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[Biowraith]

I too have been enjoying this game, the lore is as fun as you'd expect from Alexis and I'm finding the gameplay very addictive and one-more-turn (well, not turns exactly, but you know what I mean).

I've lost about 5 aspirants to Fascination getting out of control, 3 to Despair, and 3 to being arrested, but my current game has been going really well to the point I'm not sure I can lose, unless the game still has some curveballs to throw at me - I can generate and remove emotion cards easily enough that they rarely cause me problems now, and I'm summoning weird and wonderful things that easily kill the hunters that have come for me so far (whose bodies I then devour as part of my ascension path).  It seems like once you get a handle on how things are generated (and how to remove them) and get past the precarious early game, you mostly only lose to carelessness.

Spoiler: On Dread (click to show/hide)

I've found the most reliable way of getting Dread is letting Restlessness time out - it always turns into Dread.  You can generate Restlessness on demand by dreaming on Passion without using any Lore.  It does take 2-3 minutes though, so you'll need to do it before Fascination and its verb (Visions?) has gotten out of control.  It also means you'll want to deal with Restlessness before it turns if you don't actually want/need any Dread.

Spoiler: On getting rid of unwanted emotion cards (click to show/hide)

Using an emotion card as the Influence in painting won't consume it, only remove it from play a bit, so you need to be ready for it popping back out.  Also, for the 20s period that the Influence option is available it can still be sucked out by the magnet, so be careful with that.  The one exception to all that is Restlessness which a) won't be sucked out and b) is fully consumed when used as a painting Influence - useful early on as a means of keeping Dread away (and as a bonus it might generate Contentment).

The best way I've found for removing emotion cards after the really early game is cultist promotions.  Emotion cards can be used in the (optional) Trappings slot when carrying out a promotion - the purpose is to push the aspect score high enough to allow the promotion (e.g. if you need 7 Edge but only have 6 Edge Lore, Dread as a Trapping will provide the last point), but you can use cards here even if you've already met the requirements.  Some card types survive the process but emotion cards are consumed, so keep a few Hangers On and Acquaintances around to promote when you really need rid of some Dread or Fascination.

I think you can maybe also use them up in some Rites, but by the time I had enough Lore to start using Rites I had my Dread/Fascination pretty much handled.

[Warmist]

I too have been enjoying this game, the lore is as fun as you'd expect from Alexis and I'm finding the gameplay very addictive and one-more-turn (well, not turns exactly, but you know what I mean).
<...>

Me too.

Came here to cry how i lost my BEST EVER cult with ~15 cultists and almost all languages (etc) to forgetting to pause and going to eat ;(

[Aoi]

Does anybody else have a problem with save and exit... not actually saving? It seems to revert to the last autosave, or thereabouts. Several minutes, at least.

[Biowraith]

Came here to cry how i lost my BEST EVER cult with ~15 cultists and almost all languages (etc) to forgetting to pause and going to eat ;(

Ouch!  I'm not sure I could muster the enthusiasm to start a new game if that happened with my current best ever cult.

Was it a Despair loss?  I feel like it should have been a Despair loss.

[lemon10]

Spoiler: Goddamn did I just get lucky (click to show/hide)

So, I'm doing pretty well, and figuring that they will just go for a believer instead of me like they did last time I let the evidence get too high without doing anything. Of course they don't. They are coming to arrest me, and there isn't anything I can do about it. A favor would save me of course, but I hadn't even seen a favor the entire game and have no clue where I would get one. So I'm dead in about two minutes and there isn't anything I can do about it I'm just continuing whatever I had done, and was just waiting till the end and was hoping beyond hope that they would let me go or I would have some kind of last chance to avoid prison.
So, I had a dream of doors planned and it just happened to finish, and when I drew a card out of the two random options it just happened to be a favor.
With that exceedingly lucky favor in hand I proceeded to just walk out of the court room, laughing at the investigator.

After that I summoned Ezeem from the depths of the grail and snuffed out his insignificant life for daring to target me.

E: Ugh. I just realized that I burned like 8 passion and reason total on something that didn't require me to use any at all. Right now I am at 3 each (instead of like 7 each) after having used all the bookstore and auction house books. Will that dead end me later on in the game, or will I be fine due to being able to get more/not ever really needing more then that?

[lordcooper]

A few notes on things people have mentioned.


Failbetter: This is not FB.  AK and Lottie left Failbetter to work on smaller, more experimental projects without risking the livelihood of others.

DLC: There's going to be a few (as well as free patches).  I seem to recall hearing the number 6 thrown around at some point, but AK has said it depends a lot on how much money the game brings in.

Dragging stacks: You can drag whole stacks by the number.

Dread/Fascination: The emergency is not when a token snatches up three and the the 'game ending' countdown begins.  The emergency is when a token snatches up one , deal with it ASAP (as a rule of thumb, deal with any threat ASAP).  The following are not exhaustive lists.

