company of heroes
 

I've had an event, company of heroes, and playing blood nation there,it's MP game. What would more reasonable approach to get these heroes - if to choose between hellbind heart with no penetration items (or +2 penetration items) and succubuses? And why?

Re: company of heroes
 

I assume that you are talking about Bogus and his men?

Re: company of heroes
 

It is tough to hellbind Bogus' company because the Dark Knight will hit your commander at turn 1.

Re: company of heroes
 

By any chance can you do both?

The BEST I have found is to mix assassin or seducer, with either Charm or Hellbind.
That way you guarantee a one-on-one, but if the first action fails, you get another shot to try and snag them. Usually I can even get away with two charms or hellbinds, and then something more destructive for self preservation.

Re: company of heroes
 

I thought about suggesting empowering a succubus to B2, but if you do that I think the converted hero will attack the province, resulting in likely death.

Re: company of heroes
 

Ich, Yes, it' Bogus and Co.

Succubus will act, but I don't know what success rate I can expect for. Against Bogus heroes, if succubus will not be able to to seduce, I don't think he has a good chance of survival. And game has trade profibited, so getting a mage with alternative paths from Bogus company is really benefitial. so the goal is not to get rid of company of heroes, but to get them. So killing them is not the best idea.

The question is - I can either send several blood 3 mages for hellbinding (maybe with penetration+2 items, but it will not be easy for me to do them), or send succubus. I'm trying to ask - whet are succubuses chances on suduction of them, and how many casts of hellbind I should plan for each hero when planning amount of hellbinders?

Re: company of heroes
 

Mass hellbind heart casters with penetration boosters and a bunch of bodyguards to protect against the dark knight. Use bodyguard that are tough but have bad offense, so they dont kill anyone.

Succubus is a bad idea I think, success rate is too low.

Re: company of heroes
 

But an empowered succubus might still be best. Give it a bunch of slaves then send it in scripted for hellbind, hellbind, (then something deadly depending on how you equip them)
It goes like this...
1) tries to seduce one of the commanders in the province
2) if the seduction fails then combat occurs but its still just the seducer, and the one commander. like an assassination
3) Hellbind (maybe wins)
4) hellbind (maybe wins)
5) if it gets this far then combat

IF the hellbind works, then another combat follows with the newly taken commander vs his old friends.

Re: company of heroes
 

How would you estimate probability of succubus'es seduction success? 50% ? more? less?

Re: company of heroes
 

The problem with Hellbind, is that those are not usuall indie commanders and can have high MR. The question how many hellbinds are needed to achieve reasonable chances to return from the battle not emptyhanded.

Re: company of heroes
 

Seduction tends to suck. Giving that cat charm is supposed to help. And maybe a focus item.
But in general, I dont like the chances on either seduction or assassination. Their advantage is forcing a one-on-one combat and making good use of that. Then spells like charm/hellbind get their chance which tends to work better (still not great, but better).

As I said, I have tended toward only using one or two of those, not more. That can often give you a chance to still defend yourself if they fail. Maybe an incineration rod or that 999 damage crossbow for that part. I know you want numbers and statistics but I suck at those. All I can offer is what Ive settled into after a long love of using it.

Re: company of heroes
 

I'm not sure how MR checks work for the spells, I think it's normal MR negates, and Bogus & Co have MR 12-18.

It has been said on the wiki - no verification - that succubus seduction makes MR check to 16.

Remember that when you do hellbind you still have blood slaves around you which may affect bodyguards. Lots of blood mages with hellbind *probably* have a somewhat better chance.

Re: company of heroes
 

I did extensive testing of the succubus seduction ability.
This value has bounced around a lot depending on the version of CBM. 1.3 had *very* effective seduction values.

Generally speaking however, seduction is not very effective at converting the opponent out right.

Generally, you will have better luck using charm, or hellbind once you have gotten to combat.

IF you really want to ensure success, it can be very helpful to send in sacrificial assassins with eyes of the void, and banners of the northern star. Each of these will lower MR by 2.

Generally, as others have noted, you want to get rid of the darknight, to increase your chances of seducing bogus... both the darknight and the archer aren't too hard to get rid of

Any reasonably armored /defensive mage casting shockwave, flaming hands etc will take out the dark mage. (in a regular combat)

after that you just retreat.. and then send in the seducers.

