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Every time I get an assassin up to about a 4 valor rating they get killed, evn though thier target shows a 90% chance of success. Also the only people I can kill with them are other emissaries, nobody good, like a General. I finally just stopped using them except to counterspy.
Anyone had any luck using them? Whats the trick?
The AI likes to keep generals moving around which makes your assassin follow them. Doing this increases the chance for your assassin to be caught by border keeps and other agents. It really hard to use assassins, some say to use multiple assassins per target. I never tried this before though, and mostly use assassins for defense. If there were a way to take out structures with agents it'd be a lot easier.
Naagi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/joker.gif
hmmm, strange..
Sometimes my assasains even kill kings when its only 20% chanse, well... only the italian king anyway :P, he have died on all other attempts...
but just train your assasain, what you could do is to make alot of emmesaries and order your assasain to kill them, and the more he kills, the higher his valour gets :P
hope that helped
Assassins work pretty well for me. I am reluctant to send them into an enemy province with border forts unless the target is really worth it. Usually I send them to take out emissaries and princesses. Occassionally I go after an enemy general. If it were easy, the AI would be assassinating all our good generals, that wouldn't be good.
The life of an assassin is a short one, so I train many. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif
As a side question on the topic, does anyone know if assasinating holy men has a tangible negative effect? For example, if my Christian faction kills an Alim, what are the potential consequences?
I allways use assassins. E.g. I train 5 assassins and send the on a enemy king even if the chance of successfull kill is 10% always one of the assassins can kill him and then he get 3-6 stars. If I get excommunicated i send 5 assassins to kill the pope and then i'm no longer excommunicated
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/joker.gif
Well, I usually build about 4 assasins and a bunch of emmisionary's. I let the assasins kill my emmisionary's to gain valour.
I too figured out that assasins are best to be used in your own territory, specially if you see a message during the end turn that an assasin from a specified nation was caught. Than you know that country sends out peeps after your guys. So you assasinate everybody from that nation wom remains in your provinces.
I wonder if I can assasin my own king...
nope you cant, I tried to assasinate my own king, but it didnt work http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/frown.gif
what you need to do is to assasinate the heirs before they get kings, so check theyr stats and see who's worthy of becoming king and kill the ones that are standing in the way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/smile.gif
Good idea. Now I get rid of bad heirs by sending them off to fight a huge army with only his own unit. Works most of the time until this morning. A 7 star heir attacked an army of at least 700 and managed to kill 500 in the auto-solve option http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/frown.gif Than he conquered province after province with just that unit of cavalry. His biggest triomph was that his unit of 13 men killed over 2000 golden horde warriors. This is all done by auto-resolve. Finally he got killed but he actually became a 9 star and thus outclassing his younger 8 star brother. No problem because the younger brother also was about 20 years younger and thus more interesting as a heir.
Why would you want to kill off a 7 star royal general????
Because he was totally no suited to be nr. 1 heir.
I found managing horde of assassins, bishops, spies, etc. quite tiresome. I have to drag them around one screaming-and-kicking guy at a time so they will do the work I asked them to do.
The computer have the assassin baiting technique: a bishop moves into a province with a port, and immediately move out to Novogrod. And for some reason, there is an early version of the KGB there, and every single assassin I sent to kill that bishop would end up dead in Novogrod, caught by bodyguards.
So, I sent my assassin to a place where there is no port, sit and ambush a bishop. I don't bother follow the bishop around. If he is not dead at first shot, I immedately cancel the assassin's mission and wait some more.
Perhaps I should automanage agents.
Annie
lol lady ann. Ive stopped using assasins because i find the best way to take some general out is by making war on a country:D I managed to get a valour 5 assasin and he was killed killing a valour 0 preacher http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif. There are many ways of killing kings however. One is to try and get a very good assasin and 1 is the expensive force in numbers. This means buying lots of assains and puting them on 1 target in the hope 1 will kill the king/general. I find assasins most usefull to kill the pope. This guy cuases cerious troble in hard or expert for you and your fellow christian nations are more than willing to crusade against you for your land. As soon as im excomunicated i Kill the pope. This means im recomunicated so to speak http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif
cya guys soon
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ons/tongue.gif
I only use assasins on the big guys like The Pope or a king. I don't do petty stuff like killing bishops. I'm a tolerant leader http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/smile.gif.
I use assassins and spies to great effect. In one campaign I more or less swept the board just by causing rebellions and buying off the resultant rebel stacks. Only ended up at war with anyone once or twice when they attacked me. This doesn't work now that I've modded the building construction times to half their normal values though, the AI seems to build up agent defenses and populace pacification structures too fast.
