Cult of the Lamb guide: Which doctrines to use

DOCTRINES are an essential part of Cult of the Lamb, as they decide what your followers believe and what you can do in your cult.

While weapons and curses are random, your doctrine choices determine what rituals you will learn to perform.

Massive Monster

Doctrines affect what you can do in Cult of the Lamb.[/caption]

Here’s our list of the best doctrine choices to make if you want to make your way through the game.

Afterlife doctrine

Beliefs about the afterlife fuel a lot of what your cult members will want to do in this world. 

Here’s the choices we recommend:

1A: The Necessity of Sacrifice

Unlocks the Belief in Sacrifice trait. With this choice, your cultists gain 20 Faith whenever you sacrifice a cultist. 

You want your cultists to happily give up their lives for the cause.

Sacrificing high level cultists is the quickest way to build your power and unlock stronger and faster weapons.

While Belief in the Afterlife has the upside of making cultists fight for survival, the poop scooping negates many of the good effects.

2A: Resurrections 

Allows you to perform a ritual where you bring a dead follower back to life. 

Towards the end of the game you’ll be glad you picked this choice as you can recruit new followers quickly.

While Faith is a good bonus to have, there are other ways to get this, making Resurrection the out and out winner here.

3B: Only the Good Die Young

All followers gain the Good Die Young trait, gaining 10 Faith whenever an elder is sacrificed, murdered, or consumed. But they lose 20 Faith if an elder dies of natural causes. 

This works well with the Necessity of Sacrifice, as killing off your elders will lead to big gains overall.

It can be difficult to keep elders alive, and faith can be gained in other ways.

Just make sure you complete the sacrifice before they die of old age to get the biggest benefits.

4B: Good Graves 

Unlocks the Graves building. Gain 2 Faith when followers grieve at Graves. 

This is a quick and easy way to top up your followers’ faith in times of need.

Also, your followers are going to produce more than enough poop to keep your grounds fertile.

Food and Sustenance doctrine

This doctrine describes your followers’ relationship with food.

Here’s our picks from the options.

1A: Feast 

Unlocks the Feasting ritual, where you throw a grand feast, refilling hunger and gaining 25 Faith. 

While it may require less resources to Fast rather than Feast, the benefits are too good to pass up.

While their hunger doesn’t lower, all that not-eating will put your cultists in a bad mood.

Feasting is also good to feed starving followers in a pinch and restores some faith.

2B: Grass Eater 

All followers will gain the Grass Eater trait and will no longer lose Faith when eating a grass meal.

While followers will die and you can feed them back to the pack, you will encounter far more grass than you will ally corpses.

When food resources are tight, not losing followers because you told them all to fill up on grass will be vital to success.

3B: Fishing

Perform a ritual that makes you more likely to catch special fish. You also catch double the amount of fish. Lasts for two days. 

Plants already grow quite quickly so you won’t be able to harvest that many more even if you choose them.

Fishing not only gives you better fish, but double the amount. A boon to accompany all those feasts you are having.

4A: Mushrooms Encouraged 

All Cult members will gain the Substances Encouraged trait. Gain 20 Faith when Brainwashing Ritual is performed.

Drugs are bad, but in Cult of the Lamb psychedelic mushrooms are just groovy.

Brainwashing allows you to do whatever you want without losing any followers or faith.

You shouldn’t live your life like it’s free of negative consequences, but in this game it’s actively encouraged!

Law and Order doctrine

The power that comes with being judge, jury, and executioner; you now decide which punishment fits the crime.

Here are our recommended choices.

1B: Ascend Follower 

Perform a ritual at your temple in which you can ascend a follower’s spirit to a higher plane of existence. All Followers gain Loyalty.

While murder might sound good, its only going to be you left to pick up the pieces.

The only benefit you get from killing is the chunks of meat left behind, and if you followed our guide you should already be drowning in grass.

Ascension is kind of like murder except you get loyalty instead of meat. The healthier choice.

2B: Marriages 

Perform a ritual at your temple so you can marry one of your Followers. Gain 30 Faith.

While watching people fight to the death can be good for entertainment, as the saying going “make love not war.”

Marriage increases loyalty, and kissing your spouse will further raise their faith.

What would a cult be without a little bigamy? Put some brainwashing mushrooms into the mix and your spouses won’t even be upset that you’ve added another into your holy union.

3B: Loyalty Enforcer 

Perform a ritual at your temple in which you appoint a Follower as your Loyalty Enforcer, tasked with patrolling the cult and raising the Loyalty of your Followers.

The further you get into the cult the more gold you will obtain, particularly if you’re a dab hand at Knucklebones.

Money can buy you many things, but loyalty isn’t one of them.

Having someone buzzing around and raising your followers’ loyalty can be a major boon.

4B: Freedom Above All Else 

Freedom above all else. Every day that begins without anyone in prison, gain +10 Faith.

You may be the leader of an oppressive, brainwashing cult but you’re not a monster are you?

If your followers maintain good loyalty and faith then there is no reason for them to dissent and get thrown in jail.

Choosing freedom is the same as choosing free faith, if you keep on top of your subjects.

Work and Worship doctrine

This doctrine is an important one because it manages how hard your followers will work to build  your base.

Here’s what we recommend.

1B: Ritual of Enlightenment 

Perform a ritual at your temple that will temporarily increase devotion generation speed at your shrine by 20% for three days.

You probably won’t be making several buildings at one time making the first option a little pointless.

Enlightenment is handy though, and it generates devotion and allows you to unlock new buildings faster.

2A: Inspire

Inspire a Follower to significantly increase their Loyalty. Replaces the Bless action.

As in real life a big boost in loyalty is far more beneficial than a small boost in work. 

I think some bosses could take inspiration from the lamb.

3A: Faithful 

All Cult members will gain the Faithful trait. Generate Devotion 15% faster.

While we have also told you that you should sacrifice your followers to a tentacle monster, making your followers devoted to the cause is highly beneficial in the early game.

As mentioned in the second choice, having things done quickly is nice, but followers completely devoted to the cause is better.

4A: Holy Day

Perform a ritual at your temple declaring a day of rest. Your followers will not work that day and gain +80 Faith.

Maybe all these choices make us seem soft but trust us, having faithful, devoted, and loyal followers is worth the reduction in labour.

Building a cult is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s much better to take things slow than to deal with a revolt.

Possessions Doctrine choices

People like their things, and cultists do too. Here’s our recommendations.

They say possessions are 9/10ths of the law, so it makes sense that you get this part of your Doctrine right. Here are your choices. 

1B: Bribes 

Unlocks the Bribe Follower action. Bribe a follower with 3x gold to increase their Loyalty.

As we’ve mentioned, Loyalty is one of the best attributes in the game and good to gain.

While the money seems nice, it’s a small amount which must be extorted from each of them individually.

Using bribes, you can quickly quell any cultists who look like they’re about to turn coat.

2B: Devotee 

All Cult members will gain the Devotee trait. Gain more Faith when delivering a Sermon.

While you’ll be building a lot in the beginning, it still takes time to erect something.

Sermons, however, are an easy action you should be performing daily with good results.

3B: False Idols

All Cult members will gain the False Idols trait. Gain more Faith when placing a decoration building.

Houses can take a long time to build, and you only need so many depending on your number of followers.

Much like simulation games such as Two Point Campus, the more decorations the better.

Making this choice is just more Faith overall.

4B: Enrichment 

Perform a ritual at your temple in which all followers donate gold to you.

While we usually recommend loyalty over gold, this one is too good to pass up.

It works well with our mushroom friends, as brainwashed cultists won’t mind handing over their cash.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.