Likewise, I had Persuasion pop up around 160 turns, took it, hard lock.
Reloaded from autosave, tried again, hard lock.
Reloaded yet again, avoided Persuasion like the plague for several hundred turns.
Accidentally tripped it again around 350, hard lock.
Restarted.
My friend who's playing locally said Persuasion worked fine for him, however, he was playing against a single opponent, and basically didn't convert anything when he used it.
