There are certain tips and tricks you’ll want to know to play Cult of the Lamb better. These pieces of information will make you better in combat and crusading, as well as in managing your cult.
While Cult of the Lamb isn’t too difficult of a game, managing everything from defeating bishops to making sure your followers are healthy and well-fed can make things overwhelming.
Table Of Contents
Combat Tips and Tricks
Cult of the Lamb is partly a rouge-like game. The rooms in each dungeon are procedurally generated, meaning no two runs can ever go exactly the same.
At the end of every run, you’ll need to defeat a boss to successfully complete a crusade. Do this three times and you’ll have the chance to face and defeat the area’s bishop.
This is how the rogue-like combat aspect of the game works. Fighting enemies can be easy at first, but later biomes contain enemies that are more difficult to deal with. Be sure to go in prepared each time you go out on a crusade with the following tips and tricks.
Be Familiar With Every Weapon Type
At the start of each run, you’re given a random melee weapon and a curse to start with. There’s no way for you to choose your desired specific type of weapon. This means you’ll need to acclimate yourself with every weapon type if you want to deal with the enemies properly.
There are five different types of weapons in Cult of the Lamb. All of them have varying damage, range, and speed. The slower a weapon is, the harder it hits.
- Daggers – Daggers have fast attack speeds, yet their damage and range are limited.
- Gauntlets – Gauntlets are also fast, yet they don’t hit as hard. However, their attacks have a combo that progressively deals more damage.
- Swords – The most balanced weapon in the game. This weapon type has decent attack speed, range, and damage.
- Axes – Axes are slower than swords, but they have more range and deal more damage.
- Hammers – Hammers are the most powerful weapons in the game, but they’re also the slowest. The hammers’ attacks are targeted on a specific circular area, damaging those it lands on and those within close proximity to the AOE.
Hold a Sermon Everyday
This may seem like a base management tip, but holding a sermon every day, even though your faith level is already high, benefits your crusades.
When you do sermons, your followers are essentially giving you XP for you to level up. When you level up, you’re able to expand the weapons and curses you receive, and you can increase the starting level of the weapons and curses you pick up at the beginning of each crusade.
Watch Out for Attack Indicators
Cult of the Lamb doesn’t have straightforward attack indicators all the time. Some enemies may explicitly show an arrow indicator on where they’ll dash forward to attack. However, some enemies aren’t so obvious with their attacks.
It stands, though, that every enemy in the game has a specific “tell” that they do before they perform an attack. Some enemies will glow, while some will pull back before they do an attack. Be sure to watch out for these to know when to dodge away.
Memorize the Meanings of Map Icons and Banners
When you explore a region in Cult of the Lamb, you’ll be able to choose which path to take next after you clear out the first set of combat rooms. These paths lead to certain areas that are marked by map icons. Later biomes include map banners as well.
If you know what these icons and banners mean, you’ll know exactly what to expect before you enter that area. You may even use this information to strategize the path you’ll take before getting to the boss.
For example, some paths are shorter than others. Some may contain the exact resource type you need. You’ll be able to tailor your crusades properly according to the resources you need, or whether or not you want to avoid as much combat as possible before getting to the boss.
Know Your Crown Offerings
Whenever you defeat a Bishop, you receive a Heart of a Heretic. You can use this at the temple to unlock new Crown Offerings.
You’ll get a total of four Hearts of a Heretic in Cult of the Lamb, which means there are four Crown Offerings that you can unlock.
- Resurrection – Have the chance to be resurrected when killed on a crusade by sacrificing a follower. The amount of Heart you’ll receive will depend on a follower’s level.
- The Hunger – Allows you to eat a meal once a day, which will grant you a blue Shield Heart.
- Omnipresence – Gives you the ability to escape and return to the base during crusades.
- Darkness Within – You start every crusade run with one Diseased Heart. This type of Heart depletes when you get hit and it can’t be restored. However, every enemy on the screen will also receive damage whenever you get hit.
