Middle Age Marignon - Troubadour Seduction

[Tochimo]

tl;dr - Male Troubadour seduction needs to prioritize female commanders or be effective against males as well as females, though perhaps at a slight success rate reduction(?).

I've been playing around with MA - Marignon recently and I'm having a little trouble understanding the logic behind the way the "Seduction" ability works on them.

I've played other Nations with seduction, as well as played around with Succubus Dream Seduction a little in the past, but it just doesn't seem right on the Troubadour - though largely for the way the game seems intentent on executing choices, not because there's anything wrong with the skill itself.

For instance - I just trained and threw 10 Troubadours (1 had 1 exp, rest were fresh, no items) at a province with at least 1 known female commander (Throne province with a Sorcerous listed in spy details) and all 10 times the Troubadour attempted to seduce a male commander; each time led to a fight and the message "not at all interested". This isn't about seduction success, simply about finding the right target to attempt to seduce in the first place.

Given the mechanics of Seduction, that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is my Male Troubadour randomly selecting a commander rather that prioritizing the female commander that he actually has a chance with. Add, on top of that, the small number of female commanders in this game and you have yet another red-herring character/ability match-up which looks good on paper but falls really short in actual gameplay. Giving a seperate success chance for males and females with the Troubadour's seduction might also work, but the current system is meh from my experience.

[DasaKamov]

Yeah, it's a bit odd; my hope is that, if there ever is a Dominions 5, that the "Seduction" trait has a chance to work on a enemy commander of either gender (with perhaps a lower chance of success on a enemy of the same gender as the seducer). And, since Heart Companions already exist in-game, it's a safe bet that Illwinter is not inherently opposed to depicting same-sex relationships.

As it stands, the Troubadour's "Seduction" trait seems to be more of a flavor-trait than a practical one; there aren't enough female commanders in the game, in general, to justify recruiting a Troubadour FOR seduction primarily. :b

[mel]

Making everyone bicurious gets my vote.
Seriously though, treat seduction as an assassination attempt with a chance to get lucky.

[zest]

Originally posted by Jonny Schnapsglas:

...Seriously though, treat seduction as an assassination attempt with a chance to get lucky.

Used to be this way. People complained about seduction spammable nations(mostly pangaea) using their seducers primarily as assassins and it got nerfed to it's present form. So i wouldn't hold my breath for assassination by deault.

[BoboYagga]

Making Arcosephole more susceptible to male on male would be excellent flavor text...

[mel]

Originally posted by zest:

Used to be this way. People complained about seduction spammable nations(mostly pangaea) using their seducers primarily as assassins and it got nerfed to it's present form. So i wouldn't hold my breath for assassination by deault.

Was that a recent patch?

[DasaKamov]

I can't recall any changes made to Seduction for the past year or so, but it's possible I missed it; or perhaps zest meant that Seduction was changed in the transition from Dominions 3 to Dominions 4.

[Staythecourse]

No, it was a Dom4 patch. All in all, I like the new Seduction mechanics. It used to be that Seduction rolled 2 checks, against MR and morale, and so hardly ever succeeded, but whenever it failed, it went straight to assassination, which basically made seducers assassins.

Now Seduction rolls a single check against morale, but has a bunch of different options on failure.

Dream Seducers still roll both MR and morale, but the morale check is really strong, while nothing happens if the MR check fails. So in theory, Dream Seducers have a high probability of eventually getting you a desirable commander. In practice of course, that's only thing you can pull off against throne mages.

[Tochimo]

Hah, some pretty nice replies here - especially about the "assassination with a chance to get *lucky* " nicely done, sir.

But yea, I don't really rely on seduction in anyway - it just seemed weird that the male would try to seduce other males when it states that seduction only works on the opposite gender - so I gave it some more tries and it kept happening.

Hopefully Dom5 will address this (if they don't, oh well - I can always try for a succubus I guess =P), can't wait for more from these guys!

[Catowl]

Well, still a few years until Dom 5 most likely. But I do hope that there's a chance that some generals are more... Open to new experiences and can be seduced by the same sex

[harmony of bean and dog]

troubadours can seduce men if they're wearing a cat charm

[harmony of bean and dog]

if seducers are picking targets that they can't actually seduce when valid targets are available then illwinter should probably fix that though.

[Deep One]

The troubador can be very useful to pick up a sorceress right at the start if you have the right sort of NPCs spawning next to you. You just need to get rid of the male commanders by having the troubadour equipped to kill them (prophet the initial one and he can do it for example), or get lucky.

Seduction is such a rare and nice ability I don't really feel the troubadour is bad. The only other recruitable seducer I know of is dryads? And those are expensive mages so it feels pretty even, considering you can get succubuses you get the best of both worlds as marignon.

[Tochimo]

I've played a lot of the Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath and used Lilots as a more affordable Succubus.

As for recruitable - there's also the Oreiad for EA Arcoscephale, who have a pricey but powerful sacred troop and a priest that can heal all afflictions.

[harmony of bean and dog]

Originally posted by harmony of bean and dog:

troubadours can seduce men if they're wearing a cat charm

this is not a joke by the way

[Catowl]

But who has to wear the charm? In that sentence they can refer to either party. (or can either party wear the charm, as it "transforms" you into opposite sex)