The camp is where the cult lives between runs. Build it to save your own time.
Layout
Keep buildings close. Followers walk less, you click less, and a crusade prep that took a minute takes thirty seconds. Spread is the silent tax.
First buildings
Food and shelter first. A fed, housed follower holds faith, and faith opens the rituals that do the real work. Decoration waits.
The fuel path
Each building feeds the next: food funds followers, followers fund resources, resources fund crusades. Raise them in that order so nothing stalls.
Expand on a bank
Expand after a crusade banks resources, not before. Early expansion spends the fuel you need to clear the next bishop, and a stalled cult is hard to restart.
The farming guide covers which resources to bank and when farming is a waste of a day.
Build order that fuels everything
Start with a Lumberyard and a Farm Plot near the shelter — wood and food are what every other system needs. Place beds before you recruit more followers, because unhoused followers lose faith fast. A Doctrine tree choice (e.g., “return to the earth” for free fertilizer) pays back every harvest, so pick doctrines that match how you play. Keep the cooking fire and the crusade portal central so a run-out-and-back is short.
Faith is the real resource
Decorations and sermons raise faith; unclean pens and dead followers drop it. A cult at low faith stops working and can turn on you. Spend a day tidying and preaching before a long crusade, not after the cult has already fallen apart.