Citadel

Citadel
The Citadel structure
Type	King of the Hill variant
Frequency	Once per week
Per map	Four
Pearling	Disabled inside
Reward	Citadel ring; map victory
Peak era	2014–2018

Citadel is the most important scheduled event in Hardcore Factions. It is a fortified King of the Hill variant held once per week, four times over the course of a map, and the faction that wins the most Citadels is generally regarded as having won the map outright.

No other event carries the same weight. KOTH rewards loot and Conquest rewards points, but Citadel decides who the map belonged to. A faction can dominate every other aspect of a season and still be remembered as second place if it lost the Citadel count.

Why it matters: with only four per map and one per week, there are no second chances. A dropped Citadel cannot be made up later in the week, and by the fourth one the map's outcome is usually already decided. Every faction organises its entire schedule — gear stockpiles, roster availability, alliances — around these four fights.

Format

Citadel is a KOTH held inside a large fortified structure rather than at an open capture point. A faction wins by holding the capture zone for a continuous timer while contested by everyone else on the server. Being knocked out of the zone resets the timer, so a capture requires sustained control rather than a single push.

The structure itself is the defining feature. Where an ordinary KOTH sits in open terrain and can be approached from any direction, the Citadel has walls, fixed entrances and interior chokepoints. Fights happen in corridors and doorways instead of open field, which rewards organised teams over individually strong players.

Pearling restriction

Ender pearls cannot be thrown inside the Citadel. This is the single rule that separates it from every other event, and it changes the fight completely.

Everywhere else in HCF, pearls are an escape hatch — a losing fight is survivable because you can pearl over a wall and run. Inside the Citadel that option is gone. You enter through a door, you fight, and you leave through a door. Consequences:

• Retreat is slow and costly. Committing to the interior means committing to the fight.
• Chokepoints hold. A defended doorway cannot be bypassed by pearling past it, so a small organised team can deny a much larger one.
• Bards are exposed. Their usual escape is unavailable, so bard positioning becomes the hardest problem in the fight.
• Numbers matter less than discipline. A team that pushes a corridor together beats a larger team that trickles in.

Scoring and map victory

Four Citadels run per map, one each week. Each capture awards a Citadel ring to the winning faction's members, which functions as the format's main prestige item — a visible record of having won one.

Week	Event	Outcome
1	Citadel 1	Opening claim; sets the season's contenders
2	Citadel 2	Alliances form or break around the first result
3	Citadel 3	Usually the decisive fight
4	Citadel 4	Final standing; often near EOTW

The faction with the most captures is considered the map winner. Ties are settled by community consensus rather than any formal rule, which historically produced some of the most argued-over results in the format.

History (2014–2018)

Citadel became the format's central event during the same years HCF itself peaked — the golden era. As networks standardised their rulesets across 2014–2015, the weekly Citadel settled into the schedule and gave maps a rhythm they had previously lacked.

Its importance grew from there. By 2016–2018, Citadel results were the accepted measure of a map's outcome, and the largest turnouts of the era were Citadel fights. Rosters were assembled specifically to win them, and faction reputations were built almost entirely on Citadel records rather than raids or kill counts.

Needs: the first network to run a weekly four-per-map Citadel, notable individual Citadel fights, and turnout figures with sources.

Preparation

Citadel is scheduled, so preparation is expected and a faction that arrives unprepared loses before the fight starts.

• Full rosters. Attendance is coordinated in advance around the weekly time.
• Gear stockpiles. Losses are heavy and the deathban means anyone who dies is out for the rest of the fight.
• Class balance. Corridor fighting favours diamonds and bards over archers and rogues.
• Approach planning. Which entrance to take, and which to deny, is decided beforehand.
• Alliances. Temporary agreements to focus a shared rival are common and frequently broken mid-fight.

See also

• KOTH · Conquest · EOTW
• Bard · Diamond
• Notable factions
• History of Hardcore Factions