Spoiler: Contentment sources: (click to show/hide)

Random Crowds of Sleep dream (dream with Reason/Passion, no lore)
Dreaming with Health (only a partial chance)
Painting (sometimes)
Season of Serenities (random)
Season of Suspicion, with no hunters or reputation on the board
Season of Visions, resolution (curing fascination with dread)
Dreaming with Funds (can cause negative effects such as sickness and despair)
Some Mansus locations (especially the Sage Knight’s Lodge)
Visit the Ecydis Club

Spoiler: Dreadsources: (click to show/hide)

Nightmares (dream with Reason)
Allow Restlessness to decay
Talk to a Detective with Winter Lore
Fail an expedition (send one money and a pawn)
Work with Decrepitude
Some Mansus locations (especially the White Door)

Spoiler: Goddamn did I just get lucky (click to show/hide)

So, I'm doing pretty well, and figuring that they will just go for a believer instead of me like they did last time I let the evidence get too high without doing anything. Of course they don't. They are coming to arrest me, and there isn't anything I can do about it. A favor would save me of course, but I hadn't even seen a favor the entire game and have no clue where I would get one. So I'm dead in about two minutes and there isn't anything I can do about it I'm just continuing whatever I had done, and was just waiting till the end and was hoping beyond hope that they would let me go or I would have some kind of last chance to avoid prison.
So, I had a dream of doors planned and it just happened to finish, and when I drew a card out of the two random options it just happened to be a favor.
With that exceedingly lucky favor in hand I proceeded to just walk out of the court room, laughing at the investigator.

After that I summoned Ezeem from the depths of the grail and snuffed out his insignificant life for daring to target me.

E: Ugh. I just realized that I burned like 8 passion and reason total on something that didn't require me to use any at all. Right now I am at 3 each (instead of like 7 each) after having used all the bookstore and auction house books. Will that dead end me later on in the game, or will I be fine due to being able to get more/not ever really needing more then that?

You should be okay

[forsaken1111]

Something a friend of mine was confused about, so thought I would mention here: You do not need to use trappings of any sort to recruit a cultist. Please don't waste your cards.

[Biowraith]

After 24 hours of playing, on probably about my 15th attempt, I've managed a Sensation / Red Grail ascension victory.  That last final stretch was fiddly as hell, trying to get all the necessary components (most of which had limited lifespans) available at the same time whilst still fending off the hunters etc.

[lordcooper]

https://twitter.com/alexiskennedy/status/1002487882479800320

First word on upcoming patches/DLC.  Apparently the game has sold a lot better than expected too

[MCreeper]

It's either me being wrong, or dev being somewhat of a liar don't actually having any goddamn windows XP or...  Steam sys. requirements say that this woorks on windows XP, but on launch game says that "bla bla InitializeCriticalSectionEx bla not found in DLL KERNEL32.dll". And well... from past expirience and some googling it's appears to be rock-solid sign that it will NOT work on windows XP (with exception of XCOM Enemy Within, somehow. And i don't remember which error it was in it).

[Warmist]

Came here to cry how i lost my BEST EVER cult with ~15 cultists and almost all languages (etc) to forgetting to pause and going to eat ;(

Ouch!  I'm not sure I could muster the enthusiasm to start a new game if that happened with my current best ever cult.

Was it a Despair loss?  I feel like it should have been a Despair loss.

Nah had low money due to constant expeditions, starved to death

[nenjin]

Yeah the game has picked up way more traction than they anticipated. Friends I rarely chat to on steam are hitting me up asking how this it is.

Alexis tends to make polarizing games. Either people love the format coupled with the narrative, or they hate the grinding nature of his usual mechanics.

[Cthulhu]

My current guy has two hunters, which is like having one hunter but even worse.

I understand there's more than one way to beat a hunter, but I've never had anything work but sending someone with high Edge to kill them, and that only works sometimes.  Everything else just makes them fucking harder to kill.

Magnets pulling cards off non-magnet tokens is also really annoying.  Was getting ready to fail at killing a hunter with the Glory but the visions token popped up and took it so now I get a free notoriety instead.

[ndkid]

Nenjin, that is something that took me two whole playthroughs to understand, just through experimentation.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To recruit more cultists you just use a piece of lore, any lore doesn't matter what, on the Talk verb. You will get either a patron or a potential cultist. Then you can recruit and upgrade as normal.

I'm weird, but I've always taken a very different path to recruitment.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I tend to unlock the woods pretty early, and have a lot of dream downtime, so I dream to the woods, and pull a Peculiar Rumor about 1/3 of the time, then explore that to recruit.

[Il Palazzo]

Being a cultist is fun, but oh god, the tedium and the UI. It's an overpriced game for what one's getting.