The final piece of initial game setup is choosing your Starting Operative – who you start the game as. Each of the 7 starting Operatives has a different set of stats and abilities, and each can approach the challenges of the game utilizing their own unique strengths.
Will you play as a master of spycraft, able to operate in the shadows to evade (or assassinate) the agents of Cult? Or will you play as a fallen noble with powerful family connections in the Capital – at least as long as they can remain free from the gaze of the Inquisition?
In addition to your starting Operative, during the game you can use the Heretic’s influence to find and recruit additional Operatives. These Operatives are how you execute any actions in the game, such as visiting exotic locations, spreading Heretic influence and engaging in combat.
Life as a Heretic is dangerous – hunted by the Church, stalked by fiendish nightmares, and at constant risk of falling prey to the Corruption inherent in magical use. Should all of your Operatives perish, the Cult immediately wins. So, it is always a good idea to keep an eye out for new recruits that can pick up the torch should your starting Operative fall to injury or Corruption.
To recap the main decisions you make in game setup – choose a Story to resolve, a Cult to fight against, and an Operative to play as.
Next time we will discuss how the structure of a Turn works within the game proper!
Story Decks & Cult Decks
(Here is Part 1 and Part 2 of our posts on the game mechanics of Heretic Operative, to help give a better view of the gameplay.)
Story Decks
In every game of Heretic Operative, there is a primary crisis or disaster you are trying to avert. During game setup, you pick which of these challenges you want to face by selecting the “Story Deck” you will be using. The Story Deck has two main components – the individual “chapters” of the story (which are in a fixed order) and the story “events” that can happen along the way (which are drawn semi-randomly).
Each chapter represents progress in the overall progression of the story, and has requirements that you must meet in order to advance to the next chapter. For example, you might need to collect a certain amount of Lore to conduct arcane research, or get an Operative to a specific location on the map. Events are triggered by increasing Cult activity, and in most cases represent some new additional problem you will need to face.
Some Story Decks are epic in scale, with the fate of the Northern Reach hanging in the balance, but others have a more personal focus. Each of the 6 Story Decks is designed to vary how you play the game – some are more focused on combat,others change up the core rules in a few ways and require new strategies and approaches.
When you complete the final chapter in a Story, you win. Of course, the Cult is out there trying to stop you, and they bring their own Deck to the party…
Cult Decks
The primary foes of the Heretics are the Cult – magic users who have given themselves fully over to Corruption. While the Story Deck determines what you must do to achieve victory, the Cult Deck determines which Cult you will be facing and trying to bring about your defeat.
There are 4 different Cults to fight against in Heretic Operative (with more planned for the future). Each Cult has a set of powerful Cult cards to use against you, as well as unique Cultist abilities and innate powers that can completely change up how you have to fight. If the Storm Cult floods out all the roads or the Serpent Cult sacrifices the population of a town, you’ll have to adjust your plans to respond to the threat.
If left unchecked, the Cult develops their own secret network of ritual sites and new recruits, and these generate Cult Activity & Cult Power. When the Cult Power gets too strong, their overall plan, as reflected by the Story Deck, is completed, and the Heretics lose. Only with a well-considered strategy (and a dash of luck) will you be able to survive against the growing power of the Cultus Arcanum.
Each combination of Story Deck & Cult Deck changes up the game play dramatically. There are 24 combinations to play through, each with their own Achievement to unlock. But who you choose to fight against the Cult can also make a dramatic change in how a game of Heretic Operative plays out.
Patch Notes 0.9.10 & 0.9.11
Catching up on posting some of our patch notes here on Steam for our beta testers.
0.9.11
Balance
- "Initiation" story chapter now allows learning any spell, not just an Elemental spell.
- In the unlikely event that you discover all spellbooks, there is now a generic +2 Lore reward item.
- Fire dice that are resisted no longer count for increasing the heat multiplier.
- "Matching" die combat effects in general are no longer triggered by resisted dice, but "any die" effects on a specific number still trigger on a resisted die.
