You know best what you like and have experienced, - but let me try to give some pointers on how to give this game another chance, as it has gone from ‘fascinating’ to ‘very good and well-designed’ in my book.
I’m on my first successful run (currently investigating behind the Peacock door), so I haven’t completed a game yet, and can’t talk about replayability, and there may be random stuff later that I don’t yet know.
However, I have played about 5 games that went well before ‘random chance screwed me over’ making me rage quit
, and the I reached the enlightenment:
As in real life, if you allow random chance to screw you, then you have mostly failed already. So don’t ever be in such situation.
Some years back somebody here wrote, that Dwarf Fortress is a disaster prevention game, because one loyalty cascade, FB, zombie invasion can destroy everything, - and this Cultist Simulator is kind of the same.
So, as soon as any of the fail conditions reaches level 1, then
it’s full stop and crisis mode until it has been dealt with! Is that always fun? No, but it’s called ‘Cultist Simulator’, - not Cultist Manager or Cultistopia, and as a simulation it makes sense that you have to keep a low profile on certain activities from time to time.
You don’t get mystic or notoriety by doing your mundane daily work, so if you ever have to attack a hunter, then it would have been much safer to simply avoid any mystic generating activities until the evidence has decayed. Is that fun? Not much, but it’s fair for a simulation, and you can still read, research and dream, anything that doesn’t involve the public.
I will try to give some low-spoiler guidance on how to control the fail counters: (Excuse me if they have already been talked about in the spoilers, as I haven’t read those.)
The hunter:
Yes, I consider this just as much a fail counter as the others, and not really something to interact with. My best advice if it reaches tentative evidence is to stay low for the 600 seconds. It is therefore a priority to stop generating suspicion whenever there is as much as one notoriety.
About using cultists:
Yes, one type can get rid of evidence, but another can get rid of mystic and notoriety, - apparently 100% safe? I.e. I don’t see any negative effects from failing
Health:
I doubt this will ever kill you after the first 15 minutes of play, and if it does before that, then just start a new run.
The only random health taking event I have seen is the disease, and you should either have plenty of money or arms of iron (-> ensured vitality).
Despair:
Exploring with passion often gives the ‘walk in starlight streets’, which in turn often gives Contentment. It may also give fascination which can be a problem(*), but it never gives more despair.
Normal sleep seems to give more contentment than despair, but sleep with two despair is a risk.
The safest way of getting contentment seems to be painting harmless pictures (so also for that reason make it an early priority to get a wild imagination at least). This will generate mystic, but mystic is never on its own a danger, - just annoying if it draws out an investigation.
Fascination:
Wait for the hook -> relentless -> despair, but that method seems to vanish at higher levels(?).
Going behind the doors can result in an aspect inspiration, and winter (and knife?) will eventually decay to despair. Yes, latern (and ?) will decay to fascination, so only take the second choice if you are at the first count(*).
I’ve not found a reliable pattern in getting nightmares, so I avoid other dreams while having a fascination crisis.
Money: Not on its own a fail condition, and I haven’t found any strong tricks in generating risk-free income (beside being the doctor). To me is seems like the doctor is ‘easy/normal’ mode, so that is what I’m currently playing. It may be interesting to be forced to balance risk/reward on the money track with another class, but it could also be very frustrating to be forced to inactivity simply while slowly earning money.
None of these methods are instant, so that is why I claim that a fail counter on 1 is a full stop crisis, however:
(*) Getting rid of cards in general:
Notice that fascination and despair have aspects, - that means they can be used as ‘supplement’ when advancing or recruiting members to your cult even if their aspect doesn’t help the ritual at all. So keep ‘hanger ons’, so you can make a initiation ritual to pawn to burn the bad card, - as the card is consumed immediately, then it can’t get pulled by a magnet. This, of cause, requires the ‘mouth’ action to be available with sub-second notice, so don’t use it for other stuff if a crisis is getting bad.
Of cause, - notice that ‘bad’ cards can be a boon if they match your cult. These few points extra can make the important jump from follower to believer happen so much earlier. My lantern cult had great use of the contentment cards, but I would like to make a moth cult next time and use the annoying fascination cards for this.
Does this solve everything? Not if you have multiple fail counter threatening, but then again, if you put a full effort in resolving a crisis (and use the (*) trick), then you should be pretty safe.
And finally, about using cultists:
My feeling is that the random range is 1-10, - at least I have never had a fail cultist check when having a power of 10.
Disciples have power 5, so my strong recommendation is to avoid expeditions until you have 2 power 5 cultists in most aspects. Yes, - it takes time to buy, read, upgrade knowledge until you can advance your followers, but if you don’t start your cult until you have read most book, then you should know what aspect you a strong in.
The reinforcements options on expeditions allows you to change a 0 to a 10 if you went on a completely unknown mission, so this has for me changed expeditions to become almost too trivial. :-(
And if you have to send a single 5’er on a risky mission? Then you ask for getting screwed by chance, - so don’t. :-)
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Topic: Cultist Simulator: Behold Our End (Kickstarter by creator of Sunless Sea) (Read 33427 times)