Assassinations still work though, and I used them to great effect in my last campaign, took out 6 or 7 successive French Kings, totally wiping out their influence (Though it seems like it's impossible to break the faction by assassinating their leaders, they must have some annoying fallback mechanism like the HRE do) and ended the Italian faction entirely thanks to one Guy of Gisborne (6 star assassin).
Here's how I operate. When I want a king or other general dead, I send 3-6 valorless assassins and usually a few spies as a screen for the main assassin. The agent defenses in the province will usually pick off the low valor units because they're not as good at concealing themselves (Or so I assume), and the high valor guy will make it to the target.
Even with this technique though, your assassin can be caught and killed. That's life. There's always a chance that you'll fail, no matter what. Still, if you manage your agents right, they can be very useful. The main thing is to make sure you have an assassin and spy (Or even two of each) in every one of your provinces to defend against enemy spies and assassins. Each agent can pick off one enemy agent per turn while they're counterspying, and they gain valor in the process, so it's a good way to farm future offensive agents.
Never use assassins against priest units, it's not worth it. They don't cause enough of an inconvenience to you to risk losing a potentially valuable assassin on them. For one thing, the computer almost always moves it's priest units every turn, so your assassin will likely as not end up following the priest into another faction's territory and be picked off by their agent defenses.
The only religious agent you want to use assassins against is an inquisitor who's making trouble in your territory, because he can inflict real damage on you, and once he starts putting people on trial, chances are he's not going to be moving from the territory anytime soon. It's still a risk, but generally a decent assassin can handle these guys.
So to review, use your assassins and spies defensively, they're valuable defensive units, they keep province loyalty under control, and they warn you if your generals are plotting against you. They will gain valor by defending against other agents, so you can use the ones who gain the most as offensive agents later.
-Musashi
Hell if u manage it right its practically possible to win the entire game using a mixture of assassins and iquisitors against the enemies most loyal generals/ faction heirs....
not very realistic but i attemted it to see just how effective they can become if over-used.
A way of setting my own boundaries on their use for future games..personally dont think that its in the spirit of the game to have the kamikazi idea of dozens of agents hunting down the king / pope...
Also does anyone else feel that the inquisitors have far too much sucess trying nobles.... not sure 100% on the facts but besides JoA's buddy gilles de rai (think i spelt that one ok ) i cant think of one v. important noble succesfully tried for heresy?
Anyone who can set me straight if my facts are way wrong on that?????
Hahaha LMAO that is really funny LAdyAnn. Thanks i needed that laugh. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif Yes those pesky KGB dudes always seem to get my assassins.Quote:
Originally Posted by [b
The way i use assassins is to make 1 province pretty much constanly produce them - and send them out in HORDES. If they die - they die. I just hate those pesky bishops moving around and converting my populace.
When some of the assassins reach 3 valour i start grooming them. Send them out after soft targets sure enough to kill the target but not to get killed themselves. So far i have had a number of 7 valour asassins. These guys rule.
I never go after generals. No point to kill them if they have bad vices like Good runner etc. And if the general is good , then it will feel 100 times better when you deafeat him in battle.
My 2 cents http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wave.gif
some people say that having assassins/strategic unit army is tiring and boring and painfully boring...sure, it may be the case, but having a secret dark army is a keystone to any large empire. maintaining and recruiting agents are a must.
i find that its best to keep assassins in your own lands (unless you attack an enemy general) and wipe out other agents. probably one every 2-3 provinces is a sustainable network of agent defence.
here's a strategy...have a really high valour assassin and have freshly recruited assassins and send them to kill a general. the inferior assassins will get caught, and the high valour one can go for the kill and escape...
Yes they are probably best for killign inquisitors before they fry your best generals.....
They can usually build up valor just by sitting in your own province (espically those with ports) and catch enemy spies and assains....
If I need to win a offense really badly I sometimes send a few assains ahead along with my army on the same move to have them kill the enemy generals first... if they succeed it makes life much easier for me as the enemy army tend to rout much easily....
Using Spies offensively is acturally quiet easy.... and more useful than assains.... they can start rebellions really fast (look for port province without border watch ... of if you get a lot of them and or really good onces send them to places like portugal and scotland even if they have border watch http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif )
Someone also meantioned the mass spying trick to seriously drop enemy general's loyalty.... making him much easier to either bribe or rebell....
My usual strategy is to have 1 assasin & 3 or 4 spies in each province. Loyalty high, threat low. And let's pick those travellers...
for spying duty, I'm using priests/bishops. Very few attacks vs them. They show me the entire map AND slowly convert my future conquests. Way cool...
