Well, summoning would still require some resources, at least a body, and even if getting it was made easier it'd still cost something so raising a whole army would still not be free. Sounds fair to me, considering you'd still switch to more powerful summons once you have higher-level lore (as expending dread to summon a Maid is almost a negative cost).

Exactly - they should be an interim summon before one can reliably summon the more useful ones like the Maid, etc., so they may need to have less stringent requirements.

Alternatively, lower-level tools and components could be available sooner/easier, since by the time I get my first aspect 4 tool, I've usually got more than enough of that aspect from lore and followers to not actually need it for anything (it makes sense to get tools primarily from expeditions, but most expeditions don't seem to net me tools until I'm doing them in the countryside or the continent).

As for bodies, it would be great if it were possible to send multiple people on "cult business" at once (on the same task), so that their aspect scores could be added together (thereby increasing success chance), similar to how expeditions currently work. That way, I'd be more willing to send a couple of mid-level cult members to kill someone for me and bring me the body, instead of the current way: send cult member to walk the streets, if they don't find someone suitable wait for timer to end and send them out again, otherwise hire that person, wait for that timer to end, then finally get the hired person to kidnap someone, wait some more - and if that fails, go through the whole process again (while being wary of notoriety generated) - and that's for just one body. I'd rather send 2-3 cult members on an almost-guaranteed murder mission (there should still be a chance of failure, otherwise it'd be too reliable/boring).

Of course, sending multiple people on cult business at once would be good for all the other cult activities too, such as burglary, crafting, etc. - even though it's easy to end up with a large cult, most of them hardly ever see any use apart from as backup for expeditions, since the time it takes combined with the chance of failure (and resulting notoriety and/or death of cult member) makes this almost never worth it.

For balance (and because it sort of makes sense), maybe there could be an increased chance of generating (more) notoriety, mystique, and/or other unpleasant things the more people you send on cult business at once. A group may find it easier to kill someone or steal something, but a group may also be more conspicuous.

Wouldn't this make exalted cultists absolutely meaningless? As now they are close to being the only thing that makes cults different (other one being achievements), I wouldn't want that. Only edge cult has a 100% reliable way to kill mystic detectives, only moth cult can have close to 0 trouble with evidence, only heart can destroy notoriety without failure, etc. It is minor but it's what makes cults stand out (except for Hydra). I'm absolutely sure it was the reason why summons can't be used for cult business.

Good point - didn't think about that.

Although, if there's an increased chance of Notoriety/Mystique or other negatives associated with sending multiple cult members, wouldn't that offset it?

Also, I don't think it should be 100% - there should IMO always be a chance of failure when sending multiple minions, just less chance, balanced with more negatives (even on success). Exalted minions should be guaranteed success with no negatives (maybe also work faster?) - that way, each cult will still be better for tasks with its aspect than other cults.

As it stands, most of my cult members don't see much use due to how unreliable they are.

I agree that summons shouldn't be available for cult business - they're already incredibly useful and powerful. I wouldn't mind if using summons for "public" things (such as searching through town) had negatives associated with it - I would expect that a summoned being roaming through town looking for people to hire would attract unwanted attention, yet it's perfectly safe at the moment.

Vaguely related to this (but a separate issue), it would be great if one could hire (or extend) Hirelings a little bit faster. It's really annoying that the timer takes a full minute to countdown just to pay them the one coin before you can use them - and even more annoying that you have to wait for the full minute if you don't want to hire them.