Succeeding at secret cult

[SmashingQuasar]

Hey!

I've been trying to play as a secret cult for more than 7 years now and could only recruit 2 people. I've read many topics about those but I failed 90% of the time recruiting someone. Even when they did secretly convert to my religion they just didn't want to join the secret cult.

After so long and so many failures it really seems bugged, does anyone have encountered something similar? Is it always that way? If not then could you give me hints about what to do to succeed please?

 

[Bulldog773]

That's pretty much been my experience. I think the highest member count I ever had was 3

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

I've had one run where I got about 50 members in the cult, but my character had a nearly broken dip rating of 39.

So, it's possible to do, but it's not easy.

 

[Borgia]

My strategy is usually to found the cult, get a few members in besides myself and then leave and rejoin. This makes the AI the head of the cult and they'll do the tedious invite spam needed to make the cult grow. In the meantime concentrate on getting bigger, expand as much as you can and give land to known cult members so the influence of the cult increases.

 

[knppel]

In two generations, spanning around 35 years, I was able to form secrtet communities in most of my demesne provinces as well as gather a number of member significant enough to get me elected in office as Emperor and flip enough vassals with me to not have to worry about any faction.
It's no quick venture- if the AI unfolds their society in your realm then they've also likely buildt up for generations while the court chaplain was researching tech.
And of course, diplomacy over 20 is crucial, I'd not bother elsewise.

 

[AlexArgos]

I've only tried it once (the whole revival of Hellenism thing) and it seemed relatively easy to me. I thought it would take centuries but it was quit faster. Of course I think it was also much slower than 7 years. Like a character's whole lifetime to have the cult working on it own and not needing babysitting anymore.

I started with a very charismatic character and only recruited high diplomacy courtiers at first. Then worked my way way up the vassal ladder. Always high diplomacy people with large families or many friends, lovers etc. Once I was up to dukes and had 3-5 on my side the whole thing sort of took off on its own. Sure it was very slow at the start and some people left or were burned along the way but I kept at it.

Perhaps it helped that I was already a very important figure in the realm and many of the converts were also important dynasty members but I don't remember doing anything gimmicky/cheesy/tricky other than the high diplo thing.

 

[SmashingQuasar]

Thanks for your answers!
I finally gave up because I couldn't understand the goal of the secret cult and just went fully open about it. I've pretty much absolute power over my empire right now since I've got 50k troops and kingdom Vice-royalties given only to content people. They didn't seem to rebel at all and still a decent opinion of me so this whole secret cult thing was just pointless.
I think I'll retry it in another game as a vassal with high diplomacy.

 

[Crimson Grog]

My strategy is usually to found the cult, get a few members in besides myself and then leave and rejoin. This makes the AI the head of the cult and they'll do the tedious invite spam needed to make the cult grow. In the meantime concentrate on getting bigger, expand as much as you can and give land to known cult members so the influence of the cult increases.

That's a pretty good idea. I tried a secret Jewish cult as king of Yemen, vassal to the Abbasids, but I found it too tedious constantly trying to invite people.

 

[Zoomun]

I invite my family and let them do most of the rest of the expanding for me

 

[BuddyLove]

I need to try secret cult sometime because the only times I have were as the Shia Caliph in the Assassins (which doesn't really count, right?) And one time I died and my heir was randomly a Jesuit.

I just couldn't bring myself to be a Jesuit.

 

[Rags17]

AI cult members will try to convert others if they can so our first job should always be to convert someone with amazing Diplomacy stat, they will then start the ball rolling. Having 2-3 highly literate and persuasive "Apostles" can make the job VERY easy indeed.