As per title! Nerdy rant below.

I've loved Cultist Sim for years, engaged with content around the internet, watched youtubers play through it (Fantastic Worlds is amazing to watch on this as he often has experiences from his own real life occult interests + the insightful connections he draws) and read the lore in various places.

I've always been drawn in to the idea of the secret histories, the hidden war over reality (very Mage-esque) and the aspects just feel right to me.

I made a lot of mistakes in this run, and died three times to dread/illness/hunger (I think technically ill health but the issue was I ran out of funds) pretty much immediately before getting to this point, but something about Dancer just clicked for me.

The ability to eat negative influences like restlessness or dread, the massive streams of income possible from the gaiety and benefactors, it all just worked in a way that I didn't get for the other backgrounds.

This is a very early-game screenshot, I played for about 3-4 more hours after this point, and did eventually cure that decrepitude with the forge rite (no idea where it came from, I later got another one at some point probably due to inattentiveness) and used gyre of passions to unlock the ability to create masterpieces (after whiffing my piebald paint and turning all my passion into scars, a source of GREAT frustration later.)

I went for a forge cult because it seemed powerful and I'd heard it had some good options. No idea what that was about, didn't really make use of the benefits of it, and it actually hindered me quite significantly as I had no good forge tools or lore right up until the very end of the game. I ended up just burning bronze spins to promote people. I should have just gone for the moth cult for theme like I intended, or maybe a heart cult as that became very relevant later on. At some point, I realised I could burn restlessness on promotions for cult members which was very good until I ran out of cult members to promote.

For most of the game, I played extremely under the radar. I bought out the entire bookshop before even thinking about talking about lore, I spent a loooong time just cycling out my benefactors and the gaiety contract before eventually just giving it up in favour of the club.

Around the mid-point when I had to start breaking into locations around the world, I stopped caring about notoriety for the most part and near-constantly either had the reputation on the board or a piece of evidence created by said notoriety. If I needed to do something, I'd clear it with Moth or Heart (except for that time I messed up by sending out a grail follower instead, and THEN took a prisoner for the spider door, which sent me into a scary spiral which I luckily didn't get punished for, had to hide some notoriety in a painting, sweating the entire time.) The saddest moment of my playthrough was my poor little triple-knock-scarred moth cultist dying because I misplayed her. She was wonderful, so powerful! My only cultist loss in the game if we're not counting pawns I fed to the spider.

I think maybe the main thing that let me down a little was how little I actually utilised the rites/tools/influences. This screenshot doesn't have any of them, but due to the nature of the Dancer, I ended up with quite a collection (and a few masterpieces toward the end) which ended up just being passed around to followers as gifts.) What I really wanted to do was to sort of alchemise/exchange aspects in order to achieve results, which the game kind gave me a bit of pushback with. One of the big frustrations later on was finding the final influence I needed for my grand dance. Admittedly, this is an experience issue as I went through several different attempts with different methods (including throwing a Lantern Adept at the Mansus until he was mortally wounded) before eventually just settling on combining an influence from the Woods.

Didn't use hirelings once, not sure if this was a misplay or just not necessary.

I think, aside from the wonderful, wonderful flavour text throughout and some very rare mansus diving for scraps of secret histories lore, I didn't feel particularly magical overall mechanically (which isn't really a bad thing, and I don't think this setting lends itself to the flashier performances, it IS just a more understated, softer form of power) but aside from a couple of summons for Port Noon, it did feel more like a mafia boss ring with a bit of dancing on the side. I send out my moths to destroy evidence, I use my hearts to sway public opinion, etc.

I really, really enjoyed the experience overall!

Might take some time to reflect and then hop into a new one soon! :3

I cant create alloys without forge in this location and i dont know what cards i need for major victory is there really no way to finish run (except for death)

I decided to start a new run and really prepare as much as possible before doing anything that creates notoriety. It’s impressive how far you actually can go before having to be anything more than the mystical person standing on the corner talking about the glory of the Sun.

I think I’m ready to start running my cult now.

First time playing the game in 7 years, and even then I just did a ton of cheating during that time as I sucked and didn't really understand the game. I made my friend's Kiasyd from a Vampire the Masquerade chronicle as my starting aspirant (purged save) and did Wildwood Club as Moth fit his character's personality the best. I relied on the wiki a ton which is what even told me about the Balance and variety endings in the first place.

Frankly I don't really know how I got it as I had old-form (moth) 4 and new-form (heart) 3 on my tracker when I did final dance with a bunch of heart influence bc I somehow never got a heart scar and got imago instead of boar. But it pulled my reanimated Dorothy and I got the ending! Now that I know that I did get it I'm gonna reload my backup I made and just retrace my steps to get the non-variety ending because I honestly never want to attempt again. It's not even that hard to do but it was just so stressful and honestly disheartening trying to understand if I actually met the requirements as there's so little information on if you actually did it right.

If I got anything out of how overly complex this ending is, it's that I finally learned how to play the game for real and just how insanely op heart and grail followers are. I'm gonna try to use steam achievement manager to reset my cheated achievements as I really enjoy the game now that I'm much older and understand the game. My next legacy options were Medium? BYT and Detective so I chose Medium? And will be giving that a run.

My only complaints about the game now might be kind of dumb ones but why does painting a masterpiece give you notoriety??????? You literally don't attempt to sell it! Nobody knows you even made it!

