Epidemic

What's the main factor that keeps the game from being an idle clicker? Plague. A painfully secondary concept that has found another incarnation. Previously, you may have known it, for example, as a doomsday clock. Or just hit points. It is pure coincidence that our designer, Lord Baltimore, called this feature one way and no other, just before the world plunged into such and no other panic.

A plague is a combination of two elements:
1. The daily schemes of the opponents of the Church (we established that the plague would increase randomly every day by smaller amounts - so that there was pressure).
2. Feelings of safety of the inhabitants and their attitude towards the player (the higher the plague, the less trusting they are towards the main character).

It is influenced by scenario elements such as kidnapping / murder events. But we can also increase it by ineffective attempts to interrogate the inhabitants or by murdering innocent people during torture.

Fighting evil, annihilating enemies and using divine powers shows the inhabitants that the church is awake and that evil will be judged. Somehow, righteous behavior hampers the progress of the plague. Good keeps us alive.

TLDR; Plague is just a „global” statistic that tries to thwart your plans. It’s called „plague”, because Mercyful Flames’ story takes place in Dark Ages.