitions between levels controls the round.