Cults! Overview

Cults! is a strategy/resource management game themed around feuding cult leaders vying for their own specific goals. Each cult leader has specific abilities that alter the way you play the game. Cult leaders, and by extension, their cults, have 3 resources: Cultists, Fervor, and Supplies. Each resource is represented by a small pool of tokens that can be gained, lost and played for specific effects.

Cultists are a measure of manpower. Cultists are used to capture locations, and all actions require you to assign at least 1 Cultist to the action to play it. An assigned cultist cannot be assigned to another action or location unless they are recalled. 

Fervor is a measure of devotion. Fervor is spent and gained by a variety of actions and abilities, is used to capture locations, and causes you to lose 1 cultist for every cultist you have over your Fervor each turn.

Supplies: Are consumed and raised by a variety of actions and abilities, and used when relocating your cult's HQ. At the beginning of each turn, for every 5 cultists you have you must spend 1 Supply to feed them or gain 1 Heat as your negligence attracts attention.  

In addition to those 3 resources, players must also keep track of their Heat. Heat measures how much attention a player's cult has managed to attract from police. Heat applies penalties to certain actions, and if it gets too high can result in a Police Raid and the loss of a significant amount of Fervor, Cultists, and Supplies.

Each cult leader starts with a specific number of the three resources and heat, which I'll determine once the entire skeleton of the game has been established.

Leader	Cultists	Fervor	Resources	Heat
Amy & Roald	High	High	Low	Low
Symbion Decinque	Low	High	Medium	High
Berthold Masani	High	Low	Medium	Low
James America	Medium	Medium	High	Medium

When players choose their cult leaders at the beginning of the game, they also choose 2 Tenets. Tenets have benefits and drawbacks, and are chosen from a deck of Tenets specific to each cult leader. Some Tenet examples are:

Ascetics (James America) Your cultists take up a vow of fasting, so that hunger would bring them closer to the natural world. Your cultists only consume 1 supply for every 10 cultists you have. You lose 1 supply every turn as long as you have more Supplies than Fervor.  

Shepherds (Amy & Roald) Your doors are always open, your beds always full. Anytime you gain any number of cultist you gain an extra cultist. (If you would gain 1 cultist you gain 2. If you would gain 4 cultists you gain 5).

The Elite (Symbion Decinque) Power is the language of change, and you speak very loudly. Once per turn you may have 1 cultist count as 2 cultists for the purpose of playing an action. When you gain any amount of heat you gain an extra heat.

Once each player has chosen their cult leader and assembled their 3 pools of resources, the game can begin. A turn is, at this point in development, this:

1) Return: Any actions played last turn that are not ongoing are placed in their owners discard pile, and any cultists assigned to those actions are recalled to their pools. Any ongoing costs, such as feeding your cultists, are also paid at this time. Ongoing benefits, such as from a significant cultist, location, item, etc. can also be collected on during this, or any, phase other than the End phase.

 2) Event: Draw a card from the event deck and follow its instructions. You may play actions before or after the effect of the event card goes into play.

3) Act: Actions may be played, locations may be captured, and abilities of cards on the field may be activated. This will most likely be the longest segment of your turn. You may play as many actions as you have cultists to spare, and you may capture any locations whose requirements you meet. You may also complete any step of an objective.

4)  End. Gain 1 heat. It is now the next player's turn.

I'll post the second half of my current work soon, with definitions for actions, locations, zones, capturing, and everything else I bulldozed through to try and get the bare essentials laid out.

A really rough mock-up of the board. From outside in it's: Rural, Suburban, and Urban. Each zone has four slots for location cards from its respective location deck, chosen at random.