Cult of the Lamb - Wish I Knew Sooner. Tips, Tricks, Game Knowledge For New Players
Intro
Cult of the Lamb is the hottest indie roguelite on the market right now, and if you're new to the genre or looking to refine your cult leader skills, we've got you covered. Hey there friends, it's Kodiak. Here's a welcome back to Legacy gaming.
Smash everything
Cult of the Lamb We're going to lead with an oldie but a goodie, A tip I've shared in a few different roguelite articles now.
It's simple but effective at helping you with some important resources like brass stone crystals and more. Faster weapons make things more efficient, but nearly any weapon will get the job done.
Good crops, happy flock
Moving on to another simple but important tip: if you're a progression-minded person, you need to use fertilizer on your crops, especially crops that are used for food whenever possible. The bigger your cult, the easier it is to obtain more followers, which ultimately means lots of perfect veggie fertilizer.
Your crops increase your yield, and in the early game, this is a game changer. I promise you, holding on to all that poop is doing you no good, so spread it around your fields and don't think twice; eventually you'll be able to build a fertilizer. Your farmers can pull from it to spread it onto the fields, but if you're still early on in your adventures, you'll need to do the dirty work yourself.
I'd also recommend building an outhouse near your farm to cut down on the time it takes to collect the poop and then use it to grow your crops. You might not think it's a big deal, but that extra time running might just be enough to convince you not to make the effort, and that's a huge mistake .
Wood problem
Early on in Cult of the Lamb, getting wood can be a bit of a challenge. The resources that are available in your base and even at the Pilgrim's passage zone are not enough to sustain a growing cult, so what do you do well? The first thing is to be on the lookout for wood stops during your dungeon crawl.
While this might not be the most sustainable way to collect it, it can be a quick fix to an ever-present early game problem. I also recommend building yourself a missionary and sending out your followers on wood runs as soon as possible. The thought of losing a follower is scary. I get it, but running out of wood completely stifles your growth, and followers are almost easier to get than wood at this point in the game.
Finally, build yourself some lumber yards. This should be one of the first buildings you unlock because it's essential to your growth. It's easy enough to access in phase two of the early game and provides you with plenty of resources. Heck, throw down two or three and watch the wood roll in. You'll use it all. Trust me.
The lighthouse
One of the first side areas you unlock in the game is Pilgrim's Passage. Here you can fish for food, but you can also take on a small lighthouse side mission. The first leg of the journey has you providing the keepers of the light with, you guessed it, wood. By completing the first part of the quest, the keepers will now pray to you, allowing you to scoop up a tiny bit of devotion.
Two small shops will also open up in the area, on one side selling tarot cards and on the other, decorations. Don't be fooled, your work isn't done. There's actually a part two to this quest, which requires you to bring 25 crystals back to the keepers. These can be found throughout the deep dungeon, primarily by smashing the crystals around some of the encounter areas.
Bring back 25 to the keepers and you'll unlock a new follower form.
Don't sleep on affixes
One of the things the game doesn't do a great job explaining is affixes. That can impact specific maps during your dungeon crawling. While moving between zones, you'll notice small icons under some of the map markers. These indicate specific challenges or opportunities within that region.
Each affix has one negative component and one positive component. For example, one affix might double gold drops, but all enemies will leave behind a pool of poison when they die. It's a tit-for-tat relationship that you should factor into your runs because it's not just gold you can scoop up, it can be Hearts Food tarot, cards, and more .
Tarot card
Besides your weapon and abilities, tarot cards are the single most important aspect of your dungeon crawl. Plus, these are tarot cards with slightly better properties than their standard counterparts, and in most cases, it's a pretty big deal.
20 instead of 10 and two, hearts instead of one, all good things.
Easy to find upgrades
speaking of our friend the fortune teller, how about a little trick to know where they're hiding on each map while there aren't a whole lot of indicators? As you move from room to room, one thing you'll notice is that you can always tell where the shops are.
It's easy enough; just look above the entrance way between the rooms. If you see hanging stars and moons, you're about to walk into the fortune teller. If you see hanging swords, you're about to run into the item vendor. I think most players will clear an entire zone before moving on to a new map.
They're small enough, but, in all honesty, it's just nice to have a bit more control.
A meal a day keeps the devil at bay
before rushing out to fight, it's important to eat your fruits and veggies. In all seriousness, there is a true benefit to eating before you dive into a dungeon. First, you need to unlock hunger. You can do this by defeating any of the bosses in the game and taking that item that you get and bringing it back to your temple to unlock the effect.
By scarfing down a meal no matter what, you'll actually start the run with an additional armor heart. This is a temporary heart, one that goes away if you get hit, but still one more than you had before. If you're on the cutting edge of progression, this is a big deal as some of the dungeons can be a bit unpredictable, so going in with an edge really does help.
Inspire & extort
Something you learn early on in the game is to spend a little one-on-one time with your followers, but as your focus shifts to progression, this can often be more tedious than anything else. It may seem like a pain, but going through the motions to praise and extort your followers has a huge upside.
By praising followers, you not only collect devotion but also level them up, which has some decent benefits. Chief among them is better success rates during missionary trips. As I mentioned before, the missionary is your key to things like wood early on, and if you decide to really lean into the system, you can make a killing.
The other action, extortion, comes into the picture a bit later on in the game, but that's because gold only becomes a real factor later on by extorting your flock. As soon as you unlock the action, you can start collecting coins, which you'll eventually need to turn into gold bars. All the systems are connected, and it starts with a simple act of praise. Your followers for some coins.
