The first expansion for Evil Cult called the Artifacts of the Arcane is ready for testing! If you're willing to participate in the beta test and offer your feedback, please, do so. To participate in the beta test, enable the test branch in the Steam like this:
- Right-click on Evil Cult in the library
- Select Properties
- Click on Betas tab
- Select "test" from the list
The game should now update to the test branch.
As you've likely guessed from the title, this expansion deals with the occult artifacts. When the expansion is enabled in the start new game menu, the adepts require such artifacts to be upgraded into priests. If no artifacts are in the cult's storage, then the upgrade is not possible. To acquire the artifact, you must first find it. The artifacts are searched for by your sects when they reach level 2. Searching is a task that will be activated by the sect AI when there are no other pressing matters or it can be forced in the usual way.
Once the artifact is found, it appears on the map as an icon with a blinking number indicating how many turns there are left until it disappears again. There are four unique artifacts, and others are randomly generated. Unique ones each have a special effect that activates once the artifact is bound with a priest. The random ones do not. Each artifact has a level from 1 to 3. That level indicates the artifact's power and is used in the ritual power calculation. Acquiring the artifact works just like acquiring a follower - the distance to your closest follower rules are applied, the resources are removed and the artifact is moved into the storage. After that, the upgrade adept button is activated. The upgrade ritual binds the priest to the artifact. If the priest is killed, then the artifact is lost, too.
The other big addition to the game is so-called game flags. The game start menu has been reworked to accommodate for this. There are three flags for now and they are all automatically enabled when you activate the Artifacts of the Arcane expansion. Basically, they're all there to offset the changes in the meta that the expansion brings. You can, of course, enable one or more of the flags without enabling the expansion if you desire to change your game.
The first flag is long rituals. This is to offset the increased power the priests bring to the rituals. When enabled, it will significantly increase the number of ritual points needed to complete the ritual. The second flag disables the blitz victory - when enabled, you can no longer use the strategy to paralyze the other cults to win.
The third flag is the most interesting. Since the expansion requires the level 2 sects to progress, the Devoted Sects flag enables the use of basic resources to buff their growth speed. When enabled, it shows a resource button in the sects list window near each sect. The particular resource is picked at sect creation. This button moves a resource point into the sect storage. Each turn, if there are enough resources, the sect becomes devoted. Devoted sect increases its growth speed, increases the generated task points but also raises minimum cult awareness (you cannot use adepts to lower the cult awareness below that minimum while any sect is devoted).
The full changelog is as follows:
- Artifacts of the Arcane expansion
- Gameplay flags: No blitz victory, Long rituals, Devoted sects
- Save/Load game are now fixed and re-enabled. In fact, since that immediately prompted me to save-scum, I'm thinking of adding a game flag to disable that functionality.
- AI reworked with the concept of "yummy targets" and can now stockpile and convert resources to acquire them (previously, the AI could not convert resources).
- On hard difficulty AI now plays on normal (it played on easy before)
- AI will now offer peace more often when someone else is performing the Final Ritual and honor it
- New game window added for difficulty selection, gameplay flags and expansion
- Additional flavor texts for victory/loss and sects. All flavor texts are reformatted in a unified way.
- Larger dots on the minimap for cult origins and artifacts
- Advanced mode zoom fixes
- Gaining enemy follower or losing yours will kill it, resetting their level, and name. Nationality, job and needed/generated resource types stay the same.
- Highscores are disabled if it's not the basic game
- Messages will be shown on investigators losing willpower or disappearing
- Options button moved to the main menu, cult-specific options are removed
- Balance tweaks to accommodate for AI changes and new meta