Only offensive unit : the inquisitor. Need to explain? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif
Assasins are very useful - it only takes time to get higher valour. My assasins of valour 7 or 6 did kill enemy kings (2 or 3 stars),and removed a couple of 4 and 5 star generals http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/cool.gif
Reynald said:
I've got a comment about that. I've NEVER had a successful inquisition against a noble or general. They all come out of it with their halos intact. Pure as the driven snow. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...s/rolleyes.gif The comment about leads me to believe I'm doing something wrong. Is there a certain piety level in which you have more success? I've tried zero piety generals and failed. How pathetic is that?Quote:
Originally Posted by [b
Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks.
Its all to do with the zeal in the province your inquisitor is in. I've had 100% sucess rates before with low piety targets in high zeal provinces. Generals with the Atheist vice are the best as their piety doesn't tend to increase with each failed inquisition. Provinces with a zeal rating of below 20 are not good places to send your inquisitor. Nor are provinces which are not 100% Catholic. You can also reverse this tactic to protect your key generals from AI inquisitors. Leave one of your own in inquisitors in the province with your apostate general. Eventually your inquisitor will begin burning random members of the populace (presumably out of boredom) and this causes the zeal to significantly decrease.Quote:
Originally Posted by [b
But the thing with inquisitors is to try & try again. It reveals V&Vs, and nearly always end up with atheist. The next year, game over.
Gregoshi as Theodret says probably the most important things are the zeal of the province and the skill (***'s) of the inquisitor doing the witch hunt, the most sucess ive ever had was on the spanish around the 1250 mark after they start getting the zeal bonus in certain provinces due to historic events... took out 3 heirs and the king... dissolved their faction and then picked of the competent /non-bribable rebel generals.
In the same campaign also managed to pick of enough loyal HRE generals that is caused a civil war.
But as a bit of advice unless im mistaken the prescence of the king in the same province as another general seems to affect the chance of sucess as well http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/angry.gif
Oh just for completeness sake i was playing the french from early on expert...
hope it helps http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ons/smokin.gif
Thanks folks. I haven't paid much attention to the zeal but I will now. Aside from the inquisitors, are there any other ways to increase zeal? Inquisitors seem to take a liking to bon fires once zeal reaches about 65%-70%, or is that enough zeal to nail a heretic?
from what i've seen when they do go on their burning rampage in the province the zeal seems to shoot up very high in the province ( kinda the salem join in or they might suspect me effect ) so any trials of individuals will be much easier once the population has been 'cleansed'.
The zeal also seems to increases if the catholic population is as high as u can get it.... also got the feeling just frommmy own experiences that if youre ruler has a good piety this has a increase effect on the zeal accross the kingdom ( this last one could have just been coincidental).
Anything above 20% zeal gives a fair chance of burning with low piety generals. At 70% zeal I find that mid-piety (3 to 4) targets can be burned at around 40-60% chance (depending on your Inquisitor's valour). Some of the virtues seem to affect the probability of a successful inquisition, and royal blood definately affects it. A grand inquisitor with two valour can burn a King with 15~20% chance of success in zeal 60%+ provinces (I burned two Kings of Hungary camped out in zealous Austria in my last game. One king had 2 piety, the other 3. Zeal in Austria was 54% at the time). If you burn one member of a royal family, it seems to increase the success rate for further burnings in the same family.Quote:
Originally Posted by [b
Reynald - If you watch the provincial zeal for longer than one turn you will see that whilst zeal initially increases, the Inquisitor's actions will eventually reduce it to low levels. One of my Inquisitors active in Aragon reduced the zeal from 62% to 7% in two turns because I forgot to give him any targets.
really theodoret .. My last few inquisitions which i let run the course, without re-assigning them to an individual had the effect of raising the zeal to about 95-100%, although saying that a papal inquisition at the same time was reducing the zeal in rome which i thought was odd (ie. same events but radically different effects on zeal), i just chalked it down to the level of the inquisitor (the ai's was 0 star) mine were i think a 5 star normal and a 4 star grand. Oh by the way good call on the once u find one member of a family the chances vs. the entire line increase as well.
Oh an i do keep a carefull check on zeal ( u have to with all them pesky crusades marching through your territory).
Greetings ALL http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif
I have not read the thread in it's entirety. apologies.
BUT I have posted some proof of the usefulness of assasins in this screenshot thread, here:
Master Infiltrator - Thornbjorn the PRIEST
NB: scroll down to the bottom of page.
