As watzisname pointed out, Cultist will have problem facing a larger map for travelling around and defending those villages. I somehow agree with it if I still have those traditional 4X game plan. However, I do not see how would the ability of obtaining a region will actually help cultist unless that "outpost" region has teleporting ability just like Vaulter. In other words, you don't just let one unit stay in that village and hoping that will be able to defend an army; you are meant to gather all units in close proximity and having them petrol the area and intercept incoming enemies, while enjoining the FSID and workers received. Such defending army aren't really meant to successfully defend that close proximity; instead, they are meant to make enemies to realized a heavy losses might come while the Cultist main army is somewhere out there sniping his/her Capital, which is the "main" victory type for Cultist.

North2,



For the view of the surrounding area, you are suppose to gather all units around the proximity area and have those minor faction troops on petrol; or at least have those inside the village to get out and get back in the village once a while to gain temporary vision.



As for your other comments, I would say it does sound like a cult

I'm just not getting that feeling at all though. I control the only village in the entire region yet I don't have any view of the surrounding area. There's no road connecting to it, they just magically give FIDS and population to the main city even if they're on the other side of the map. They won't work any harder or slower no matter what you do, just mindlessly pumping out units every once in a while.

North2 wrote:
There's just something missing with Cultists right now in terms of flavor. You're spreading the cult to the world, yet your 'sphere of influence' is always limited to the tiny 1-hex region around Converted Villages. There's also just no sense of connectivity between the Holy City and the Converted Villages currently.

The idea is that Cultists are sort of weird Papal State. They have one city and have sort of holdings everywhere they can get.



Cultists have very obvious weak points (like resources) but do not forget that they're still very strong and don't require much skill to get supremacy as they are now.

Why not giving the Heroes of that Faction just a traid to Convert (if unoccupied) an area for your faction aslong as he stands there. maybe just an quest item for a hero since otherwise you or others could exploit cultist heros. I like the idea and this way you have an additional reason to exploe. As with the ressources i think they are getting enough with selling those units and just buy them at the market. I only played them once but as far as i can tell Influence->units->gold->profit

There's just something missing with Cultists right now in terms of flavor. You're spreading the cult to the world, yet your 'sphere of influence' is always limited to the tiny 1-hex region around Converted Villages. There's also just no sense of connectivity between the Holy City and the Converted Villages currently.



I do like the idea of shrines, but I'm not a fan of it being a 'mini-city' of sorts. It takes away from the uniqueness of the cultist faction. For brainstorming purposes, my version of the shrine would be:



1) You can only build it within 8 tiles of your borders.

2) It creates a "border road" 2 hexes wide between your border and the shrine.

3) It also creates a "border road" between the shrine and any Converted Village within the region in which it was built.

4) Increases FIDS output of any Village that it connects to.

5) Can be chained along a "border road" of another shrine.

6) Must be destroyed before an enemy can build a city in the same region.

7) With Imperial Highways, a road will be created between Shrines, Converted Villages, and the main city.



Visually and conceptually, it'll look like you're creating a huge "Web of Control" across Auriga.

Khalus wrote:
Hi there, From my initial normal playthrough (169 turns in), I felt the Cultists were lacking in a couple areas, namely:



the lack of overt territorial expansion - endless (pun not intended!) armies of converted minor units - requirement to bring armies crusading abroad back to the Holy City to retrain



To this end I thought of a possible solution: Initially, make converted villages spawn units less frequently in regions not under the Cult's full control, increasing it in the home region and in regions absorbed with the following: What if a Cult army, with at least one Cult unit in it, could build a fortress or tower/shrine in a region converted to the cause.



SHRINE + Brings a region under Cult control + Can garrison and possesses militia to withstand a siege (not as long as a city of course) + Provides a small bonus to converted village unit production + Allows for construction of mines (and watchtowers? I'd need to recheck if they can build them) in the region + Allows for retraining of units outside of the Holy City's region + Provides a single hex radius of territory

- Requires the sacrifice of a unit to consecrate the shrine? - Cannot train new units there - Provides no population - Only one allowed per region - Requires region to be fully converted to the Cult's cause



Thoughts?

I kinda like some of the elements here, but maybe not your entire shrine idea.



The reason the Cult can't leave the city is because the Queen is trapped in the Throne, right? But they do have another leader, the Unspoken. Perhaps we could do something with that? I haven't played them through. Is the Unspoken available through the faction quest line? If its NOT, then we have something right there.



Put in a new chapter to the Cultist quest line where you get the Unspoken (hero) as a reward.



+If the Unspoken is in an unclaimed region where all the villages are converted, the region counts as within the kingdom's borders. This allows units to be upgraded.

+The tile that it stands on counts as a mine. This allows for mining a strategic or luxury resource as long as it stands on the tile.

+The tile it stands on and the six tiles surrounding it count as exploitation for the capital.

+Acts as an extension of the capital's trade network to the adjacent regions.

