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Sorely in need of a Cult of the Lamb guide for beginners? Massive Monster’s roguelike game may seem cute and cuddly, but this heretical ovine is hiding a surprising amount of depth. Between managing the needs of your cult and venturing forth to slay the Cult of the Lamb bishops reigning over The Lands of the Old Faith, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.
If you’re completely new to the roguelike genre, don’t fret. Our Cult of the Lamb beginners guide includes the 12 best tips for novices and veterans alike, ranging from combat to cult management. Heed our advice, and starvation, dissension, and death will quickly become a thing of the past.
Enemies attack on sight so be stealthy by using cover
Unlike many other roguelikes, Cult of the Lamb’s regular mobs aren’t alerted to your presence the moment you enter their lair. Instead, they only become aggressive once they spot you, allowing for a certain degree of stealth. Hide in tall grass to ambush unsuspecting enemies, or use stone walls as cover to swiftly dispatch mobs before they can group together and overwhelm you.
Choose weapons to suit your attack style
Going along with the heavy RNG aspect of Cult of the Lamb, each weapon choice will be given to you at random. When you start a crusade, you’ll be given one random weapon and – after receiving your crown power – one random curse. While you have to take what you get here, further along your crusade you may be offered three curses, three weapons or combination of both from which to choose. Some weapons offer greater damage, others shorter cooldown speed, and they all vary in size and range. Get a feel for which you prefer, then choose wisely depending on your play style – particularly when it comes to curses.
You won’t receive contact damage so get up close and personal
Contact damage is common in roguelikes, but not so in Cult of the Lamb. You’re free to get as up close and personal with enemies as you like – and if you’re wielding a smaller weapon, it’s probably in your best interest. Just bear in mind that damage from your melee weapons is only dealt when enemies are caught in the animation of their swing. If you’re standing directly on top of an enemy to attack them, you won’t receive contact damage, but they won’t take a lick of damage either.
Time your dodges right to stay alive
This one’s fairly obvious but so useful, especially when you bear it in mind with the above point. Your little dodge roll is incredibly handy, particularly when there’s projectiles flying at you and multiple enemies closing in. Time it right, though, because you’re only invulnerable while rolling. Not just convenient for dodging attacks, you can also use the roll to quickly close any gaps between yourself and your attackers.
Learn the map icons so you know which route to pick
Each region has a randomly generated route map with diverging paths that all eventually converge upon the door to that region’s boss. You’ll often be forced to pick between multiple paths, with no indication of what the next area has in store aside from their icons.
Here are all of the Cult of the Lamb map icons and what they mean:
- Sword: Battle
- Wood: Lumber nodes
- Rocks: Stone nodes
- Kneeling figure: Follower
- House: Merchant
- Heart: Refill health
- Skull and bones: Boss
- Question mark: Event
As you continue through The Lands of the Old Faith, you’ll notice some map icons also come with sub-icons attached. Attached to merchants, these icons may reveal which merchant you can expect to see, aiding your decision making. With battle rooms, these can provide material bonuses, or they may switch your rewards from gold to food. Use these sub-icons alongside the main icons to help choose the more beneficial path for your current needs.
Destroy the environment for materials used in construction, recipes, and rituals
While you’re off wreaking havoc, your obedient cult followers will be hard at work gathering resources for you to put to good use. However, followers are restricted to collecting lumber and stone from nodes that spawn within the cult’s grounds – and we have a guide on how to get more wood and stone in Cult of the Lamb how to get more wood and stone in Cult of the Lamb if you’re starting to run low. As in most crafting games, both materials are great for construction, but useless for recipes and conducting rituals.
To acquire a wider variety of materials such as seeds, bones, and grass, you’ll want to get into the habit of breaking stuff while you’re busy quenching your thirst for bloodshed. You can even destroy the detritus surrounding merchants to gain a small amount of gold. Finally, if you’re desperately in need of a particular material, take heed of the route you’re taking through the region. Selecting a floor marked with a material will send you to a room full of the stuff to collect at your leisure.
