In Cult of the Lamb, you’ll be deciding what exactly your followers believe by building out a Doctrine, which will lay the foundations of their faith. But it’s not just that – your Doctrine choices will also dictate some of the things you can do with your cult.
You’ll set every aspect of their belief system, from their understanding of the afterlife to how they feel about their worldly possessions. So let’s break down your choices and see which ones are the best. There isn’t really a wrong way to go, but certain choices will definitely make your time in the game easier than others. Here are the best Doctrine choices in Cult of the Lamb.
If you’re looking for a full Cult of the Lamb rituals list or a weapons and curses guide, we’ve got you covered too.
Afterlife Doctrine options
As the name suggests, the Afterlife Doctrine is all about what happens once your little animal friends pass onto the great beyond. Here are your choices.
1A: The Necessity of Sacrifice – Unlocks the Belief in Sacrifice trait. With this choice, your cultists gain 20 Faith whenever you sacrifice a cultist.
1B: Belief in the Afterlife – Unlocks the Belief in the Afterlife trait. With this trait, followers only lose 5 Faith when a cultist dies, rather than 20.
2A: Resurrections – Allows you to perform a ritual where you bring a dead follower back to life.
2B: Funerals – Unlocks a ritual where you can perform funerals for the recently departed, grants followers 20 Faith.
3A: Respect Your Elders – All followers gain the Respect Your Elders trait, gaining 5 Faith for every elder in the cult.
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.
4A: Return to the Earth – Unlocks the Natural Burial building. The corpses of the dead become poop, which can be used as fertilizer.
4B: Good Graves – Unlocks the Graves building. Gain 2 Faith when followers grieve at Graves.
Afterlife Doctrine best choices
Here are the best choices for the Afterlife Doctrine:
1A: Choosing The Necessity of Sacrifice allows you to sacrifice followers without annoying the rest of your cultists. Sacrificing cultists when they’re a high level is easily the fastest way to grow in power and unlock stronger weapons and curses. While Belief in the Afterlife can be handy, your cultists shouldn’t be dropping dead all the time if you’re playing carefully and tending to their needs (and cleaning up poop and vomit, naturally).
2A: Resurrections comes in super handy at the end of the game because it’s another way to quickly recruit a new follower, which you need to do for reasons I won’t spoil. There are plenty of other ways to get Faith, so funerals are just extra and don’t give you a completely new mechanic to play around with.
3B: The problem with elders is: they die. Sure, you can save them up and get a bunch of Faith if you choose the Respect Your Elders trait, but you really should be sacrificing your cultists when they’re old anyway. They’re no good to you old, so sacrifice them at the last moment and unlock some better weapons instead with Only the Good Die Young.
4B: Look at your base. Look at it. There’s poop everywhere. Do you really need more poop? The answer is: no. Good Graves is a much better choice here because it’s free Faith for little effort and will top you back up from the Faith lost when someone inevitably dies.
Food and Sustenance Doctrine options
This one is all about your cultists’ relationship with food. Let’s dive into all the choices.
1A: Feast – Unlocks the Feasting ritual, where you throw a grand feast, refilling hunger and gaining 25 Faith.
1B: Fast – Perform a ritual at your temple to declare a fast. Followers will not eat or be hungry for three days.
2A: Cannibal – All followers will gain the Cannibal trait, gaining 5 Faith when eating follower meat.
2B: Grass Eater – All followers will gain the Grass Eater trait and will no longer lose Faith when eating a grass meal.
3A: Harvest – Perform a ritual at your temple that causes all planted seeds to be immediately ready for harvest.
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.
4A: Mushrooms Encouraged – All Cult members will gain the Substances Encouraged trait. Gain 20 Faith when Brainwashing Ritual is performed.
4B: Mushrooms Banned – Unlocks the Belief in Prohibitionism trait. Increase work speed and devotion by 10%, but followers have a 50% chance to become sick after the Brainwashing ritual.
Food and Sustenance best choices
Here are the best choices for your food and sustenance doctrine.
1A: While fasting might seem like a powerful tool, it also negatively impacts the mood of your cultists and could cause them to revolt. Feasting, however, boosts Faith, and can still be used in a pinch when people are starving.
2B: You’ll come across a lot more grass than you will follower meat. Choosing Grass Eater gives you more options when food supplies run low.
3B: Crops grow quickly enough on their own, but the fishing doctrine allows you to fish less for more. A no-brainer.
4A: Mushrooms Encouraged is the easy winner here. The Brainwashing Ritual, which you unlock by giving a certain NPC some mushrooms, is a powerful tool that lets you do whatever you want while your followers are under its spell, with zero consequences.
Law and Order Doctrine options
This one’s all about crimes and punishments – you know, the fun stuff. Let’s dive in.
