Hello, I just played the Cultists for a whole day and I have some questions about their balance

I'm relatively new but compared to the other factions the Cultist seem to be a bit underpowered



-First, Is their one town, this is a HUGE disadvantage, even with better fortifications if you have only

one town then you have to be careful not to have your main army too far away from your city.

In a Multiplayer environment you could be attacking an enemy town while they back door to your main

city and make you loose the game. This is a HUGE draw back



-Also refitting your army is almost impossible, you have to walk all the way back to your town

when you invade an enemy they can switch gear on the fly and just stomp your army! and If you

send the Hero back you have to wait 5 turns!



+On the plus side you get a ton of free units from the adjacent villages but



-The problem with these units is that they can't be equiped and are really weak

so a well equipped Hero with dual claws or a quest item could probably kill your

whole 6/6 army single handedly



-Another HUGE disadvantage is how they get their strategic resources and Luxuries.

I think 0.1 rate per village is WAY to low and WAY too slow. I almost never had enough

to upgrade anything and I had to buy all my resources on the market despite having a

TON of villages, this is not fair I think.



OK all in all I think the cultist are really fun but I think their disadvantages out weight their

advantages expecially compared to other races that have epic skills like teleport and the ability

to expand quickly or their super Dust generating ability etc. The cultist feel like they don't have that

wow factor and everything has a disadvantage. Still I want to hear your opinions!

Low cost to activate resources is a huge advantage you didn't list, as well as the ability to upgrade their districts to the third level. It sounds like you are limiting yourself too much to a single offensive army, and the game will go very poorly for you when you do this.

What do you mean low cost to activate resources? you mean Luxury bonuses? because from what I saw they cost about the same? and If everyone else can extract them at a much faster rate on 5 different towns then they wouldn't even have a problem in the first place!



I also had the biggest armies in the game but in a fast Multi Player game every other race can have foward bases providing all of the bonuses of Movement speed, Defence, Reinforcement, Re Equipping Items, Regeneration, etc. not to mention you loose if you get your one town sieged when the enemy may have 6 towns you need to take down.



So you think the Bonuses the cultists get make up for this?



I'm open to any argument, in fact I rather be proven wrong but I'm still not convinced

Kuroneko wrote:
What do you mean low cost to activate resources? you mean Luxury bonuses? because from what I saw they cost about the same? and If everyone else can extract them at a much faster rate on 5 different towns then they wouldn't even have a problem in the first place!



I also had the biggest armies in the game but in a fast Multi Player game every other race can have foward bases providing all of the bonuses of Movement speed, Defence, Reinforcement, Re Equipping Items, Regeneration, etc. not to mention you loose if you get your one town sieged when the enemy may have 6 towns you need to take down.



So you think the Bonuses the cultists get make up for this?



I'm open to any argument, in fact I rather be proven wrong but I'm still not convinced

What he means is that you should use the market. Your free but weak units from villages can as well be sold as used in your armies. In fact, in the mid- and endgame, this is your best income source as a cultist. Deal in minor faction slavery.

That way, you can buy out of the market luxury resources for activating all boosters imaginable at the same time with the added bonus that each activation costs 10 per resource, only, each time, while all other factions pay 5+5*number of active cities per resource per activation of a booster. So you can get a lot of bonuses very cheaply that also apply to all the income from all villages.

Moreover, this allows you to buy strategic resources in substantial amounts. Fully equipped nameless archers with high quality equipment and the quest trinkets can be extremely powerful. An army of them can easily take a city and thereby directly raze it. The stockpiles, on the other hand, allow you, again, to boost your production while also being easy and valuable to sell for added benefit.



Only by banning you from the market, you can be royally screwed as a cultist, or by rushing your single city.

@Nosferatiel Yea I agree, I was buying Luxury resources like crazy that was really nice, Is a bit hard to compare to other Civs because even

tough it costs more for them, they can also generate it a lot faster over many different cities.



