Citadel: Forged with Fire Server Hosting

Why Run Your Own Citadel Realm

Citadel: Forged with Fire is a sandbox RPG set on Ignus, a 36 square kilometre landmass of plains, forests, mountains, swamps and tundra. You learn spells, build castles from hundreds of pieces, tame creatures with the Pacify spell and join a House that can wage war on the others. Blue Isle sold it as a massive online game, and for years most players met on official servers.

Those official servers have thinned out. Blue Isle removed inactive ones in August 2021 and again in May 2023 to concentrate players on the busier worlds. That works for a crowd, but not for a group of friends who want a map to themselves, or a House that is fed up with waking up to a flattened keep. A dedicated server is the answer: the same game, on a world you control, that stays online when you log off.

• A world that waits for you: your castle, tames and stockpiles are still there when you come back, because the server never closes.
• Your rules: decide who can join, who is an admin and how the realm is run.
• Your own moderators: the admins are people you chose, with kick and ban powers in game.

Where Citadel Stands in 2026

Citadel left Early Access with version 1.0 on 1 November 2019. A busy year of patches followed, then the Balarok's Revenge expansion, The Spirits of Umbrus, arrived in early 2021 with a new realm reached through a teleporter in HealthClyffe and six summoning spells chosen by community vote. The last patch listed on the game's Steam news page is a small server stability hotfix on 17 March 2021.

Since then Blue Isle's posts have been about events, building contests, official server changes and, in October 2024, a lower price of US$14.99. We say this plainly because it matters when you rent a server. Citadel is a finished game: nothing in the official channels points to new content, and you should not count on it. On the other hand, a game that does not change is a very stable thing to host. A realm you set up today should behave the same next year.

Choosing Slots and RAM for a Realm

Slots are the number of players who can be online at the same moment. A House of eight that plays together every evening needs ten slots, not forty. Bigger plans are for realms that host several Houses, or a public world where people drift in from different time zones. The order form sells anything from 10 to 120 slots; this page shows the four sizes most groups choose.

Memory pressure in Citadel comes from what is loaded: castles, magical structures, tamed creatures and players spread across the map. That is why each larger plan carries more RAM. Blue Isle publishes no server figure, so treat the bundled amount as a starting point and watch the memory graph in the panel. If it sits near the top on your busiest night, move up a tier from the client area.

Admins and In-Game Commands

Admin rights in Citadel are password based. You set the admin password in game.ini, and anyone who logs in with it in game gets the admin commands. Keep it to the people who genuinely run the realm, and change it if someone leaves the House on bad terms.

Giving items and XP is powerful, so agree in advance how you use it. Plenty of private realms use it only for prizes after a building contest, or to replace gear lost to a bug, and leave normal progression alone.

The Web Remote Console

In August 2019 Blue Isle added a remote console that runs in a web browser. It lets an admin issue a ban or an announcement from a phone without being in the game. The console listens on its own web server port and asks for a username and password; Citadel ships with defaults, and you override them by adding the values to game.ini.

1. Stop the server and open game.ini in the File Manager.
2. Set your own console username and a strong password, replacing the defaults.
3. Start the server and open the console address in a browser: the server IP followed by the console port.
4. Log in and type list or help to see the commands it accepts.

Saves, Backups and Moving a World

Your realm's world and character data live in the server's save folders, which you reach through the File Manager or SFTP. We keep offsite backups for the last 7 days, restorable from the panel, so a griefed base or a bad settings change can be rolled back.

Moving in from elsewhere is a file copy. When Blue Isle closed official servers, it published the player data so people could keep playing in single player or on a private server; the same goes for a world you ran at home. Stop the server, upload the files into the matching folders, start it again and check the log. If something will not load, open a ticket and we will look at the file layout with you.

Running a Realm People Stay On

Citadel lives on its Houses. A realm stays busy when the rules are clear and the admins are fair. Write down what counts as griefing, whether raiding offline castles is allowed, and how disputes are settled, and pin it where players will see it. Then use the admin tools to enforce it, not to win.

• Run events with /settime and /giveitem: a night-time dragon hunt or a building contest with a prize.
• Schedule a daily restart in the quietest hour so long sessions start fresh.
• Back up before any big change, such as new settings or a wipe for a new season.

What to Compare Before You Rent a Citadel Server

Most Citadel offers look alike. These details decide how your realm feels after a few months.

1. RAM in the priceCheck how much memory the base price includes and what more costs. A big castle world on too little RAM is a false saving.
2. Access to game.iniYou need to edit the ini yourself for admin passwords and the remote console. Make sure you have a file manager and SFTP.
3. Locations you can testPick a data centre near most of your House and run a ping test before you buy.
4. Backups you can restoreAsk how far back offsite copies go and whether you can restore one without waiting for a ticket.
5. Honest version informationCitadel is rarely patched. A host should tell you that rather than promise new features.
6. Billing termsCompare monthly and longer cycles, and check for setup fees and minimum terms.

Citadel Server Glossary

Ignus

The world of Citadel, a 36 square kilometre landmass.

House

A player group with its own hierarchy and flag that can ally with or fight other Houses.

Pacify

The spell used to tame creatures, which then gain experience as companions.

game.ini

The server configuration file that holds settings such as the admin password and console login.

Remote console

A browser-based admin console added in August 2019.

Admin login

The /admin_login command that unlocks admin commands in game.

Spirits of Umbrus

The Balarok's Revenge expansion from early 2021, Citadel's last big content update.

Slots

How many players can be online on the server at the same time.

Steam Update

The panel button that downloads the newest server build from Steam.

Citadel Server Help and Next Steps

Useful pages for setting up and running your realm.

• Citadel: Forged with Fire on SteamThe game, its news and the official announcements.
• Dedicated server admin commandsOur knowledge base list of Citadel admin commands.
• Gaming Deluxe control panelWhat the panel does and how to log in.
• Our server locations
• Contact support24/7 help with settings, saves and the remote console.