Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
It was less boring for me as well compared to Sea/Skies, since the travel times and the back and forths were atrocious in those. Cultist Sim has its own share of "quirks", sure, but I found it overall more playable.

Still, I had to open up the wiki after my first "normal" win, I think, because I can't spend my whole life decrypting the developer's arbitrary recipes in order to just upgrade one item.
On my third character now and the first time I think I have some idea what I'm doing at least in the early parts. At least my character isn't immediately imploding from Dread like the last two.

The Aspirant bumbled around the city a bit, got almost fired from his clerical job, made a friend, learned behind the Light behind the skin of the world, read a few weird books from a bookstore and succumbed to dread.

His legacy was picked up by Doctor Blake at the hospital, but he went in an entirely different direction. By studying the wounds of his patients, he learned the principle of opening deeper wounds, that are gateways behind the world. Of his his three disciples, two were eaten by a lake monster and then he, too, succumbed to dread. But he opened the way for Father Emmerson.

Father Emmerson saw the four-armed St. Agnes walk beside him in his dreams and kissed her severed head, and even before he met Doctor Blake's Society, he knew of the Holy Wound and preached of it to his congregation. How the locksmiths who were bitten by snakes find they can pull apart the skin and enter the forest.

So, anyway. Seems the goal to surviving the early game was not researching mysteries immediately, but instead grinding stats. So Father Emmerson learned Greek and spent all his early days either preaching very conventional sermons, body building or painting, until he had a 3 in all stats. This makes everything so much easier.

NO idea what my cult can actually do, so far, but he has a loyal following, is a famous enough painter that he doesn't have to preach for money much anymore, and can instead mainly preach the higher mysteries to gain cult followers from his church, and he has very interesting dreams.