Cults! Overview Pt. 2

A single turn of gameplay is broken up into 4 phases. I already gave brief outlines of those phases in my first post, and I'll go through the phases in more detail at the end of this post. First, I will explain the different types of cards in this game and the values on them.

1) Cult Leaders. Your Cult Leader card has the following fields: A unique name, a value for each of your three resources, and a starting heat value. Your cult leader does not have any special abilities themselves, but each cult leader has a small deck of 5 tenets that you can choose two from each game. The ability to mix and match tenets means that there are 10 different combinations for each Cult Leader.

2)  Actions. The most common card you will see and use are action cards. Each Cult Leader has a deck of action cards made up of cards common between all cult leaders: Credit Card scam, Knee-Breaker and cards specific to your cult leader Burn your gods (James America), A Happy Family (Amy & Roald). Each Action has a name, a cost, and an effect. In order to play actions, you must assign cultists equal to their cost, and potentially pay any other price listed in their effect. As an example, Burn your gods costs 2 cultists to play, and says Destroy up to 4 supplies, gain 1 fervor for each supply destroyed this way. If you have a Significant Cultist with the Pyromaniac trait, gain an extra fervor. You may only play action cards during your Act phase or in response to an event card.

I don't have any in-game images, so here's a cult leader to break up all these word word words. Listen to the Heaven's Gate podcast to learn more about him.

4) Locations. The game board is a circle divided into 3 zones. From outermost to innermost they are: Rural, Suburban, and Urban. Each zones has its own deck of locations. When the game begins, players lay locations down at random from each deck to its associated zone until all slots are filled. Some location cards are modifiers to locations, such as Decrepit, which is in both the rural and urban decks and says play another location on top of this one. That location costs -2 cultists to control but does not provide its effect. Modifier locations cannot be placed on top of other modifier locations. Other locations stand alone like Pharmacy (Suburban), which says Once per turn, you may gain 2 supplies and 1 heat. When you capture Pharmacy, search the Significant Cultist deck for an S.I. with the Poisoner trait and put them on top of the deck. All location cards that are not modifiers require a certain number of cultists assigned to them to capture. Once captured, the location is yours until you meet its loss condition even if the number of cultists assigned to it drops below its cost (to a minimum of 1, all locations have the loss condition "have no cultists on this location"). The loss condition for pharmacy reads, if  you trigger a police raid, lose all cultists assigned to this location and lose this location.

As a design note, rural locations generally do not increase your pool of cultists (or they do so at a cost or very slowly) but allow you to draw from the Significant Cultist deck more often than not. Suburban locations are the most punishing of high heat, but they also allow for the quickest accumulation of supplies. Urban locations allow the fastest accumulation of cultists, but are a severe drain on both fervor and supplies.

5) Significant Cultists. Certain cards and abilities will cause you to draw cards from the Significant Cultists deck. When you draw a Significant Cultist, place it in front of you in view of the other players. Each S.I. has at least 1 trait, and may have abilities as well. For instance, Thomas Peargreen has the trait Spiritual. Many locations, such as churches, provide bonuses to players who own a spiritual cultist. Thomas Peargreen also has the ability When you draw from the S.I deck, look at the top 2 cards and keep 1. 

And another one. You should watch Wild, Wild, Country to learn about him.

6) Events. After your return phase you must draw a card from the event deck. All event cards have a rural, suburban, and urban event on them. You can only choose an event from a zone that you control a location in. An example of an event card would read:

Rural: Forged Land Deed - "You manage to live off of someone else's land for a while before they run you off." You may use the abilities of one location you do not control this turn. If you do, gain 1 heat at the end of your turn.

Suburban: Book Club - "After a few meetings, you started introducing more esoteric books." You may add 1 cultist to your cultist pool for every suburban location you own.

Urban: Ad campaign -  "You gain a gaggle of lukewarm followers." Add 5 cultists to your pool, but lose 2 fervor.

7) Objectives. I don't think I've mentioned this card type yet. At the beginning of the game, you chose an objective from a selection open to every player. You choose in reverse play order. Objectives have unique names, and 3 conditions. Each condition must be met in order. Every time you complete a condition, you gain the marked amount of heat for that condition. Once you've completed all conditions on your objective, you win the game. Once you've completed a condition, you may complete the next condition, but all conditions must be true before you can win the game. An example of an objective is:

The Ascension Project

1. Gain a Significant Cultist with the poisoner trait. (5 Heat)
2. Pay 10 supplies. (6 Heat)
3. Have over 15 cultists in your cultist pool. (7 Heat)

If a player was trying to win via the ascension project, they would have to gain a Significant Cultist with poisoner first, then they would be allowed to complete the second condition when they had at least 10 supplies. But, if they somehow made it to 15 cultists, but lost their S.I. with poisoner, they would need to obtain another one in order to win the game. Conditions are completed automatically.

The final mechanic in this post is the Police Raid. When you reach or exceed 12 Heat, roll a d6, and roll a d6 every time you gain Heat after that. On a 1, 2, or 3, you've been raided. Your heat goes down to 1, you lose half of all resources, and you must immediately end your turn.