Has Anyone seen their Cults do Anything?

Ever since all old cult activities were reintroduced (building shrines, murder sprees, transformations, etc.), I've been hoping to play around with some of these systems by letting cults form freely. I never build chapels, chemists, or even breweries, I try to have at least a couple of fishy colonists at start, and I mine feverishly for artifacts--all while keeping the colony somewhat on edge with occasional starvation and violent outbreaks.

While I can manage to get cults going, they don't seem to... practice their religions. Even long after they form (thirty-plus day games) and apparent increases of madness. The most I get is a request to build shrines, which I always accept, but they never actually do.

Possible problems:

-I think I recall reading in one of the old updates that cults need at least three members to start building shrines. For some reason, this has been incredibly difficult for me to accomplish. Two seems to be the limit, even if I have multiple cults in one colony.

-They just haven't accumulated enough madness?

-A bug, or balance issue

-I'm unlucky

 

That seems like a balance issue...

 

Played a few games of 38 and still no luck. I get plenty of cults, but never beyond two members each, and they don't do anything you'd expect a cult to do.

Well actually, they do "preach occult ideas" during gossip sessions, presumably spreading madness, but never appear to recruit new members beyond the founding two.

 

I've not managed to get a single cult on my playthrough of rev38 so far. I'm on day 40 odd.

Is that normal? How long did you guys have to wait to see cult activity?

I have lots of colonists who have had the ominous dreams event in various flavours and one (in the current playthough) who has researched a fishy idol (speaking of which - the transformation error FSM is still in effect) and totally lost it, but still no cults?

 

I had a migrant soldier arrive and go straight into combat with a fish. He had the fishiness trait; total time from arrival to being flagged as insane, about two seconds. That very night he started trying to form a cult, succeeded on his second night with another soldier joining. Ended the game before hitting magic number three.

 

One of my 7 dwarves was a "maddened intellectual", who randomly went crazy in the cabbage field by "embracing eldritch visions". She recruited one man who was starving to death inside an oven, who died later that day. She never found another recruit, despite me throwing every Maddened Intellectual/Fishy/Morbid immigrant into her workgroup, and a cannibal ex-Bandit iirc.

I have two Artifacts in my stockpile from mining. The guy who dug up the second one managed to start a second cult (20 feet away from someone starving to death inside a bed!), nothing has come of it yet.

I don't remember who found the first artifact, there was at least one "tried to start a cult but wasn't interested" message between the two artifacts so maybe that was them.

 

Yeah, I've had a couple of games like that. I don't think the ominous dream event has any real effect on the desire to start cults. I get those quite a bit and nothing comes of it. I'm not sure about the artifact studying thing--that might have done it eventually. Do the devs know about that error btw? I thought they fixed it but it may have been re-broken.

Usually the fastest/easiest way to get a cult started is to have your fishy-trait colonists get attacked by fish people--early and often. Finding artifacts can do it of course, but that can take forever, and I believe some colonists have traits that actually make them immune. Then there's the "bad" result from studying one's lineage, but again that can be hard to come by.

Overall, it's apparently nearly (or completely) impossible to get more than two people in your cults, so I'm glad David's looking into it.

 

Sorry I should have made it a bit more obvious that I was reporting a bug XD

The error happens when the transformation is about to occur I believe. The artifact was researched a few times before the error popped up with inconclusive results. As soon as a discovery was made the error message popped up too. Given the flavour text around the artifact and the content of the error message (along the lines of: fsm transformation disabled) I think the colonist was about to become a fishperson.

I know there was a topic about it previously - has anyone managed to witness a fishy transformation yet? There is a video of Alephreds on YouTube with the exact error message when he attempted to get a colonist to transform. I'm sending this off my phone but I'll put a link to it once I'm back at a computer.
*Edit - I checked the video and my error message was different. Al's is; FSM building_study_item being disabled. Mine was something like; FSM colonist_transformation_item being disabled.

It's quite funny how we are having to try so hard to get a cult to form these days. I remember a few revisions ago every 5th colonist would become a victim of frontier justice as they would be so keen to start cultish activity.

 

I can confirm that as of 38A, cults can recruit beyond two members and shrines can be built. This makes me unnaturally happy. All hail the Proclamation of the Skull!

 

I'm still struggling to get any cults to form.

Perhaps I'm too nice an overseer - should I stop provide bedding and food to...encourage...cult activity?

Any tips would be welcomed!

 

Here's my method:

As soon as you start a game, check your colonists for the Fishy Behavior trait. If there isn't one, quit and restart until you find it. One is enough, more is better.

Get to know your fishy colonist. Allow them to be harassed by Fish People. This shouldn't be too difficult if you don't build any defenses--your single NCO will be pretty occupied for awhile. Soon enough you'll notice that he/she is starting to lose a grasp on sanity. They will be "humbled by the malign vastness of the cosmos". Save fairly often in case your potential cult leader is killed.

Always allow criminals into your colony. I'm fairly sure they're more "open-minded" if asked to join a cult.

Watch your colonist at night. Much of the time, they'll just... quiver and shake with insanity (as of 38A they walk crazy too). It make take a few nights, and a few more fish attacks, but eventually they'll attempt to form a cult with someone. Once you establish your cult, save the game. More should be recruited over time.

Don't build a brewery, chemist, or chapel, as they can quell your cult potential. Beds and food should be fine though.

Meanwhile you should be looking for artifacts, as almost anyone who finds one will go through the same process. But as you know, sometimes it takes awhile to even find one.

 

That is great. Just the sort of tutorial I needed!

I thought it had something to do with the fishy behavior trait. I have now managed to get 2 individuals who are on the verge of forming cults. Both have the fishy behaviour trait, one went mad from fish people attacks, the other was pushed over the edge by researching an artifact. One has tried but not yet managed to find any other suitable worshippers. I'm sure they will eventually. What I don't understand is why they don't talk to each other - I have put them in the same work crew to foster their relationship but they seem to ignore each other.