+Speeds up the converted villages unit production a little.

-You could simply kill him, if you could get through his entourage. The cultists would just rush buy him back.

-Can't be everywhere at once, which defeats the one city challenge anyway.

-Everyone knows where it is if they explored the map already.

The villages spawn units, so just keep a few of them nearby the village, and your enemy would need a larger army than just a scout to destroy the village.

Guys, you don't need to crusade your units back to your home city because most of them can't upgrade anyways. The cultists play best when you start from one location and sweep across the continent, picking up new villages and recruits as you go. All you need from your home city is the token one or two cultist archers, and those can be cycled around for upgrade purposes.



On top of that, you can get the +4 movement empire plan (easy to do with 1 city), and if you want more mobility, assimilate the hydra faction with +0.5 movement per village. Even give your archer units the +movement artifacts so they can run back to your city quickly for upgrades.



The only problem that I agree with is the difficulty in defending your villages. I'm not sure if a player needs to declare war to attack your converted villages in neutral territory? But it's far too easy for a fast moving unit to sweep a bunch of villages. There should be militia, so an enemy will at least have to commit more than one unit, which hopefully leaves their cities exposed to instant razing.

Hi there,



From my initial normal playthrough (169 turns in), I felt the Cultists were lacking in a couple areas, namely:

• the lack of overt territorial expansion
• endless (pun not intended!) armies of converted minor units
• requirement to bring armies crusading abroad back to the Holy City to retrain
  
  

To this end I thought of a possible solution:



Initially, make converted villages spawn units less frequently in regions not under the Cult's full control, increasing it in the home region and in regions absorbed with the following:



What if a Cult army, with at least one Cult unit in it, could build a fortress or tower/shrine in a region converted to the cause.



SHRINE



+ Brings a region under Cult control

+ Can garrison and possesses militia to withstand a siege (not as long as a city of course)

+ Provides a small bonus to converted village unit production

+ Allows for construction of mines (and watchtowers? I'd need to recheck if they can build them) in the region

+ Allows for retraining of units outside of the Holy City's region

+ Provides a single hex radius of territory

- Requires the sacrifice of a unit to consecrate the shrine?

- Cannot train new units there

- Provides no population

- Only one allowed per region

- Requires region to be fully converted to the Cult's cause



Thoughts?



Thanks for your time!

Right now, the retrofitting restriction acts as a good slow down to Cultist armies, but in all honestly, shouldn't your armies by the time it gets to be a problem be unretrofittable minor faction units rather than Cultist and assimilated units with real upgrades? And therefore, the problem isn't as major as you might believe?

Really the only issue right now is if you are playing on Huge w/ Large Pangea (let's say), how in the world are you going to retrofit your main army if it's literally on the other side of the world? We need that 1 hex ring around our villages to be a place to "rest" our army. I think the cultist would be absolutely perfect if you could just retrofit near a village, make it a tech or something you know?

The real point of this would be to either



1) claim the region (prevent enemy settling) or

2) Provide a defensive stronghold for your minor faction villages



In either case, the problem is that as cultists it is too hard to hold territory. A solution along either line would probably be fine.

The traveling to places and protection of villages can be a problem for the Cultists, but you can partially solve this by sending out cavalry units to scout your villages, and if there is an enemy army nearby you can send your main army to meet it.

Yes this is the problem with cultists...you get away from the holy city and you have to travel so far just to fight. Its easy for opponents to destroy the minor faction settlements while after you convert them. Cultists need to be able to expand a little...also too many minor factions just drains your dust like crazy, without more ways of making dust you end up dismissing as many as you can use.

As far as things go, your idea already does a lot of the things the Cult can already do. For starters you gain .1 of any resource you have the tech to gather per village converted in that region. Secondly, you get the FIDSI of every converted minor faction village and every tile surrounding a minor faction village. Third minor faction villages do give you a decent (not perfect but decent) way of defending the region, by spawning and garrisoning armies, and providing a 1 tile visibility. So even though, mines or retrofitting would be useful, they could also make the Cult too powerful.

Hi, thanks for the reply.



That's sort of the thing, but it'd purely a Cult building, chosen from the army actions and placed within a region LIKE a city, but restricted by the negatives mentioned above. They, I feel, prevent it from being overpowered.



There could be more conditions prior to building the shrine/castle in a region converted to the cause, such as requiring a Cult hero as well as major faction units in the army, an expenditure of influence as well, etc.



I think it still plays to the faction's traits, doesn't use settlers to build it, allows for expansion and control over converted territory, but isn't an insurmountable obstacle the other factions can overcome.



Cheers!

So essentially, you want a minor faction castle that can control a region?



I've played alot of Cult lately so I can understand the fact that it needs region control considering how luxury- and strategic resources are purely up to luck, unless you want your 0.5 conversion rate which makes higher tech items hard to get. I like the idea, could probably use a bit of polishing but I like it.