Re: company of heroes
 

But if you're trying to actually get them, especially more than one, seducers/assassins with Charm/hellbind aren't a good plan. You may get one, but then he'll fight the others. You're bound to lose some in the process.

The only way to guarantee eventual success is to keep using seducers set to retreat. You'll lose a lot of succubi, but won't risk the targets. This may take awhile and a lot of blood, so may not be worthwhile.

Your best bet probably is a lot of mages with Hellbind/Charm, penetration gear and lots of bodyguards, as suggested above. It'll be tricky, due to range and script limitations, to actually target all of them.
According to the probability chart in the manual (I'd forgotten that was in there), you've got a base chance of 6% against a mr of 18, 30% against 12, without penetration bonuses or extra paths. You want a lot of tries.

Re: company of heroes
 

nah, I really don't think that seduction offers that much in this instance.

With 5 commmanders to seduce, cant prepare as you don't know what you're going to get.

Whereas, if you just attack spamming charm (or better, enslave) you know..

the darknight will attack rear
the archer will shoot a mage
bogus will charge forward
and the other dude will summon ghost wolves etc.

so.. you have a guy with burning hands ready for the dark mage.
a sacrificial mage diseased etc for the archer.
void eye thug for the ghost wolves..
and then have some people spamming swarm charm enslave.

Re: company of heroes
 

But that's my point. You don't need to prepare, since you don't want to fight them. You want the seductions to succeed.
Which means you'll need to spam succubi at them, which probably isn't cost effective. Depends how badly you want them.

Re: company of heroes
 

jeff, there is no difference between charming/enslaving them in a fight, and seducing.

Sure, if you want to spend 5 guys at 8% = 6 turns turns per guy = 30 turns, and the slaves and gems for 29 succubi plus gear, yes, you can do it.

But any game you can afford to do that is a game you've already won and are just playing around.

Most of the time, there are only two of this crew that people care about - the archer (for his fire order) and bogarus.

These are the two that are easiest to charm in a fight - as they both come charging forward, and have high hitpoints. So they will naturally be targetted by charms etc.

Re: company of heroes
 

Right, but there is a difference between seducing them and charming them in the aftermath of a failed seduction. That difference is that the seduced go back to the capital and the charmed fight in the province. That's correct isn't it? I haven't tried it often.

And the OP specifically said he wanted the mages for alternate paths.

So the seduction is to seduce. No extra gear or empower needed on the succubi, since you don't want them fighting. I don't know what the seduction odds are, so I can't guess the number you'll need, but I assumed and said it would probably not be cost effective.

I would go for the fight, as you suggest.

Re: company of heroes
 

Correct about the diff between seduce and charm.
It does increase overall effectiveness, but might not meet the exact needs of the Original Poster

Re: company of heroes
 

In a mp game, its kind of cheesey to gain the heroes so you can copy their special orders. So, if it is a mp game, so much easier just to kill em and loot their equipment.

Re: company of heroes
 

Why 8%? Is it some real number of succubus seduction success rate?

Re: company of heroes
 

its approximately right. There is no single right answer.
It depends on what unit is doing the seducing, what the mr of the victim is.

but the probability comes from the probability table at the front of the book. Compare the seduction value of the unit (in cbm) vs the mr of the victim.

Re: company of heroes
 

it looks like the 2 main differences between hellbind and seduce - when you seduce you also have to go through moral check, and the second one - succubus has seduction 11(if wiki is right), which is better then usual spellcasting 10 check,but still doesn't compensate moral check.
As for amount of hellbinds with no penetration items, very simplified mathematics is 3-4 casts for MR 12 targets, 6 for MR 15 targets and 10 for MR 16 targets.

Re: company of heroes
 

yes, although the best way to accomplish this would be something like...

4 or more communion slaves, sabbath master with void eye, spell focus, and runesmasher.

so for the very small cost of 13 gems, after the communion and hellpower you'd be sitting at +8 penetration.

S.Master, Hellpower, Reinvig, Hellbindx2
Or hell, skip the reinvig and just script Smaster, helpower, hbhx3.

Re: company of heroes
 

Second master can cast reinvig.