- Intel and Whispering Stone now require 1 AP to use, but have slightly better rewards
- Spellbooks now expire after learning 4 spells from them
- Common loot deck reshuffles when empty.
- Rare loot deck has a repeatable consolation prize treasure at the bottom of the deck
Misc
- Renamed Serpent Cultist poison to something more evocative.
- dead creatures that are still on the map now have a skull overlay
- increased camera scroll speed
- added full log text for item usage, taking damage, dying, corruption states, and corruption conversion
- C Prompt splash screen added
Bugs
- Clarified mechanics text on late-stage "Gates" event cards.
- Fix missing string for Lyrica backstory.
- Fix grammar issue on Miner's Asssitant card.
- Clarify Mayor's ability tooltip text.
- You can no longer get a duplicate Elemental spellbook in "Initiation".
- Spellbook-learned spells have their own tag descriptor.
- It is no longer possible to clear Cult Influence in a location without an Operative present.
- adjusted starting camera distance (zoom) and min / max camera distance
- Fixed Vorgan Expedition adventure to reward correct trophy.
- Fixed typo in Trouble adventure.
- Fixed Spy adventure at Frontier Outpost to not offer you options dealing with stopping the flow of "infromation."
- Fixed typo in Fees adventure at Frontier Outpost.
- Fixed typo in Museum District first visit text.
- "Initiation" story updates the # of remaining cultists more promptly when one is killed
- Turned off compression on lots of 2D art
- Fix for the "A Friendly Challenge" event to properly keep the card from recurring if Onto is gained as a reward.
- fixed numerous cases where a raw card ID would appear in the full log
- removed double full log entries when using a shop
- cleaned up some strange full log text when recruiting a townsfolk for free
- clarified tooltips for several "no effect" adventures
0.9.10
New Features
- Added backstory for all recruitable Operatives.
- Location connectivity is now visualized more clearly.
- Operatives can be moved via markers that appear along the connection lines (as an alternative to right-clicking the location).
- Operatives on the map have a circular border that shows selection state.
Balance
- Timelessness only castable once per turn now, and has a clearer effect.
- The three direct-teleport spells, and Travel Rune spell, no longer cost AP to cast.
- Divination now gives 5 rumors, removes one cult activity token, and does not require an AP to cast (but can only be cast once per turn).
- Earth Lore now gives 2 rumors and does not require an AP to cast.
- cultists at travel locations will stick around to fight you longer instead of moving on
- "Darkness" adventure card now has a stronger penalty, and is clearer when you can bypass it
Bugs / Misc
- Abomination evolution "Claws" now properly gives damage bonus.
- Add more explicit mechanical instruction for the final stage of "Apocalypse" story.
- Fixed Archive Initiate adventure so that "impress them with what you know" choice would complete correctly.
- Fixed Museum Shipment adventure so that "bribe the workers" choice would complete correctly.
- Fixed Curious Patrol adventure so that "pay them to be less curious" choice would complete correctly.
- Fixed Customs adventure so that "pay the guards to look the other way" choice would complete correctly.
- Fixed Templar Raid adventure so that "use influence to have the Templars called to another duty" choice would complete correctly.
- Fixed Superstition adventure so that "tell them to leave" choice would complete correctly.
- Fixed Museum Shipment adventure to award properly on "bribe" option.
- Fixed Customs adventure to award properly on "pay the guard" option.
- Fixed Templar Raid adventure to award properly on "use your influence" option.
- no-AP move arrow color is now a reddish-orange
- Added 4th pip to show 4 AP (Noble + Timelessness)
- Main menu news text scrollbar works again
- Adjusted spellbook names so that they sort together in inventory
- Fixed some incorrect references to "Burned Woods"
- Frontier tooltip listed an incorrect difficulty
- cleaned up some missing text & art for the "Assassin Approaches" event
- revised some text in the Abomination story deck
- Fixed a bug with 4+ buildings overflowing the location panel
- Fixed a tooltip newline issue with recruited Active-style townsfolk
- fixed an issue where the "adventure here" marker would not appear at travel locations
- fixed some unlocalized strings with the adventure markers
