Introduction
Evil Cult is a turn-based strategy of global conquest. You play as the leader of one of four cults whose goal is to summon the Elder God you worship or, barring that, to eliminate the other three cults' influence on the world. To do so, you must both recruit priests and abduct virgins. You can try to summon your Elder God when you have 3 priests and 9 virgins. The success of this endeavor is greatly dependent on society's awareness of your actions. While you work on your goals, the other three cults are doing the same, gathering priests and virgins for their own nefarious goals.
Cults
Basics
At the start of the game you have one follower, a neophyte. As this neophyte is the Origin of your cult, each turn he generates a point of one of the three core resources: Intimidation, Persuasion, or Bribery. Which resource the neophyte generates is determined randomly at the start of the game. You will need these resources to gain more followers or to convert the followers of other cults. You can convert between these three resources at a 2-to-1 ratio. Virgins are another resource that you collect, and they can be converted to any other resource at a 1-to-1 ratio.
Nodes
The squares with letters on the map screen represent individual people, and therefore your potential followers. The letter represents the resource you need to sway that follower to your cause. If a follower already belongs to another cult, the letter is replaced by a number showing the level of that follower. The higher the level, the harder the conversion process becomes. Pick a node that needs a resource which you have and click on it. That action will trigger an attempt to gain the follower represented by that node. The chance of success, along with other information about the node, is displayed in a tooltip that appears if you hover your mouse pointer over the node. If you do not have the resources which are necessary to gain any adjacent nodes, don't worry; you can convert the resources you have to the ones you need.
Note that trying to convert a follower from another cult will start a war with that cult. Wars only end with the complete destruction of one of the sides involved, so think hard before converting followers of another cult!
Generators
Nodes with wider borders are generator nodes; when you gain the follower they represent, they will generate a point of the resource shown in the tooltip each turn. A generator node is harder to gain than a standard node, but the additional resources are worth the challenge. Keep in mind that if society's awareness of your cult is high, you can fail to get some of the new resources on the next turn. Small numbers (such as "+0-1") under the current resource amount in the status panel show how much of that resource you will get on the next turn. Generators are a valued possession for any cult so they are in need of protection. If a generator node is connected to 3 or more nodes it becomes protected; no cult can try to convert this node without first converting nodes around it so that the number of connections drops below 3. Protected nodes have their border colored white.
Origin
Every cult starts from one node; that node is the Origin of the cult, and is the most important member of the cult. It is marked with a double border on the map for ease of recognition. Only by converting another cult's Origin can you stop the Final Ritual that the cult will inevitably try and perform to take over the world. When a cult's Origin is lost, one of the cult's priests is immediately transformed into its new Origin. If no priests are available, the cult is paralyzed and cannot expand its army of followers until a new priest is initiated and transformed into the Origin.
Followers
Your followers can be one of three levels: neophytes, adepts and priests. To upgrade a follower you will need a number of virgins equal to the new level and 3 followers of the convertee's current level. Neophytes gather virgins each turn, hence the importance of converting people to your cause. In addition, adepts can lower society's awareness of your cult, and priests are needed for the Final Ritual.
Awareness
Society's awareness is a very important statistic. The higher it is the harder it is to do anything: gaining a follower, performing a ritual, or receiving a resource. You will notice the effects of high awareness when you start failing to gain new followers. In that case you will need to lower it using your adepts. Of course, you need to have some adepts first. Adepts can lower awareness by 2% using any of the available resources except virgins. Despite their power in influencing society, adepts are not superhuman; each adept can only use one resource point per turn to reduce awareness.
Winning the Game
There are two ways to win: you can convert all the nodes of the opposing cults, destroying their ability to operate, or you can complete the Final Ritual and bring about the unholy desires of the horror your cult worships. There is also a chance that an investigator will destroy last node of a last opposing cult leaving your cult alone. That also qualifies as a victory.
The Final Ritual
Priests are required to complete the Final Ritual. While performing the Ritual, each priest generates one Ritual Point per turn, which goes into a pool of points needed for finishing the Ritual. The Final Ritual needs 9 Ritual Points to be performed, so you can slow down another cult's completion of the Ritual by converting its priests, or speed yours up by making new priests of your own.
Note that upon starting the Final Ritual, all other cults automatically declare war on your cult. In addition, successful conversion of the Origin of any cult working on their Final Ritual brings the Ritual to a halt and empties the pool of Ritual Points, forcing the cult to start over.
Opposing Cults
Don't forget that all of these rules also apply to the other three cults in play; you may find as you work to complete your goals another cult beats you to their goal. Make sure that doesn't happen!
Investigators
What are They?
After a cult gains its first adept, there is a small chance each turn that an investigator will become aware of its existence. Having three or more adepts will add the current society awareness level to that chance, and having any priests in the cult will raise the chance even further. Once an investigator is aware of a particular cult, he focuses on that one to the exclusion of all others. His goal is simple: the destruction of the cult.
When an investigator first becomes aware of a cult, his willpower is low; he has not gained enough knowledge about the cult to be completely resolved in his mission. Every turn afterwards the investigator is likely to gain a point of willpower, and with every 3 points he gains a new level. If he reaches 3rd level, with 9 willpower points, he becomes unstoppable. The cult cannot destroy him, only repair the damage he wreaks.
The Investigator's Blight
Every turn an investigator unravels the dark secrets of random followers. They must be the same level or lower than he, and he can only discover a number equal to his level as well. Those followers are killed or forced to commit suicide, replaced with new members of normal society. In addition, the society awareness level of this cult is boosted due to the rash of deaths and murders.
Once a Final Ritual begins, any investigator of that cult will focus on the highest-level followers available to him rather than random cultists. He also has a chance of gaining two willpower points each turn due to the desperate situation caused by the Final Ritual.
Destroying an Investigator
Once an investigator becomes active, a cult must first find out just who he is. This takes time dependent on the difficulty level of the game. Once his identity is uncovered, adepts can spend two core resource points per turn to try and lower his willpower by a single point. If an investigator's willpower is lowered to zero, they succumb to the overwhelming darkness and futility of their situation and are destroyed. The elimination of an investigator gives a cult some breathing room, as it takes time before another picks up the scent of the cult.
Hiding from an Investigator
If the society awareness level of a cult is below 5%, investigators have a difficult time finding information about the cult, and do not gain willpower.
Once an investigator has reached level 3, they can no longer be destroyed. However, with a low society awareness level, the investigator may be fooled into thinking the cult is already almost destroyed and not work with the diligence they may otherwise bring to bear.
Difficulty Settings
Before the start of each new game you can select a difficulty level. Changing this level alters the following aspects of gameplay:
- Chance of gaining core resources from generators each turn
- Chance of successfully upgrading your followers
- Chance of successfully performing the Final Ritual
- Chance of gaining new followers
- Chance of an investigator appearing
- Chance of an investigator revealing a follower
- Chance of success in lowering an investigator's willpower using adepts
- Chance of investigator gaining willpower
- Number of turns needed to uncover an investigator
In addition, on the Hard difficulty all generator nodes around the Origin of the player's cult are removed.
The AI cults play with the opposite difficulty of the player. So, for example, if you choose the Hard difficulty level, the three AI cults operate under the rules of the Easy difficulty level. Be forewarned!