Don’t give stolen gold to the statue of the beast as it will know it was stolen
Eventually, you’ll encounter the statue of the beast, a demonic-looking tree with gold coins flowing from its branches. You’ll be able to make an offering to the statue for 20 Gold – a steep price, particularly at the beginning of the game. However, the statue is also surrounded by bags of gold that you can destroy to receive both gold and gold nuggets.
After cleaning up and filling your coffers, you might be tempted to donate your ill-gotten gains straight back to the statue. The statue will happily take it from you, but will recognise it as stolen and become angry, leaving you with nothing. 20 Gold is a staggering haul early on in Cult of the Lamb, and is enough to construct a number of buildings in your cult, so if you steal the statue’s gold then be sure to make like a tree and leave.
Time continues to pass during a run so don’t leave your followers for too long or they’ll die
Cult of the Lamb operates on a day and night cycle, necessitating daily maintenance for your cult to survive and thrive. Not only will your various cooldowns reset over time, but crops will grow and followers will age. Be careful, though – time waits for no lamb, and days will continue to pass while you’re battling through The Lands of the Old Faith. If you get caught up in dungeoneering and leave your followers for too long, you may return to find them starving, sick, or even dead. Missing sermons will also cause your cult’s faith to degrade over time and can eventually result in dissension among the ranks.
Check your followers’ traits and assign them appropriate roles
Whenever you recruit a new follower, you’ll notice that they have two or three “traits”. These can either be positive or negative, but can have a huge impact on your cult, so be careful to make note of them and use them to your advantage. For example, you might find a follower gathers Divine Inspiration faster than others, so make sure to put them to work at the Shrine. Another may take longer to heal when ill, so endeavour to keep them healthy. You might also unlock some gifts which you can give these followers to cancel out their bad traits or enhance their good ones.
At first, you won’t be able to check your follower’s traits again once you’ve indoctrinated them, so you might want to try and remember any that stand out. Early on, The One Who Waits will give you one of the Cult of the Lamb doctrines Cult of the Lamb doctrines – specifically the one that lets you read minds. From then on, you can read a follower’s mind to see their traits.
Keep your followers happy to prevent dissention
If you’ve played any sort of life simulation games before, or even owned a Tamagotchi once, you’ll be familiar with keeping your people, pets, or followers happy. In Cult of the Lamb, unhappy followers won’t just keel over and die, they’ll get the megaphone out and start speaking out against you, turning everyone else against you too. As such, it’s pretty important to keep on top of your followers’ well-being, because it can descend into chaos quickly. Another trick to this is those follower Traits – some followers will be more likely to dissent, so give them gifts, take extra care to keep them happy… or bear them in mind as your first sacrifice.
Consider when you give sermons for maximum attendance
Giving charismatic sermons is one of your most important roles as a cult leader, but consider when you carry them out. You can only give one sermon per in-game day, but every follower in attendance adds to your faith. Make sure you’ve indoctrinated any new followers first, and ensure nobody is ill, asleep or otherwise engaged. If you’re on a crusade during the day or simply forget, it’s not worth waking everyone up for a night-time sermon as you’ll actually lose faith for disturbing their sleep.
Use Divine Inspiration wisely to improve your cult
You’ll gather Divine Inspiration from those followers you put to work at your cult’s central shrine, which you’ll use to improve your cult’s base, upgrading your temple, farms and sleeping quarters. You can see the full Divine Inspiration upgrade tree at any time, from the moment you build your shrine, so take a minute to decide which route you’ll want to take. The more you unlock, the more Inspiration you’ll need, so make sure to use it carefully.
With these tips, no doubt your cult will thrive, as you command your followers, cull your enemies, and cult-ivate your land. But if you still don’t feel ready, check out our guide on the best Cult of the Lamb upgrades so you know what to spend those Divine Inspiration points on.
Additional guide contributions by Nat Smith
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