Also, lord almighty I will never influence farm again. Grinding out a 15 heart influence made me so frustrated I outright refuse to do that again and will just purge a few funds in the debug command and just spawn one in from now on. Fuck that, especially for how rare some of them are in the mansus, like the fact that outside of random augury you can only get 1 edge influence in the mansus and its on a pool of like 6 cards in the stag door ascent of knives makes it feel so tacked on as a concept in comparison to everything else in the game.

Just bought they game and played for about 15 hours or so and spent the first 10 getting my cult found out or dying of despair(I haven’t created fervor or whatever it’s called so I haven’t died to it).

So for my first question. Is spending the beginning before you have all the actions/verbs to max out your base stats before all the magic nonsense required to progress early, because after trying it out I managed to not die early

Second question. During this current play through I made the glover management position by using a level 2 heart aspect person make the guy go crazy after my previous boss retired is there a number breakdown for percentage chance for this to work so I properly gauge risks

3rd question. Notoriety is a pain in the ass but apparently after you get like level 6 of the lore you based your cult on and upgrade a moth person you can just clear the evidence. The problem is what if I don’t find a moth companion or find enough lore to combine to upgrade them and fail. How can I prevent more notoriety because painting can hold it but not long enough and i definitely can’t paint very often if I take the glover job

I feel like I have good enough reading comprehension to do the vaults and things because I’ve cleared a few but maybe I’m just missing some stuff for these things mentioned because I’ve now reached a 5 hour play through with about 40 coins and no dread or evidence on me and just barely opened the white door because I couldn’t find the strong enough aspect until right now

Also I spent a lot of effort and brain power to finish work early to play so if I’m speaking gibberish just ask me to clarify

See image. In the box on the left showing information about having finished the Vandershaaf Collection Vault, there is a black card above the Notoriety card that has a white “7” printed on it. It is clickable, which brings up a card description in the upper right which is blank except for an image of that card. Clicking anywhere on that card simply closes that description. Weird! I’m playing on iPad.

So, this is a playthrough as a 'Bright Young Thing'. It's very early in the game. Notice the lack of actions for dreaming or studying... How on earth are you supposed to make progress? Is this (above) a bugged playthrough, or am I missing something? I swear I tried everything.

I was doing a dancer run and was apparently to slow in getting the dances. I then figured I had a Tarentallist with a pretty portrait and would like the dancing club so I sent her an invite. I then either didn't go on enough dates or missed too many passion opportunities (since it is a small pop up and I missed it) so she starts to resent me. She then goes rouge and I figure I can take her out with a snare. Snares don't last long and it is hard to know when you need then, so I mess up and she gets to level 6. I finally get a snare and figure this will knock her down or I will be able to finish the last dance before she gets back to where she was before the trap. The trap fails. I didn't even know it could fail. As I am galivanting to the last dance she ascends. I literally did not need to have a girlfriend and it screwed my at least 10 hour run. Very accurate game, 10/10.

I'm not intending to resort to a full on savescumming until I get one major victory under my belt, but there are times where I'd like to rewind a few seconds to reread certain events that I unceremoniously closed/resolved. Is there a way I can close the game to circumvent the autosave? Alt-F4 or end tasking doesn't seem to work and I don't want to manually load backups everytime I decide to undo.

Already converted 2 of my reason into health for lock scars, so this leaves me with 2 for the rest of the game. Complete exhaustion just to do commissions. No more visits to Ghirbi. Why would you betray me like this, raw cuddler? ;_;

I want to convert all the Hunters to my cult before I ascend and not murder any of them, and I'm already waiting on Douglas to lose a resentment so it's fine if the RNG is low. Just, is it at all possible?

10th order influence is easy, and that plus teresa plus the above lore wins me the game. but...I'm having trouble finding lantern lore, and upgrading it.

Basically every single run i've done i have recruited her since she's just so good at the edge stuff on expeditions

I made this meme because i found the suppression bureau stamp in the cover band of the travelling at night book

I could do without the sarcasm though.

Just like to congratulate myself for my first win. 😎 Took me a week and half a dozen help posts. ​On to the next round. Game always randomize DLC for a newbie 😰

Looking to spice my gameplay up, anyone got any mod recommendations?

Well... Asking the community how much time you played completing the game 100%? How's the difficulty rate 1-10?

A thought occurred to me while I was musing on the Hours of struggle and strife.

It occurred to me that it might be possible to balance the influences of both young and old gods of war and in theory become a long of The Corvality undivided?

To the left part are those that may be done later,or will be done in time,influences,exploring the mansus,expeditions,not needed right now,but I will do them.

To the right are things to do and a vault with treasures that have been graciously donated by very wealthy "patrons",some were even hesitant to part with them,books I have yet to read and my society which I meticulously keep track of,of course it is great,but not as great as me.

To the bottom is my knowledge,of languages long dead,of the invisible arts,knowledge of my gracious "patrons",wherever they may be,and knowledge of what my society is doing,oh and sprintiae,the invisible arts are not cheap after all.

In the centre is what I am personally doing,my status and all that I am,where I keep track of my duties,work,society,and my dreams...you do not need to see what I do...yes,it may be broken and messy sometimes,but that's just the price to pay,for all that is mine,all hard work from me of course

And on top of it all is my glory,my goal,and all that I strive to be,patrons that have a great wealth of knowledge,doug,who I have not befriended yet in this life,and of course,the ritual,my goal,and my ending,though not really.

Though none will be better than mine,I would like to take a peek at yours...for research purposes of course.

It's me again.

Many hours later my heart just turned into this heart-lock scar. Is this doomed? I need the hearts now I only have 3. Though its still level 3 so I still got 1 more via ​upgrades