New Cult System & Slaanesh Seduction

[Zeek]

So I played a Slaanesh (N-kari) campaign as my first for this new update and try out the new cult system, since he and Tzeentch are the two big cult builder factions.

It seems that the new cult systems, while cool in other ways, have exposed a pretty big flaw in Slaanesh's faction as whole; seducing factions is not worth it and borderline impossible now.

The old Slaanesh cults were bonkers strong. Make cultist, make cult in some far away place, make the cultist building to make more cultists while raking in huge amounts of influence, repeat, until everyone is vassalized.

With the new cults, you can't do this. The magus building does have a nice benefit of granting 200 influence for the faction. This is great... on paper. The problem is that the factions you want to seduce often have a 390+ influence requirement to seduce them, on top of racial resistance and a resistance based on number of settlements owned.

So while you can get that juicy +200 influence in one go, you can't do anything with it unless you already have over ~100 influence already built up to complete the vassalization, which brings up the other part of the problem; you're only going to be getting that influence if you're either fighting them, which begs the question why not just conqueror them at this point and be done with it?

In theory, you could still have a cultist going around and applying Gift of Slaanesh, but it's a huge gamble for non-immortal lords because if they die (and often they will) you will lose that gift, and then you have to deal with the resistances anyway so it's kind of moot. So realistically your income from Gifts aren't that great.

The benefits (outside of the teleportation one) are inconsequential and not worth building 99% of the time. You would need to spam these somehow to have any effect on how fast you can seduce a faction, but you can't really do this anymore.

TL;DR: new cult system neuters Slaanesh Seductive Influence mechanic.

What does everyone else think? Have you noticed this? Am I just royally screwing up?

[AurumHawke]

Might have more later, but really missing chain-cultists.
The new cult buildings have more synergy with allies/vassals, which is great - but the old problem of outposts blocking cults.

Yes, Influence was never worth prioritizing, and rarely worth using. Not specific to the cults.
Best use I ever had of it was force-vassaling Meow-Meow out of the soul race after dozens of battles.

[AkumulatoR]

Slaanesh once again sucks the most of all monogods, which is fitting from a lore perspective. Personally not gonna play it until Dechala dlc and rework. so about next spring.

[jtordoff]

Thanks for testing , I have been holding off on doing a Slaanesh campaign figuring there would be issues that need to be ironed out. I guess I will have to start one soon.

[AurumHawke]

A'ight, collected some thoughts and stuff now.
Everything dissatisfying about Slaanesh is still there - Autoresolve, Tech-tree (still best demons have), Economic Anti-synergy, Vassals - and recruitment of the all-important Improve Mobility Cultist is now worse.

But the cult change is net positive with meaningful foreign-slot effects. There are still dead picks, but they're no longer anything-that-isn't-chain-spawn.
There's little point to non-Magus cults (most effects require the corruption it provides), and Magus recruitment could be faster, but using Slaanesh's 3 random-location pop-up cults as cult centers is flavorful, if not immediately beneficial.
You should easily be able to pop two or more of the Magus ritual after getting situated on the Donut.
And yeah, teleport. But Alarielle and N'kari were already in adjacent regions by then.

Nurgle can probably get a lot of benefit here due to having plenty of hero cap to spare for cultists running around, and Tzeentch has auto-spread, but Slaanesh is still the cult champion.

So far, sent the Saphery Magus down to Noctilus' whirlpool (useless to Slaanesh, better off razed than occupied) and it's going 8-per-turn to replace Vampiric with Slaanesh.
Then first set of random locations hit Varg, Elspeth (discovered/destroyed), and Boris - which snagged the EKoS confederation, and is set to plant a Magus under Archaon's *very wealthy* fort.

[Zeek]

Originally posted by AurumHawke:

A'ight, collected some thoughts and stuff now.
Everything dissatisfying about Slaanesh is still there - Autoresolve, Tech-tree (still best demons have), Economic Anti-synergy, Vassals - and recruitment of the all-important Improve Mobility Cultist is now worse.

But the cult change is net positive with meaningful foreign-slot effects. There are still dead picks, but they're no longer anything-that-isn't-chain-spawn.
There's little point to non-Magus cults (most effects require the corruption it provides), and Magus recruitment could be faster, but using Slaanesh's 3 random-location pop-up cults as cult centers is flavorful, if not immediately beneficial.
You should easily be able to pop two or more of the Magus ritual after getting situated on the Donut.
And yeah, teleport. But Alarielle and N'kari were already in adjacent regions by then.

