What's the purpose of Abduct now?

[Zortex]

Just wondering what you guys are using Abduct for after the recent changes?

Previously I'd use it to imprison foreign rulers and ransom them, I didn't use it to auto-win wars as that felt too cheap to me.

However I recently started a game and had this perk to start. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find people with money than I had a reasonable chance to abduct, no go. Note I had >20 intrigue, so did my spymaster and the spymaster was assisting with hostile schemes, still almost everyone was 5% chance. I will note I did find TWO people (like 15 minutes of looking) that had ~60% chance.

There appears to be a foreign realm penalty, so I thought I'd try some of my vassals, oh there's also a ruler penalty (including your vassals). The problem being, that's all the people with money ruled out!

The only use I can think of is to imprison people you want to recruit to your court?

Edit: Not necessarily complaining it got changed. Just trying to figure out if there's still a good way to use it.

[Sigent]

I definitely think they over-corrected with abduction. It now takes a ridiculous amount of intrigue to be successful, and there's generally less you can do with it. I was using it to force convert my neighbors to expand my faith, but you can't directly do that any more. You can still kidnap a ruler's unlanded children and convert them though.

Generally, it seems like abduction just isn't really worth using any more.

[Zortex]

The purpose of this topic is to discuss what the potential applications are for Abduct after the recent changes. Not to complain that we can't easily cheese wars or genereate easy gold. If the topic could focus on that aspect I'd appreciate it.

To me I think I might try abducting good courtiers from my vassals, as that way you avoid the ruler and foreign realm penalties. So maybe we still can get pretty decent success chances?

Also Sigent implies you can get some unlanded people from other realms if you have high intrigue too. I though the foreign realm penalty would apply but I could be mistaken.

[Sigent]

Originally posted by Someguyinhere:

Waaaaah. It's actually HARD to kidnap a powerful ruler now! Waaaaah! I hate having to actually use strategy to accomplish my goals!

What a stupid post. Celebrating completely neutering certain game playstyles is a small brain move, my man.

[Sigent]

Originally posted by Zortex:

The purpose of this topic is to discuss what the potential applications are for Abduct after the recent changes. Not to complain that we can't easily cheese wars or genereate easy gold. If the topic could focus on that aspect I'd appreciate it.

To me I think I might try abducting good courtiers from my vassals, as that way you avoid the ruler and foreign realm penalties. So maybe we still can get pretty decent success chances?

Also Sigent implies you can get some unlanded people from other realms if you have high intrigue too. I though the foreign realm penalty would apply but I could be mistaken.

It does, but it's still possible. The best way to stack your odds is to get your spymaster to go and discover secrets in your target's court. Then, you can use those secrets as hooks to force people to help you with your kidnap or murder schemes. You can pretty easilly max out the new 85% success cap on kidnapping doing that.

I've also had mild success recruiting courtiers, like you said. The main reason i've done it was to steal people with VERY high martial, and either make them educate my children to make them generals, or recruit them as knights. This also saves you some prestige searching the realm for knights, who might be terrible fighters.

[The Former]

A few potential applications I can think of:

• Abduct a highly skilled enemy general before you start a war.
  
• Abduct a rival's heir and demand a hefty ransom.
  
• Abduct a rival's younger son, recruit him, marry him matrilineally to your daughter, then orchestrate the deaths of all his older siblings.
  
• Abduct your beloved sister who's no longer in your court but has been imprisoned by a stubborn king who won't let her go, then release her.
  
• Abduct your rival's skilled steward and watch him go bankrupt.
  
• Marry your heir to a king's only daughter, then abduct his wife so he doesn't have anymore children.

[Crim]

This is known as a soft delete

Without actually removing it, make it so impractical that it's no longer a viable option

[Zortex]

Interesting I didn't realise you could abduct people already in another prison. I guess I just assumed that wouldn't be possible. That definitely could be useful in cases where it's a relation not in your court, so you can't ask to pay a ransom.

A couple of other good ideas there too. Particularly the ones in relation to the children of other rulers.

I have some things to try now, so that's good!

[BoydofZINJ]

Revolt title is much easier when they are in jail already!!!

[Drosta]

Originally posted by Sigent:

Generally, it seems like abduction just isn't really worth using any more.

agreed, this is the danger of having You Tube creators with too much influence. I tried using abduct pre patch and I only managed to get it to fire once. On a lowborn woman I was trying to bring to court who would never have agreed.

