By the way, what formation do you run generally? I used to go 7 in front - 4 tanks, 3 2H or Duelist - and 5 in the back, with 1 banner, 2 archers, and 2 polearms. But I think I am going to switch up and go 3 tanks instead of 4 to add a bit more damage.

And now 15 hours in - at about 75 days - and I am beginning to feel overpowered again. We shall see when I hit serious opposition though. I tend to play the long game - interminably long game in fact. Most of my games go over 500 days and some over 1k. What's your general approach in your games - and the current Davkul run in particular? Let's trade notes!

P.S. Did you ever write that report you were going to post about how Urtuk became a better game the last few months?

Things are stabilizing a bit now though. I have a decent group of true Cultists (albeit they are still Cultists) and a few more elite Background characters who converted (a Hedge Knight and two Hunters). Basically, I am looking for either Dumb elite Background recruits from henceforth - or save scum the Arena with Surgeon to have characters with Brain Damage. I almost never save scum, and I've learned that it is unavoidable with this Origin, if I want to have the same usual star-studded cast, because there simply aren't enough Dumb elite Background recruits.

-continued-

Unfortunately, it turns out that I would have trouble having those elite recruits stay. Gah! So I had to - crying while eating rotten eggs (Korean expression meaning something like doing something you don't want, because you have no choice) - recruit predominantly Cultists in the early days. And this is why you see the obituary being so full on my last screenshot. Just brutal; I've never had this many deaths in the early stage of the game - not even when I started the game (admittedly, I didn't play Ironman nor Expert/Expert when I started though!).

-continued-

Regarding the Cultist Origin: I do agree wholeheartedly that it can be a formidable Origin, if one makes it to the end. Indeed, I am an infamous and inveterate min-maxer among the Steam BB community, and this was the appeal of the Origin. 40 extra stat points plus mini-Iron Lungs, plus some other goodies? Yes, yes! But because I had tended to start in the past with either the Lone Wolf Origin (with a free event Squire thrown in) or the Gladiator Origin, I always began with elite recruits and had no trouble in early combat. Obviously, that is not the case with the Cultists. So I had to come up with elite recruits in a hurry, and the result was more mods - most specifically, the one that increases the number of recruits in a town. I basically recruited every Farmhand and Lumberjack I could find and RnG meant that I'd come up golden once in a while.

-continued-

This run, however, I, too am modding my game rather heavily. I think I have about 9-10 mods active at the moment - though I am wary about adding more. Obviously the Indomitable restoration mod (it still works!), the mods that I had used back around the BD launch period, and this time even some "cheat" type of mods. Probably the most egregious one is the one that lets me enter arena combat infinite times a day. I was able to earn lots of cash and XP from early on this way. Of course, I feel a bit guilty, given the mod's effect on balance, but a Davkul start is so hard - and unusual for me - that I felt I absolutely needed it.

-continued-