March 16, 20--
The coppery stench of my brothers’ blood floods my nose. Let it not be said that I was cruel; they were sleeping the sleep of the just when I slit their throats. No room in here for those old elaborate ritual suicides anyhow.
And yet I find myself wishing for those old days. Or even just one day. Yesterday would have been much more auspicious for sacrifices such as these, for reasons both obvious and eldritch. We thought we could move, could relocate the Mask, but there weren’t enough of us left to carry it safely. The Hiding was the best I could do, powered by the death of the willing, but I suspect it may be all for nothing. Literally a day late.
I still don’t know when They began tracking us. At first it seemed like nothing, a couple of brethren waylaid in the types of dark alleys where our tasks sometimes take us, a necessary risk of the calling. But it became clear that there was more to it, that our movements were being tracked, our behaviors monitored, our haunts surveilled. No one should even know we exist, much less where we congregate.
And yet.
The Mask is behind me, in its cradle of stone and iron; I can feel its pulse in my veins, beckoning. I have trained my entire life to ignore it, to protect it, to hide it. So have my brothers, those now breathless and lifeless, the gossamer threads of my working thick in the air as the stench, my final attempt to guard that which They must not find.
I can already feel the threads unraveling. It won’t be long before they are here, and I am but one man. How can I [illegible scribbling]
--unfinished journal entry found near the Mask of Many Faces
The first expansion for Evil Cult called the Artifacts of the Arcane is out! As you've likely guessed from the title and the short fiction, this expansion deals with the occult artifacts. When the expansion is enabled in the start new game menu, the gameplay changes - now your adepts require such artifacts to be upgraded into priests. The artifacts will appear on the map once your sects find them. There are four unique ones, and others are randomly generated. Once the artifact is bound to a priest, it stays with them until their death. You can find out more detailed information about the expansion in the game manual.
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. 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 called Long 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. The Devoted Sects flag enables the use of basic resources to buff the sects growth speed. While the sect is devoted, its various parameters are raised.
The full changelog is as follows:
- Artifacts of the Arcane expansion
- Gameplay flags: No blitz victory, Long rituals, Devoted sects
- Save/Load game menu items are now fixed and re-enabled.
- 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).
- Adjusted the hard difficulty AI to make it easier for the player
- 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 them, 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