Demon worshippers suck?

[WindBlownLeaf]

I've been playing with the cult because, you know, who doesn't like a bit of edgyness? However, they seem just kinda... bad. Eventually, you will end up having all the 'sin' traits which are worse than the 'virtue' traits, broadly speaking. The worst of the virtue traits are at least a trade-off, where traits like gluttony, drunkard and sloth are just pure awful.

The perks of being part of the cult simply dont seem to make up for accumulating every negative trait and deformity in the game. A familiar that gives +3 stats...? Doesn't even begin to make up for the negative modifiers you get. The occasional ritual is just as likely to backfire and leave you worse off than you started for...+2 stats? Again, not worth.

Dark healing never seems to work for me. I think I managed to get rid of an illness or injury exactly two times. Lastly, you get the health bonuses from sacrificing your children, which on average is a +2 health that lasts only 10 years. Sure, but again, the negative modifiers you get from being in the cult that long (stressed, depressed, negative genetic traits, injuries...) these are 99% going to give you more health penalties than the +1 ~ +3 you get from sacrifice.

The demon child thing is cool and they are pretty broken, but even when you make it to the last tier of the cult (unlikely to happen in the first place) it's totally random! Unless you get a mission from the cult leader, you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Aaand... your wife probably isn't part of the cult, so you just gave a super powered kid to some random chick. Nice?

I dunno. Maybe I'm just too stupid to make it work, but from messing around with the monastic orders, they seem 10x better.

[WindBlownLeaf]

İlk olarak Varainger tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak WindBlownLeaf tarafından gönderildi:

...However, even playing as the demon child, it's pretty difficult...

Don't you get quite a few extra troops by event or do i confuse that with the child of destiny ?

Yes, you get about 1.5k along with a few OP courtiers

Which sadly is only a drop in the bucket compared to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ im currently in the middle of.

[Varainger]

İlk olarak WindBlownLeaf tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Varainger tarafından gönderildi:

Don't you get quite a few extra troops by event or do i confuse that with the child of destiny ?

Yes, you get about 1.5k along with a few OP courtiers

Which sadly is only a drop in the bucket compared to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ im currently in the middle of.

1.5K is not too much, no. ;)
Indeed.

That is not even close to the numbers i recall to have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ last time....or it's indeed only child of destiny or such...Well maybe the numbers of event troops are simply relative to your at the time existing realm troops and your realm was reather small ? That at least could explain the difference between your 1.5K and my far higher count i recall.
1.5K sounds rather ridiculous. Can't even conquer an irish county with that.

[WindBlownLeaf]

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İlk olarak WindBlownLeaf tarafından gönderildi:

Yes, you get about 1.5k along with a few OP courtiers

Which sadly is only a drop in the bucket compared to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ im currently in the middle of.

1.5K is not too much, no. ;)
Indeed.

That is not even close to the numbers i recall to have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ last time....or it's indeed only child of destiny or such...Well maybe the numbers of event troops are simply relative to your at the time existing realm troops and your realm was reather small ? That at least could explain the difference between your 1.5K and my far higher count i recall.
1.5K sounds rather ridiculous. Can't even conquer an irish county with that.

i probably got unlucky because the king of england revoked my title and i lost 3 territories before this happened

[roach]

You do! Usually the first time you go to war three event stacks of troops show up on your side. The real bonus is the commanders, they are three super high stat young devil worshiper women who make great counselors or wives.

[WindBlownLeaf]

İlk olarak roach tarafından gönderildi:

You do! Usually the first time you go to war three event stacks of troops show up on your side. The real bonus is the commanders, they are three super high stat young devil worshiper women who make great counselors or wives.

like i said i did get them. however it wasnt enough to defeat my enemies because i got excommunicated and the king revoked my titles as well

[zuniger]

I mean its not good gameplay but its realistic lol. Degeneracy cause societal collapse and horrible frail leaders that need the blood of innocence XD

[roach]

it's alot easier if you're independent, but then where's the fun?

[galadon3]

İlk olarak Goyim_Pride tarafından gönderildi:

I mean its not good gameplay but its realistic lol. Degeneracy cause societal collapse and horrible frail leaders that need the blood of innocence XD

Why is it not good gameplay? CK2 always had a lot of RP-elements, you have quite a lot of events where you can very easily make out the most efficient outcome, but they have others that realisticly fit certain character traits and have the apropriate consequences.
CK2 just doesn't force you to take those, even if they'd fit your characters traits, but always gave you the option to roleplay,
Same as it offers any starting character, even those who are in really really horrible starting positions. And the starting dates are more oriented on historical facts then on balancing them somehow.

[WindBlownLeaf]

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İlk olarak Goyim_Pride tarafından gönderildi:

I mean its not good gameplay but its realistic lol. Degeneracy cause societal collapse and horrible frail leaders that need the blood of innocence XD

Why is it not good gameplay? CK2 always had a lot of RP-elements, you have quite a lot of events where you can very easily make out the most efficient outcome, but they have others that realisticly fit certain character traits and have the apropriate consequences.
CK2 just doesn't force you to take those, even if they'd fit your characters traits, but always gave you the option to roleplay,
Same as it offers any starting character, even those who are in really really horrible starting positions. And the starting dates are more oriented on historical facts then on balancing them somehow.

I mean yeah, it's just weird because the whole idea of worshipping the devil is power. God is supposed to be the one you worship ideologically though you get less results, while devil worship damns your eternal soul but gives you benefits on earth.
Worshipping the devil has now become the thing to do for ideological (or roleplay in this case) reasons even though the benefits are trash. Very backward.

