General advice for davkul run?

[NICE COQ]

Hi fellas,

I could use a few suggestions for the cultist start, I'm a new player (around 50h in game), and I wanted to try the davkul cult after achieving to go above day 100 with a vanilla start on medium medium difficulty

I don't really struggle that much with contracts/ fights in the early game, but most of my men leave after the first sacrifice, and the conversion event rarely happens.

It just sucks to lose level 4-5 bros this early, I just don't know what to do better.

So basically any advices in general for this start would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[turtle225]

Hire every Cultist you see. Even if they have bad stats find a use for them.

Try to chain ambitions quickly to keep mood up.

One exception is that you can use the "have a man with rally" ambition or the "hire a retinue" ambition as a way to try and counter the mood drop from the first or second sacrifice event. Just keep the ambition there and don't take the perk or buy the retinue until the event happens.

Try to fight a lot (and win) to keep mood up. Drink at the tavern. Avoid retreating and deaths if possible. Don't hire expensive backgrounds until you are sure you can keep them happy.

The sacrifice event has a 21 day cooldown and can't happen until day 6. It then has an increasingly likely chance of happening every day until it happens. Try to pay attention to the cooldown so you can have an idea of when to expect it to happen.

The sacrifice event will choose from your 4 lowest level bros, so if you want to ensure it doesn't take anyone you care about then eventually keep 3 cheap level 1 guys in the party to ensure you can sac one.

Eventually you can craft happy powders to use as emergency to offset the mood drop on important non-cultists in your team.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Napo:

Hi fellas,

I could use a few suggestions for the cultist start, I'm a new player (around 50h in game), and I wanted to try the davkul cult after achieving to go above day 100 with a vanilla start on medium medium difficulty

I don't really struggle that much with contracts/ fights in the early game, but most of my men leave after the first sacrifice, and the conversion event rarely happens.

It just sucks to lose level 4-5 bros this early, I just don't know what to do better.

So basically any advices in general for this start would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Davkul has some similarities to Peasent Militia in the way how to handle your mercs.
- See a Cultist? Take it with you, no matter how bad hey are
- Mood dropped and you are close enough to a city? Pour beer on the problem
- Get the chance to fight Necrosavants? Fight them and make happy poweder out of them
It takes a while to really get going and you usually suffer more set backs then with other companies but in pays out in the long run.

Special tip for later on:
- Grab every Hedge Knight you see
- Throw them in your enemies faces
- Hope for Brain Damage permanent injury
- Profit

[Russ]

In general gameplay, I found it necessary to play the cultist early game way different than other starts as in general I try to avoid minimizing deaths to the point of having a lot of 0 death clears, but with cultists every non-cultist bro (early on) is 100% fodder.

So the way I start is try to aim for 4 decentish starting cultists, then look for ranged stuff like polearms or javelins. Also don't underestimate the whip you start with. It completely wrecks any enemy whose armor you've stripped and can have complete coverage of a small front line with no aim penalty like a normal ranged weapon - your whip guy should be whoever has the highest matk, and will usually have the most kills early on, by far.

Then grab 4 of the cheapest guys you can find, cripples, beggars or whatever. And they're now your front line, with your precious cultists on the backline. Try to ensure you get all kills with your cultists. Your front line is there simply to die and/or be sacrificed if they somehow live. After you sacrifice somebody, strip your fodder (that's at angry morale) of their equipment, to avoid losing it if/when they desert.

To find more cultist recruits look for towns around swamps. They spawn very regularly there. Also as another thing, there's a cultist event for making armor/helmets that triggers based on the number of low quality helms/armors in your inventory. So, for instance, start collecting hoods. It can fire every 15 days and is not only really helpful early on, but can also delay a sacrifice event. Although, sacrifices make your cultists even stronger, so there's a balance to be had there.

I think this is now my favorite start. It's just so radically different than other starts in terms of playstyle.

[gvandinteren]

Check all premium backgrounds that can be dumb, for this trait. Check the wiki for this.

Have 3 Indebted at least to sacrifice. They can get angry but never leave. If you lack Indebted, get cheap inconvertible bros like Monks to sac. Just be aware they will all leave when that happens.

If you find a good bro to convert, make sure he is the only bro that can convert. When he is converted, find the next one.

Get the mod that increases the likelihood of the Davkul armor events. It also increases the speed of gaining candles.

Your highest level cultist (most candles) will become prophet. A high fatigue banner is the best Prophet you can have. If your battle forged hammer frontliner becomes Prophet,that is very not useful.

Davkul origin is for looooong campaigns. It is not a very good choice for a newbie player.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

As gvandinteren said, hiring indebted is pretty good. They're cheap for sacrifices. I didn't bother much with non cultists either. I hired cultists only, and focused on a melee run as their ranged skills are poor (I think I managed to get one excellent crossbowman but almost never used it).
Considering how long it can take to get a prophet (if that's your goal) and a full party with Davkul traits, plenty of bros will be above level 20-25 (more if you use experience potions) quickly enough so don't bother much with conversion. Your "A-team" will be extremely strong even without stars. It took, me more than 450 days to get that prophet. Enough time to uncover the whole map and destroy camps one after the other and be loaded with the best gear.
Bad cultists that won't be excellent at level 20 are bound to die or be sacrificed as you won't use them much.

Be sure to go to the arena, the combination of Davkul trait and arena trait makes your whole party confident most of the game. This makes your band of cultists one of the strongest party you can have.

[NICE COQ]

Thank you VERY MUCH to everyone for the useful advices, seems like I have a lot to try now.

Best of luck on your journey battle bros!

[99Random]

Originally posted by turtle225:

The sacrifice event has a 21 day cooldown and can't happen until day 6. It then has an increasingly likely chance of happening every day until it happens. Try to pay attention to the cooldown so you can have an idea of when to expect it to happen.

To expand a little here with two notes:
- The idea is when it has been 21 days (or so) since the last sacrifice, stay near a settlement with a tavern until you can make happy powder.
- There as a great post a while back (cannot find it!) that really helped me game this a bit because it mentioned that the event will not happen when on a road (seems to be accurate with my 700 day Davkul run).

So once the 21 days hits stay on a hang around the tavern and stay off the roads and it pops really reliably.

[Trappist]

Oh and apologies if this has already been said and i missed it but map seed makes a huge difference. If you find a map with several settlements in Swampy terrain these have a much higher chance of offering Cultist recruits.

[gvandinteren]

My suggestion would be to do another origin before diving into Davkul, really.

Peasant Militia would be a perfect prequel to Davkul

[Kill'em ALL]

The Paymaster retinue member lowers the chance of desertion by 50%, and can be taken very early (the only condition is to have 16 men).