Nurgle can probably get a lot of benefit here due to having plenty of hero cap to spare for cultists running around, and Tzeentch has auto-spread, but Slaanesh is still the cult champion.

So far, sent the Saphery Magus down to Noctilus' whirlpool (useless to Slaanesh, better off razed than occupied) and it's going 8-per-turn to replace Vampiric with Slaanesh.
Then first set of random locations hit Varg, Elspeth (discovered/destroyed), and Boris - which snagged the EKoS confederation, and is set to plant a Magus under Archaon's *very wealthy* fort.

So if im understanding correctly, I'm reading this as you're more or less just using cults as an income generator via the Magus building similar to Trickster cults? Is that right?

[Ska_Boss]

Slaanesh is next up for scheduled DLC, they will probably fix/rework it upon release.

[Krude]

They need to fix a lot with slaanesh, combat is just not fun, they've been overnerfed, some mechanics are buggy, it's nigh on impossible to spread slaanesh corruption in some places even in situations where realistically neighbours should be struggling to fight it. cult bonuses don't work right for slaanesh.

Like honestly I'd like to see a rework heavy on the identity of slaanesh in combat because right now their biggest issue at higher difficulty is that nothing ever breaks.

When tier 1 units fight to the last model as if they had unbreakable, slaanesh has a lot of mechanics that just don't come into play.

[AurumHawke]

Originally posted by Zeek:

Originally posted by AurumHawke:

-

So if im understanding correctly, I'm reading this as you're more or less just using cults as an income generator via the Magus building similar to Trickster cults? Is that right?

Cultist cap, technically, and the %-income buildings generate the corruption needed to turn that online while the -20 discovery makes it safer to keep.
Simply landed a random cult-spawn right next to a very nice target.
As for the magus from the starting cult, Galleon's Graveyard has zero building slots when owned by Slaanesh last I checked. As Lothern generates up to 3293 with Angerrial up to 1206.

Goes to the Anti-Synergy: Slaanesh economy requires low public-order but the Cultist comes from the public-order building. Doesn't even come with capacity until T3.

[Risotto]

Slaanesh has alot of interesting and fun mechanics that have fallen off as the game has gone on.
I'm sure we will see a rework to these when their DLC pack comes after Khorne's.

[Ashley]

Originally posted by Ska_Boss:

Slaanesh is next up for scheduled DLC, they will probably fix/rework it upon release.

Uhhh isnt that old news it was changed to ogres, greenskins and Khorne

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Risotto:

Slaanesh has alot of interesting and fun mechanics that have fallen off as the game has gone on.
I'm sure we will see a rework to these when their DLC pack comes after Khorne's.

I mean they would have gotten one if everything went according to plan, so you could say they're over due. They'll probably get the next Lord Pack.

[Butter Bot]

Reminder that giving money count as diplomatic action and increase the seduction bar of a faction, it is the most reliable and quickest way to seduce a faction is to give a ton of money

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Butter Bot:

Reminder that giving money count as diplomatic action and increase the seduction bar of a faction, it is the most reliable and quickest way to seduce a faction is to give a ton of money

I've only had that work with factions that like me anyway, like beastmen, WoC, etc.

On factions that hate me, they'll take it but they will war declare in the near future, and it's not enough to bring relations to where they'll accept NAP etc. You have to give a lot of money for this while also dealing with all of ulthuan, it's just not feasible until late game imo when you've basically already won.

They basically say "thanks for the cash sucker, now we're going to kick your head in!"

[Butter Bot]

Originally posted by Zeek:

Originally posted by Butter Bot:

Reminder that giving money count as diplomatic action and increase the seduction bar of a faction, it is the most reliable and quickest way to seduce a faction is to give a ton of money

I've only had that work with factions that like me anyway, like beastmen, WoC, etc.

On factions that hate me, they'll take it but they will war declare in the near future, and it's not enough to bring relations to where they'll accept NAP etc. You have to give a lot of money for this while also dealing with all of ulthuan, it's just not feasible until late game imo when you've basically already won.

They basically say "thanks for the cash sucker, now we're going to kick your head in!"

I slightly disagree from experience but I won't debate on that.
However I want to point out that didn't changed much from before, if a faction declare war on you you will have to fight it anyway.

[jtordoff]

Seduction question, there seem no separation of seduction from different Slaaneshi factions but I get the seduction button for someone I wasn't working on but is fully primed . Is it supposed to work that way?