Since you can only unlock a Crown Offering after you defeat a bishop, make sure you’ll unlock those you really need first.
For example, if you’re having a hard time completing a crusade run, especially when you get stuck at the boss, the Resurrection offering should be useful to you. Getting Resurrected and having a few extra Hearts to finish the job is exactly what this offering is for.
If you’re working on your base first and you just want to farm materials, the Omnipresence allows you to do that without having to complete a crusade run.
Assess which Crown Offering proves beneficial to your play style and unlock those first.
You Can Get One More Tarot Card from Clauneck
Clauneck is the NPC you meet on your crusade runs that lets you draw one of two tarot cards. If having just one tarot card per interaction with Clauneck isn’t enough for you, you can actually get one more from him.
Beside Clauneck is a pedestal that holds up three tarot cards. If you interact with it, you can draw one more tarot card in exchange for coins.
Room Identifiers
In crusade runs, there’s a way for you to find out what to expect in the next room without the Telescope tarot card.
Over the entry path to the next room, you’ll sometimes find things hung from above that hint at what the next room contains. For example, Clauneck’s rooms are indicated by hanging stars and moons. Rooms that contain the blacksmith have weapons hanging over them.
You Can Dodge Towards Projectiles
When fighting enemies that have ranged attacks, you don’t need to run away or dodge away from their projectiles to avoid getting damaged. You can also dodge towards them.
Dodging towards a projectile won’t damage you. It’s even better for you to dodge towards the projectile so that you can get closer to the enemy, where you can eliminate them.
Build a Demonic Summoning Circle
A Demonic Summoning Circle allows you to transform followers into demons. They will then accompany you on your crusades.
There are different kinds of demons in Cult of the Lamb, and each of them has different functions. There are offensive demons, and support demons.
Offensive demons directly attack enemies. One demon performs melee attacks, one attacks enemies from afar, and one gets close to enemies before exploding, damaging those caught in the blast.
Support demons provide health and fervor. One demon gives you additional hearts at the start of the run, while another roams around to find hearts for you.
Having a demon with you on your runs can make fighting enemies much easier. After all, a lot of the rooms in these crusades contain multiple enemies. Having companions who can fight with you or assist you can give you that much needed boost.
Cult Management Tips and Tricks
The second half of Cult of the Lamb’s gameplay loop is base management. You’ll spend just as much time managing your cult as you do going out on crusades and fighting enemies, if not more so.
To that end, you’ll need to be just as good at managing your cult as you are slashing and hacking away at enemies and bishops if you’re to excel in this game.
Structures to Build As Soon As You Can
If you want your cult to become as efficient as possible, as soon as possible, there are certain structures you’ll want to prioritize building. Aside from the structures that you’ll have to build as part of the main progression, these are the structures you’ll want to build as soon as you can.
Sleeping Bags / Shelters
This is where your followers sleep. You’ll need to have enough to cover every follower in your cult. You can upgrade these to become Shelters and Grand Shelters later on. For now, just focus on having enough sleeping bags for your followers. Remember to build new ones whenever you indoctrinate new followers.
Farm Plots, Farmer Stations, and Seed Silos
Farm Plots are essential for farming. This is where you can plant seeds so they can grow into plants you can use as food later on. Build a lot of these, but be sure to build them around Farmer Stations.
Farmer Stations make followers do the farming for you. However, at Farmer Station level 1, followers will only water the crops. Unlock Farmer Station II so that the followers can harvest the crops, collect them when they grow, and deposit them in a chest.
Seed Silos are containers for seeds. You can place seeds here and the followers will gather them and plant them on Farm Plots.
Once you’ve built these structures, your followers will handle the farming situation completely. All you’ll need to do is to collect the harvest from the Farmer Station chests.