The Priest was trained at a normal establishment and walked his way to higher rank, by practicing his art.
In Vi Border forts will catch most spies/assasins, if they 5 star they may survive for a short while.
I've hated the blunderbuss approach of training 20 agents then saturating the attack to get a result. Its tedious, boring and unsubtle.
Much better IMHO is a mod which makes them more powerful but makes them much more costly to keep.
Basically I've simply modded the starting valour to +1 and reduced the training requirements so getting +3-4 stars in ~20-30 years of building is possible.
However I've made them expensive to upkeep (100 fl/year), long to build (2-3 years) and more costly to train (300-400).
So if a player wants to use them he can , he is relieved of the tedium of mooving around masses of agents, having said that they still get caught by provinces with BF's in droves, so even improved spies/assasins can only ever be a partial rode to victory.
Nice idea Razor1952, have you also thought about maybe modding them so that only the various moslem and the byantines are the only factions able to create them?
Just an idea but sounds more historically apt. (also gives another difference between the factions?) ie. their sort of then the moslem counter balance for the catholics inquisitors???
My assassin started out with 5 valor and he killed about 3 or 4 emissaries and princesses and still didn't gain any valor. Then on his last mission to kill an emissary, he died. The mission said it had a 97% success rate. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/frown.gif
Having spent many games training and observing agent promotions, the following is my best guess.
Each star requires a set number of successes based on this formula.
rating = 2^(new rating-1).
eg
a 0 star inquisitor
needs 1 success to get 1 star
needs 4 successes to get 3 stars (2 to raise from 2)
needs 64 successes to get 7 stars (32 to raise from 6)
needs 256 successes to get 9 stars (128 to raise from 8)
Certain actions are worth more successes, the number of successes that an action earns seems to equal the number of stars of the victim minus 1.
I may be wrong about this too and you may get different result with your own testing.
I use assasins in my territory regularly to kill of intruding Inquisitors. I also kill of Emissaries that are moving through my territory towards enemies, I don't want them forging any bonds. Emissaries provide easy training grounds for assasins.
I have had zero success at using assasins against faction leaders or princes. I always build Border Forts first off the kill of as many threats as possible and later in the game the AI's Border Forts are just as effective as mine are.
Welcome to the Org Quokka. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wave.gif There are emissaries in these forums, so I don't want you going around killing them, okay? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/shock.gif
I know what you mean. It is something that really pisses me off about the computer. It pointlessly moves its men around continually as a meta-defense against assasins.Quote:
Originally Posted by [b
What is worse is the whole thing is illogical. If you travel every year then an assasin should have a much easier time catching you on a ship out at sea or on the road between towns and finish you off quickly.
Instead the AI's bastard habit of moving everyone every turn makes some of his agents effectively immortal.
Assassins never last very long, and against high ranking targets they have a strong tendency to come out somewhat dead. I did find a good way to boost an assassin's valour is targeting princesses. They seem to be a bit easier to kill than generals or royal males ( I've had more luck anyway ), but still give a fair amount of valour to the assassin. Don't know if there is any negative effect for doing this ( merciless slaughter of innocent maidens and all that ) but I haven't noticed any.
It is a lot easier to build up an assassin in your own territories as well. Especially when the Almohads are sending 4 or 5 emissaries into one of your regions to spy on you, and when you've killed them, another four or five get sent ( This process is still going on, seemingly indefinitely, in my current game )
Miltiades, welcome to the Entrance Hall. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wave.gif
The only negative is when your mother, sister, girlfriend or wife looks over your shoulder and sees what you are doing... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by [b
In my view they dont work as well as they should i even once
started a game where i changed the text file and gave myself 9 star agents they all got done in pretty quickly.
Bribbing with emmisaries is generally my tactic along with a cardinal or two to get some money from ol popey
Someone said that it is impossible to assasinate your own King but it is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/joker.gif I once was fooling around and made a valour 9 assasin and it said something like Are you sure sir that you want to order your own assasination? And it worked I killed my own King
Yesterday (this early morning, to be precise http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif ) I set a three-star inquisitor against a German general with *zero* faith. The odds were 100%, but the inquisitor tried the guy and decided he was innocent http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/frown.gif
Thanks for the welcomeQuote:
Originally Posted by [b
Don't worry, I'll keep watch for any female intervention http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/joker.gif
I tend to prefer inquisitors myself. I recentl dropped one in Bavaria, during a war with the HRE, and he dismantled the province the stacks moved out and I waltzed right in with a 4 unit army. Granted it was decimated but it was a good buffer province after peace was made.