Selling the villager Units is a great idea, I didn't think of that, slave trading is not a very nice thing to do XD



I have a question, are the quest items unique for cultists? I know I've seen the shield that looks like a pot lid on

another Civ but I also got a medallion that was incredibly powerful, it gave me a really good regen among other things,

Do the cultist get more items than other Civs? or is it completely random?

Personally I found the limited Lux-res income quite bearable. Sure, I bought quite a bunch of them on the market but having only one city really makes the bonus quite cheap. 10 - that's basically half of what one gets for any quest. Also the one city limit reduces the need for approval bonuses.



Strat-res is something different, sure the need for them is smaller aswell due to few cities and few equipable units(I only researched these techs to unlock the book^^) but there are some quests that require 20-60 units, which is a clear case for the marketplace.



That said, I do agree that Cultists have some really damaging shortcomings. And I'd like to add that nothing is as aggrivating as an other faction raiding your Daemon villages - "those cost Influence to repair you *********!!!!!" maybe let it cost dust or Industry-stockpiles to repair?

Kuroneko wrote:
I have a question, are the quest items unique for cultists? I know I've seen the shield that looks like a pot lid on

another Civ but I also got a medallion that was incredibly powerful, it gave me a really good regen among other things,

Do the cultist get more items than other Civs? or is it completely random?

The cultists do get two quest items (trinkets) that you can only attach to cultist units.

1) Order of Isiver: +50% defense, initiative and damage on unit & regeneration 2 (+4 health per level and round in combat)

2) The Wordless Will: +50% attack and health & dark proof (immunity to reduction of movement and vision range in winter)

Noone else gets those and noone else can use them.

Nosferatiel wrote:
The cultists do get two quest items (trinkets) that you can only attach to cultist units.

1) Order of Isiver: +50% defense, initiative and damage on unit & regeneration 2 (+4 health per level and round in combat)

2) The Wordless Will: +50% attack and health & dark proof (immunity to reduction of movement and vision range in winter)

Noone else gets those and noone else can use them.

Order of Isiver is pretty nice, it can be equipped on every cultist unit.



As the cultists, you only have one city. That confers some disadvantages:



1) Strategic and Luxury resource gathering will be limited.

2) Re-equipping units is more difficult.



There are also some benefits:



1) Your town starts out with a big fortification bonus, and you get the techs to improve it and the garrison further.

2) You only need to protect one town.

3) Luxury resource boosts are cheaper. In the late game, you are paying 10 bloodstone per boost to make every army in your empire +attack. A guy with 10 regions needs to pay 55.



In addition:



-Your villages all contribute to your town's FIDS.

-You can upgrade city districts to Level 3.

-You have no expansion disapproval.

-You never need to waste time on buying hero governors. You only need one strong governor hero to stay in your city at all times (the initial cultist hero is fine for this) and then you can solely focus on purchasing strong military heroes.



-Your abundance of strong military heroes all come with strong military buffs that turn relatively weak village chaff into effective front line cannon-fodder, especially when supported by cultist archers, priests and fanatics.

-Village chaff sells to the market for a decent price.



Finally:



When you capture a capital city it stays captured, because you BURN IT TO THE GROUND, netting stockpiles of industry (and possibly science with the tech) that you can use to buff your own city's output.



Capture the enemy capitals to win the game.

@SpanishMatlock



Wow great post thanks ^^ I guess it makes more sense now, I never considered "burning cities to the ground" IoI that's why it's really fun playing crazy religious robots XD



I thought you where like a game dev or something and you only have 1 post! nice :O



I'll go play another race for a whole day now and come back to complain later

research the +xp to converted free units and research +xp to garrison. Suddenly all your free units get ridiculously high levels.

Wow cool what Tech tier is that? :O

Coiler wrote:
Isnt plans also cheaper cause u got one town?

Ah did I forget to mention that? Cultists get a fantastic influence boost from their starting hero and level 3 districts that makes it trivial to buy out the entire empire plan pretty much every time.