Lumberyards, Stone Mines, and Refineries
Lumberyards generate lumber. Stone Mines generate stone. These two are the main foundations of most of the structures you’ll build in Cult of the Lamb.
Your camp will never have enough trees and boulders for you to harvest a sufficient amount of lumber and stone. You can farm for them while crusading, but having Lumberyands and Stone Mines ensure that you always have a steady supply of them.
Refineries take your resources and transform them into their advanced variations. These turn lumbers into wooden planks, stones into stone blocks, gold nuggets into coins, and coins into gold bars.
You may not need a Refinery while you’re still expanding your cult, so you can build this last. Prioritize the Lumberyards and Stone Mines for now.
Outhouse
A place where your followers can relieve themselves. Without this, your followers will simply leave their poop anywhere on the camp. This can cause your followers to get sick.
Focus on Expanding Your Cult by Recruiting Followers
When you’re out on a crusade, be sure to always visit areas that contain a potential follower, as indicated by the map icon. Recruit as many as you can, as fast as you can, so you can have enough workers and worshippers back at camp.
Have Most of Your Followers Worship At the Shrine
You should at least have 50% of your followers worship at the Shrine, and divide the other 50% to do other tasks. You’ll want to generate as much devotion as you can early so that you can build the Structures you’ll need to make your best self-sustaining.
For example, if you have 10 followers, have five of them generate devotion. If you have 20 followers, have 10 generate devotion. You can keep the number of worshippers capped at 10 if you decide to indoctrinate more followers beyond 20.
Hold Sermons in the Morning
This should be the first thing you do whenever a new day comes. As soon as your followers wake up, head to the Temple and perform a Sermon.
Avoid holding Sermons at night, as these can disrupt your followers’ sleep, lowering their faith.
Always Listen to a Follower’s Needs
Later in the game, you’ll get the chance to read the minds of your followers. This is something you can do to watch after their needs. However, when a follower truly needs something or is feeling something that needs immediate attention, you won’t need to read their minds for that.
When a follower requires immediate attention, an icon will appear over their head indicating their need. This happens when a follower is sick, hungry, or sleepy. When you spot a follower that has this, attend to their need right away.
Avoiding these can cause your follower to die, thus lowering the overall faith level of the cult.
Keep Your Camp Clean
Your followers will often poop or vomit for various reasons. Mostly it’s an effect of a meal. Followers will also vomit if they spot something that disgusts them, like a corpse or the mess of another follower.
You’ll know your camp is getting dirty by keeping an eye on the “sickness” meter on the top left corner of the screen. If your camp gets too dirty, a lot of your followers will get sick. Your camp won’t be able to function efficiently when this happens.
Roam your camp and clean up the messes. You can also build a Janitor Station later on and assign followers to be the cleaners of the camp. Build this after you’ve built the aforementioned structures.
Take Advantage of Rituals
Your Temple allows you to perform Rituals. The game has a handful of these that provide various buffs. Many of these raise Faith, but some of them can also decrease it.
Read a Ritual’s description to assess if its effects are what the cult currently needs.
For example, if your faith level is still low after performing a sermon, follow it up with a faith-boosting ritual such as the Bonfire Ritual or Sacrifice of the Flesh. If your followers and hungry and you don’t have the resources to feed them all, you can do the Feasting Ritual or the Ritual Fast.
Some Rituals also give specific boosts that can make your camp work more efficiently for a period of time. For example, a Ritual like the Ritual of Enlightenment will increase devotion generation speed by 20% for 3 days. The Glory Through Toil will make followers work non-stop for three days without getting tired.
Familiarize yourself with the Rituals you have access to. Take note that you won’t be able to access every Ritual in the game since some are unlocked by choosing one Doctrine over another. Choose those you feel are more beneficial to you, or match how you want to approach the game.
Increase Your Followers’ Loyalty
Increasing your followers’ loyalty have a lot of benefits. A follower’s loyalty is essentially tied to their level. The more loyal a follower is to you, the higher their level is.