[galadon3]

The usual theme of demonic pacts is you get some benefits and in the end fail. I'd say it worked well.
Also pulling a devilworshipper empire in a medieval VERY religious world, should be hard, after all you are doing stuff most people would be horrified about when they learn of it and despise you.

[zuniger]

İlk olarak galadon3 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Goyim_Pride tarafından gönderildi:

I mean its not good gameplay but its realistic lol. Degeneracy cause societal collapse and horrible frail leaders that need the blood of innocence XD

Why is it not good gameplay? CK2 always had a lot of RP-elements, you have quite a lot of events where you can very easily make out the most efficient outcome, but they have others that realisticly fit certain character traits and have the apropriate consequences.
CK2 just doesn't force you to take those, even if they'd fit your characters traits, but always gave you the option to roleplay,
Same as it offers any starting character, even those who are in really really horrible starting positions. And the starting dates are more oriented on historical facts then on balancing them somehow.

Shouldn't both be effective? If Option A is alot worse then option B then towards a certain point its wouldn't even be worth doing right?

[WindBlownLeaf]

İlk olarak Goyim_Pride tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak galadon3 tarafından gönderildi:

Why is it not good gameplay? CK2 always had a lot of RP-elements, you have quite a lot of events where you can very easily make out the most efficient outcome, but they have others that realisticly fit certain character traits and have the apropriate consequences.
CK2 just doesn't force you to take those, even if they'd fit your characters traits, but always gave you the option to roleplay,
Same as it offers any starting character, even those who are in really really horrible starting positions. And the starting dates are more oriented on historical facts then on balancing them somehow.

Shouldn't both be effective? If Option A is alot worse then option B then towards a certain point its wouldn't even be worth doing right?

You can make a case for playing devil worshippers if you don't compare them to anyone else on the grounds that very careful use of their powers can help you come out ahead, at least a little, but as soon as you compare against other societies they just lose out.

Like I said in my original post, a lot of their benefits are neutralized by the negatives of being part of the society. Like traits and stat bonuses being nullified by accumulating all sorts of trash traits and stat maluses. Whereas the other societies either have no penalty (nothing bad happens when being part of the monastic orders) and it seems hermetics can remove stressed and depressed so...

Yeah I agree with you. Hard to say they are not simply worse than other societies. And this is after I put about 20~30 hours trying to make them work.

It's truly awful that not only do the powers cause bad traits and maluses to pile up, even doing the events and missions cause this! So you should basically never do missions because they only give more dark power (which must be used extremely sparingly anyway, so having a lot of it is pointless) and you need to pick and choose which events to do. Which in and of itself is not a problem. Except even when you pick the 'good' events, like rituals which provide stackable benefits, and events that give good traits (brawny, cruel, ambitious etc.) there is a pretty big chance of things going tits up, giving you frail, dull, lunatic, arbitrary etc.

(And to make things even WORSE, the game is constantly making rolls in the background to give you bad traits even if you don't do anything. And don't even get me started on all the absolutely terrible, awful events you get from having possessed and lunatic...)

Again, other societies mostly do not have to deal with this high-risk, small reward playstyle. From my limited experimenting, hermetic society gives the flavor of being part of a secretive, supernatural group without all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of being a demon worshipper

[galadon3]

İlk olarak Goyim_Pride tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak galadon3 tarafından gönderildi:

Why is it not good gameplay? CK2 always had a lot of RP-elements, you have quite a lot of events where you can very easily make out the most efficient outcome, but they have others that realisticly fit certain character traits and have the apropriate consequences.
CK2 just doesn't force you to take those, even if they'd fit your characters traits, but always gave you the option to roleplay,
Same as it offers any starting character, even those who are in really really horrible starting positions. And the starting dates are more oriented on historical facts then on balancing them somehow.

Shouldn't both be effective? If Option A is alot worse then option B then towards a certain point its wouldn't even be worth doing right?

I see you do NOT understand the difference betwen RP-playstyle and a pure win-effective playstlye I guess.
I would agree with you that it would be bad in a game that doesn't have the former, like total war. It makes a lot of sense to have a bad decision that you CAN take if you want to play it fitting the character you are playing but aren't forced to, if you want to just paint the map.

[galadon3]

İlk olarak WindBlownLeaf tarafından gönderildi:

Again, other societies mostly do not have to deal with this high-risk, small reward playstyle. From my limited experimenting, hermetic society gives the flavor of being part of a secretive, supernatural group without all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of being a demon worshipper

The hermetics aren't supernatural, they CAN have some supernatural events if you don't deactivate them. But in general they are just into science, their potions are alchemy not magic, wich the satan worshippers are without the shadow of a doubt.

And as I said not every society is good for every playstyle. I think the demon worshippers are mainly good for two things:
A) being a small lord, using the powers very sparingly and pointed to further intrigues to gain more power and trying to stay low profile, since there are some options that are hard to come by with other groups (maybe the Assassins are the closest and they lack the option to make people loyal).
B) Going all in but that needs you to be already in a position of power to either BE a ruler already or to topple him directly, also that needs about as much carefull groundwork as switching religion. You need to build a good base of followers in the realm before you strike.

That said, the more effective ones for standard gameplay are the monastic and hermetic groups or if you are a tribal warlord nothing beats the warrior lodge, especially as a viking.

Some ppl don't really realize that but the ability to have an apprentice is actually one of the most powerfull abilities of the hermetics.