I realize that many things must be removed/changed over the course of development to better serve the overall gameplay design, but a few touches from older builds hold a special place in my heart. Maddened overseers renaming their workshops If an overseer became crazy enough, they might name their workshop something like: Brazencowl's Sinister Corpse Boilers (the actual names were far more clever than that). Maybe this is still in the game, but I've watched my despairing overseers closely and haven't seen it happen yet. Malfeasant Clawbulbs Evil plants that cultists sometimes grew in your farms, acting as "weeds" and taking over precious space from healthy plants. I think Fish Person corpses also caused them to spring up. I liked these because they made farming more interesting. Many players found then irritating - since farming could be challenging enough on its own. Now that farms are pretty easy and straightforward, I hope to see their return in some form, even if it's an event. Researching artifacts with the Macroscope So, I spent way too much time watching my scientists pick up a fishy idol, bring it to the macroscope, and study it until they either failed, brought prestige to the empire, or just went completely bonkers. Even more fun was Lord Palmerstroke's Science Crate. Some truly bizarre things could happen from researching that. Now the macroscope is only a static prop that increases research speed, and your scientists only stand next to chalkboards having their bars fill up. If a scientist researches a tenebrous block, they'll walk up to it and smash it to bits. That's funny, but just not the same. How Cults used to form This is a tricky one. Cults used to form somewhat organically. Colonists would have to be "seeded" by something like finding an artifact and becoming humbled by the cosmos, then they'd need to be maddened enough to attempt to form a cult with someone else. The problem was that there were so many conditions for that to happen (rules involving class, friendships, time of day, madness levels etc.), that it became incredibly rare to see one form, and impossible to have more two colonists per cult. I get why this was changed, but I can see the remnants are still there. It would be cool if this system came back, if possible, in conjunction with the new cult event system.
I agree completely, and I feel like the system to handle it is there. Especially for cults! Right now, cults feel like the game telling you "You aren't taking care of your colonists and they are unhappy, so here is a punishment." Hopefully that can be replaced with something like a Riot, and cults can once again be something... special and sinister. Honestly, to test the Cultist code adding in things like Communist Plots and Foreign Traitors would be awesome. Heck, even a riot could use cultist style code... someone protesting can recruit other colonists into protesting, until it hits critical mass and a full blown riot occurs. It would be really cool to see cellular automata slowly grind your colony apart! But that might just be the programmer in me speaking. I hope Cults become something truly special eventually.
I don't want Cults as punishment, I want them as a game feature I want Riots and Communist Plots and Foreign Traitors and Theft and Running off to join the Bandits as punishments.
Ooh I do miss the first three. Especially the renamings and artifact research. But I actually haven't even been able to make my people start a cult since the old system died. So I guess I miss the cults most.
Big yes to all 4. Especially how cults used to establish and the role cults played as a aspect of your colony that shifted its behaviour rather than as just some ruler used to hit the player over the hands if their colony is found to be failing class. Suggested it way back when cult formation used to be problematic to trigger, that rather than replace the entire system with a on-rails event trigger one and call it job done. A better approach for solving the old formation issue would have been to have colonists wanting to form cults have some additional intelligence checks in place in who they approached with their invitation, rather than picking "Sir Bramblebush the third, fiercely patriotic and devoutly religious 2nd cousin to the queen"... just because they happened to be nearby and looked like a interesting chap to hit up. That way not only would it make cult formation more easy to happen if you actually wanted it to happen, but if colonists wanting to form cults had to find colonists exhibiting certain behaviours or characteristics that developed only when things were more dire (or after certain discoveries) it would also provide a bit of a safety net for players to respond and tackle problems to stop taking hold and stop the cultpocalypse before it even happened.