When a follower’s loyalty level is increased, you receive devotion and a Commandment Stone Fragment, which is used to add new Doctrines.
Higher level followers generate devotion faster. They also have a higher chance of success when sent on missions. High-level followers who get turned into demons are also more powerful than their low-level peers.
You can increase a follower’s loyalty by doing the following:
- Inspire them daily.
- Give them gifts.
- Complete quests they assign to you.
- Feed them decent meals.
Deal With Dissenters
As you bring more and more followers into your cult, you’re going to come across a few dissenters. These dissenters are like poison to your camp. They can lower your camp’s faith level quickly.
There are three ways to handle these dissenters. For one, you can sacrifice them. Doing this will increase the cult’s faith meter, remedying any damage the dissenter may have done already.
You also have the option to murder a dissenter, if you’ve unlocked this option via a Doctrine. However, this can upset followers, lowering their faith, unless they’re asleep when you do the deed.
Third, you can imprison them. This is the best option if you don’t want to lose a follower. Build a prison and lock a dissenter here so they can’t bother the other followers. You can then begin educating them daily until their faith is restored.
Go Fishing
Fishing is a side activity you can do in Cult of the Lamb. Aside from being tied to a side quest, going fishing will allow you to cook better meals for your followers. Be sure to take the time to explore this activity.
Sell Things
If you’re short of coins and you need to build a structure immediately, you can always use the Offering Chest in your camp. The One Who Waits provides this to you after you reach a certain point in the game. You can sell resources here to receive coins fast.
When selling items at the Offering Chest, be sure to sell different kinds of resources. If you keep selling one type of resource only, the value of this resource will depreciate. Sell other things you don’t need yet or resources you can easily farm later on.
Feed Your Followers
Never forget to feed your followers. Before going on a crusade, take a look at the cult’s hunger meter and see if you need to cook up meals for them. Make this a habit and you never have to worry about a follower starving to death, which can definitely happen in this game.
You should also be mindful of the meals you cook for your followers. Read the effects of a meal before cooking them, and see if you can’t cook anything better. Some meals can cause a follower to get sick and have diarrhea, while some can increase a follower’s loyalty or have them drop resources.
Upgrade Your Structures
As your cult expands, you’ll need to build more and more structures. You’ll also have more mouths to feed. Managing an expanding cult requires higher amounts of materials.
To properly manage this growth, you can upgrade your structures to make them more efficient. Refer to the Shrine and unlock an upgrade to a structure you can already build.
For example, you can upgrade Sleeping Bags to Shelters, which collapse less often. You can then upgrade this further to a Grand Shelter, which will never collapse and can even generate devotion.
Economy structures should also be upgraded so you can fabricate higher amounts of resources, which you’ll need if you’re to keep up with the growth of your cult.
Meditate at Night to Speed Up Time
Your followers will sleep moments after the sun sets. There are certain jobs that you can do on your own, like building structures and farming while your followers are asleep to pass the time. However, you can also speed time up to go right back into the action again.
Press the Curse Attack button and hold it to speed up time until your followers rise again. Take advantage of this if you want to keep things running with minimal downtime.
Finding a Use for Elder Followers
Your followers will eventually grow old. When they reach elderly status, they’ll stop working and simply roam around the camp as they cherish the remaining moments of their lives.
Or you can sacrifice them and increase your cult’s faith meter.
It’s terrible, yes, but you are running a cult that’s worshipping a dark lord. So…
When your Afterlife Doctrines reaches tier 3, you can choose one of two rituals that are tied to a follower getting old. The first is the Respect Your Elders ritual, which increases your followers’ faith by 5 whenever a follower becomes elderly.
The second is the Good Die Young ritual, which gives you 10 faith whenever you sacrifice or murder an elder follower.
Which of these two you’ll choose is completely up to you, but they’re ways to improve your camp just by having elder followers around.