Yes, abducting a ruler and instantly winning a war looked very strong, but it would have taken a lot of work and luck to pull off. Was everyone doing it? I doubt it. So did it need to have the entire mechanic nerfed? Absolutely not.

Quite honestly I think that kind of dedication to a plan deserves the reward but thats beside the point.. At the end of the day its a game, and people are playing it to have fun. If I had pulled off a scheme like that I'd have been super happy. So from a perspective of delivering a good time to the player, they had met that goal beautifully.

There will always be those Aholes that abuse a mechanic so excessively that it seems like it needs to be nerfed if a dev is watching them do it on youtube " fOr THe vIEws mAN! " but they aren't the general population of the game. And why this bugs me enough to post about it is that now a perfectly enjoyable gameplay mechanic has been nerfed to where it's basically pointless to use and shouldn't exist.

Good job youtuber. Good job.

Originally posted by Talamare:

This is known as a soft delete

Without actually removing it, make it so impractical that it's no longer a viable option

Exactly.

[Hairy Coo]

Its a hostile action so you can run it in parallel with personal action to get the people you want from other courts. A genious courier who plainly refuses you invitation or his liege won't let him go? Any other characters you want to "extend the invitation" to you court.

Also its a backup murder plot for some target - let's say you r murder plot got discovered, abduct and execute or jsut let them rot in the dangeons.

Abduct to win wars was just too OP and its fine that you need high intrique to pull off high profile abductions. It should be hard to abduct a king from his own castle.

[Drosta]

Now I gotta see if I can abduct my own kids so I can execute them in peace without the whole country losing their minds. You've given me something to think about if it's possible.

Till they nerf that too anyway

[CrUsHeR]

Nice to see more creative applications for this scheme.

Kinda the same when people say that Golden Obligations is "so OP" out of the box, but the fun only starts when you start spying on major foreign courts and start cashing in on them instead of your own vassals.

[Drosta]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Nice to see more creative applications for this scheme.

Kinda the same when people say that Golden Obligations is "so OP" out of the box, but the fun only starts when you start spying on major foreign courts and start cashing in on them instead of your own vassals.

Yeah I tried using golden obligations because people were saying it was "Outta control!" Well I barely find a hook I can even actually exploit for money. So I think if you've got a really good spymaster in a foreign court generating those hooks for you that actually pay off. Great. Leave it alone. Hate the nerf bat so much. Stop beating the fun out of the game just because something is strong. Wasn't that the point ?

And I don't mean obvious balance points like stopping people from banishing rich wanderers with thousands of gold. I mean like actual gameplay mechanics that the majority of players have been using as intended which now got harder and or pointless just to stop the minmax crowd from abusing it beyond what would be considered intended gameplay. If that's fun for them. Who cares. If someone wants to spend 100 hours min maxing their bloodline so they have a god with all the best congenital traits and hundreds of stats, good for them! Congrats, they had fun playing your game. Why beat it out of them? I really don't understand this line of thinking for a game that is primarily a single player affair.

[sammwich]

Originally posted by Drosta:

Yes, abducting a ruler and instantly winning a war looked very strong, but it would have taken a lot of work and luck to pull off. Was everyone doing it? I doubt it. So did it need to have the entire mechanic nerfed? Absolutely not.

Good job youtuber. Good job.

Originally posted by Talamare:

This is known as a soft delete

Without actually removing it, make it so impractical that it's no longer a viable option

Exactly.

I dunno. I never used it at all. I'm not sure one perk should be central to anyone's strategy, even if it's only the strategy for one ruler who happens to be an intrigueboy. I'm honestly surprised Zortex was using it as a cash cow. Is he a youtuber?

[Drosta]

Originally posted by sammwich:

Originally posted by Drosta:

Yes, abducting a ruler and instantly winning a war looked very strong, but it would have taken a lot of work and luck to pull off. Was everyone doing it? I doubt it. So did it need to have the entire mechanic nerfed? Absolutely not.

Good job youtuber. Good job.



Exactly.

I dunno. I never used it at all. I'm not sure one perk should be central to anyone's strategy, even if it's only the strategy for one ruler who happens to be an intrigueboy. I'm honestly surprised Zortex was using it as a cash cow. Is he a youtuber?

I dunno who that is. I saw it being used as described above. A guy would abduct a ruler and right at the end would declare war while the window was up so that he could insta win wars with that realm. Obviously it wasn't intended to be used that way. But I genuinely don't care if someone was doing that. Like you said, you probably wouldn't have pulled it off without a highly intrigue specialized character anyway. Which is why I said if you dedicated that much effort to a plan you probably deserve the reward.