I dont understand the connection of the Senator Empire and the "revelry" in the ancient forest. I would rather have that you could build some kind of Forest outpost that spawned some kind of "stupid" forest patrols. Maybe it could be satyrs, goblins, elves combined with a rare troll or some magical forest creatures or even soldier druids rangers.

It could also be fun if you could build a special kind of outpost that send out "stupid" patrols to burn down forest converting it to plains.

The revelry stems from one of the roman themed factions in the dominions series and the religious cults within it being a nature one the revellers being part of it. Which in turn is inspired by the worship of Dionysus/Bacchus involving drunken/drug fuelled shenanigans which in myth would attract satyrs and the Maenads were just female followers but their name basically means 'Raving ones' so hence ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane women in game.

From a gameplay perspective it allows the senator to cap ancient forests so they don't have to constantly deal with spawning animals while giving them flavourful roaming groups which can take territory or just generally slow down enemy armies.

I would think that some kind of Forest Outpost would be sufficient to deal with spawnings of ancient forest. Senators dont strike me as culty but more straightforward military.

All of the senators unique spell casters are parts of religious cults there is the sun one which has the Leo's and Heliodromes (or however its spelt) and the serpent priests and lower ranking ones not to mention the Renata's and Renatus's are also part of another cult as well as the aforementioned Revellers being in another cult.

It is important to note that when I say cult I am more referring to people dedicated to a religion in a similar manner to how romans or greeks may dedicate themselves to a specific deity. As opposed to the cultists of the demonologist or the horror worshipping high cultist.

Not to mention I'm not keen on stripping out vanilla features, how about instead of only forest outposts being able to create a patrol that the centurion or senator can summon up stupid groups of veles and hastatus led by a centurion to wander about.

Yes that could work. That could work in different enviroments. So you could order forest patrols, desert patrols etc. Wouldn't it be fun if these patrols were able to cut down forests slowly as they wander about?

I don't really see the need for uncontrollable wandering armies for the senator because they already have the incite revelry enchantment that fulfills that purpose.

I 'could', as in I can see how with the modding tools it's possible to have wandering armies seek out forests and cut them down. The problem I have with that is that there are many classes that rely on forests for herbs and no mechanic for dead forests to regenerate. And I don't see the need for said patrols.

As for the Cults, they're not as well defined in CoE as they are in Dom and from the descriptions of CoE Renata and Renatus in CoE aren't as explicitly a cult of the Sacred River of Death like they are in Dom.

I can see stuff for the Serpent Cult, Lizard Riders, Summoning Snakes. I don't like the idea of summoning Hydra very must because you can't position troops around them like in Dom so the poison auras basically mean you need poison-immune troops or to only use Hydra with Serpent Priests or something like a Hydra Tamer commander. So you'd just have armies of Hydra. I guess it's not the worst thing.

I'm not sure what more I'd add for the Solar Cult

The Sacred River of Death Cult I could see having legionaries that are immune to some necormantic things like Disease and/or Decay and have Hades immunity.
Undead legionaries, which are conveniently already in the game.

I'm not sure atm. Especially having no ideas for the Solar Cult

What about some kind of elite version of their unit with magic flame javelins maybe? Or possibly a fancy armoured ballista capable of shooting AOE fire ballista bolts. Another thing could be the fire lions available to the warlock as the fire cult has commanders called Leo's. Possibly a chariot pulled by the fire lions mounted by the spell casters maybe.

Those are pretty good ideas :D

Originally posted by Juz:

I 'could', as in I can see how with the modding tools it's possible to have wandering armies seek out forests and cut them down. The problem I have with that is that there are many classes that rely on forests for herbs and no mechanic for dead forests to regenerate. And I don't see the need for said patrols.

It would be pretty easy to make dead forest regrow. In fact COE5 is in need of some kind of ecological mod so forest can spread, burn, be cut down, be seeded, regrow from being dead. This is something that should have been build in the game originally I think.

Forests can be burned with numerous items and pretty much most casters with fire spells not to mention the downright crippling forest fire events. Though it would be cool for them to be able to spread and be regrown without relying on a unit from a specific mod to do so

Originally posted by Mi.SaSkullduggery:

Forests can be burned with numerous items and pretty much most casters with fire spells not to mention the downright crippling forest fire events. Though it would be cool for them to be able to spread and be regrown without relying on a unit from a specific mod to do so

Yes. just as in real life. I really hate when forest burn and has to stay that way. Makes no sense to me.

Another idea for 'cult' units would be unique standards for each the serpent and the sun cult which could give additional effects and have themed weapons

I'll come back to these at some point, I'm hard at work on a Dark Crystal Class atm.

Dark Crystal Class? Colour me intrigued

I suggest joining the CoE discord and looking at the modding channel, I post in-progress things there all the time.