1A: Murder Follower – Unlocks the Murder Follower action. Other followers will be upset if they witness you doing it, but you could always wait until everyone is asleep.
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.
2A: Fighting Pit – Perform a ritual at your temple in which two Followers fight to the death – unless you’re feeling merciful…
2B: Marriages – Perform a ritual at your temple so you can marry one of your Followers. Gain 30 Faith.
3A: Tax Enforcer – Perform a ritual at your temple in which you appoint a Follower as your Tax Enforcer, tasked with collecting gold from other cult members.
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.
4A: Original Sin – All are born guilty. Reduced Faith loss when putting a Follower in jail who is not dissenting.
4B: Freedom Above All Else – Freedom above all else. Every day that begins without anyone in prison, gain +10 Faith.
Law and Order best choices
Here are our favorite choices for the Law and Order tree.
1B: Murdering a follower doesn’t really get you anything, other than some follower meat. If someone is causing trouble, you can sacrifice them (which also gets you some meat), poison them, imprison them, or get rid of them in a manner of different ways. Ascension, however, grants you a new way to get Loyalty. Easy choice.
2B: While watching your followers fight sure is entertaining, marrying them makes them extremely loyal to you. You can also boost their Faith with a little smooch each day, and you can marry however members of your cult that you like. Marry them while they’re brainwashed and your original spouse won’t even get jealous.
3B: When you get to the later dungeons, or if you’re particularly good at dice game Knucklebones, gold isn’t hard to come by. You can’t buy Loyatly, however, so get yourself a Loyalty Enforcer.
4B: Why would you want to randomly throw someone in jail? If you keep on top of your cultists, it’s rare you’ll need to imprison anyone. Might as well take the free Faith.
Work and Worship Doctrine options
Work and worship are the two ways you can build out your base. Here’s how this Doctrine plays out.
1A: The Glory of Construction – Perform a ritual at your temple that will immediately build all structures currently under construction.
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.
2A: Inspire – Inspire a Follower to significantly increase their Loyalty. Replaces the Bless action.
2B: Intimidate – Intimidate a Follower to slightly increase their Loyalty as well as make them work +10% harder for two days. Replaces the Bless action.
3A: Faithful – All Cult members will gain the Faithful trait. Generate Devotion 15% faster.
3B: Industrious – All Cult members will gain the Industrious trait and increase work speed by 15%.
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.
4B: Glory Through Toil – Perform a ritual at your temple which allows your followers to work through three days and nights without getting tired.
Work and Worship best choices
Treat your workers as well as they deserve – here are our favorite choices for Work and Worship.
1B: It’s not often you have multiple builds on the go, and there’s no time pressure to get things built, rendering the Glory of Construction a little redundant. Ritual of Enlightenment is handy, however, allowing you to generate Devotion faster and unlock more buildings.
2A: A big boost to Loyalty is far handier than a small boost and slightly harder work. CEOs, take note.
3A: As we said with the first choice, Devotion is a more important thing to get quickly than having those buildings erected quickly. Plus, you should be nice to your workers when you’re not ritualistically sacrificing them to a tentacle monster.
4A: Give your cultists the odd day off and they’ll reward you with more Faith. This will help you get stronger more quickly and you’ll have fewer problems to deal with back at base.
Possessions Doctrine options
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.
1A: Extort Tithes – Unlocks the Extort Tithes follower Action. Collect one gold from each Follower once a day.
1B: Bribes – Unlocks the Bribe Follower action. Bribe a follower with 3x gold to increase their Loyalty.
2A: Sacral Architecture – All Cult members will gain the Sacral Architecture trait. When a new building is constructed gain +5 Faith.
2B: Devotee – All Cult members will gain the Devotee trait. Gain more Faith when delivering a Sermon.
3A: Materialistic – All Cult members will gain the Materialistic trait. Gain Faith when building better sleeping quarters.
3B: False Idols – All Cult members will gain the False Idols trait. Gain more Faith when placing a decoration building.
4A: Alms for the Poor – Perform a ritual at your temple in which you distribute to all followers to increase their Loyalty. You will also gain +10 Faith.
4B: Enrichment – Perform a ritual at your temple in which all followers donate gold to you.
Possessions best choices
Here are the best choices for the Possession Doctrine in Cult of the Lamb.
1B: Not only is one gold per follower a low amount, but it’s also a pain to have to speak to every follower and choose this option every single day. You’re better off choosing bribes so that you can target the cultists who need a sweetener every now and then.
2B: You should be delivering a Sermon every day. You won’t be building something every day. Do the math.
3B: Decorations are easier to make than houses, and you only need so many houses. You can go ham with decorations and get more out of this choice.
4B: Low on money? Perform this ritual and you get hundreds of gold quickly. Do it while they’re brainwashed and they won’t even flinch.
Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.
