Why Assassins are *meant* to Fail

While digging through the campaign database I think I have discovered part of the reason why assassins have a remarkably low base chance of 12% to stab someone successfully compared to 35% for inquisitors. This is due to two major changes from RTW:

1. Assassins survive their missions more often (although they lose skill from them way too easily).

2. The target's skill level has almost no impact on how easy it is to kill him.

The relevant entries in the file:

<assassinate_base_chance float="12"/>
<assassinate_attack_modifier float="1.0"/>
<assassinate_defence_modifier float="0.0"/>
<assassinate_public_modifier float="1.0"/>
<assassinate_personal_modifier float="1.0"/>
<assassinate_counter_spy_modifier float="1.0"/>
<assassinate_agent_modifier float="2.0"/>
<assassinate_own_region_modifier float="0.7"/>
<assassinate_assassinate_attr_modifier float="0.1"/>
<assassinate_chance_min int="5"/>
<assassinate_chance_max int="95"/>

Changing the assassinate_defence_modifier to 1.0 made characters with high primary stats (command stars for generals, piety for priests etc.) impossibly difficult to kill, while those with low stats remained relatively easy (I have a whole bunch of level 10 killers and plenty of targets to test them on). I did notice some difference between killing a priest with 1 piety and one with 2 piety even when the value was set to 0.0, but nowhere near as dramatic as when set to 1.0. Apparently, killing someone on his home ground takes a large hit as well (assassinate_own_region_modifier float="0.7"). This makes experienced assassins super dangerous because they can assassinate virtually anybody no matter how experienced he is, unless he has one of the personal security traits or travels with a large stack of troops (the public and personal modifiers).

Nice job. So killing someone is obviously easier outside his home ground and is easier for you to kill people on your own ground ?

I'm actually a bit of a fan of the changes to assassins. They're there and basically useful for those that want to spend the time and effort to work them up and use them but not so over powered that they lend themselves to dominance in the game. I'm currently playing with Lusted's LtC 1.1 so it might actually be the changes he made to assassins that I'm a fan of, come to think on it some lol.

I also am half pleased by/half annoyed by the easy stat reduction on failure. It sure does add to the tension and keeps me from simply throwing assassins and spies around like I used to in RTW. I tend to see them now as more like assets that need careful cultivation and only risk on serious deployments.

But there's one thing for sure and for certain. Soon enough, there's gonna be a plethora of mods and there'll eventually be enough choices to keep most everyone happy.

Hmmm

Quote:

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<assassinate_agent_modifier float="2.0"/>

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Obviously this one isn't a spy, this one is:

Quote:

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<assassinate_counter_spy_modifier float="1.0"/>

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So what is the first one?

And the personal modifier? Would that be the effect the various traits and ancilliaries have?

At elast we know for sure that spies help against assassinations, and why spies are so insanely hard to kill (they are their own counterspies).
But the cange you mention to the defence modifier, does that make lower ranked characters easier, while higher ranked harder? That would be great, as I hate to be able to go about killing Cardinals for lunch, yet I want to rid my lands of troubling inquisitors (even after the patch I'm sure they are going to be a pain).

can you tell me where this is so i can make "super assasins"?

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

Hmmm


Obviously this one isn't a spy, this one is:

So what is the first one?

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My guess would be that it is what makes it easier to kill agents (priests excepted for some reason. I'd quite like it if priests were as easy to kill as diplomats of equal skill :/ ) than generals.

Nice find again, dopp ! I like the thinking behind it. Nobody's safe from experienced killers, but experienced killers are very hard to come by. "Realistic", in my book.

Guild is way slow for me this whole week... takes 5 mins to load a page and half my posts get blocked.

In RTW and earlier games, the character's "primary statistic" seemed to make a difference as to how easy he was to kill. For example, a general with 10 command stars was harder to knock off than some newbie with 1 star. This doesn't seem to have as great an impact now. I'm still playing with the settings to see what causes what, but now the patch is disrupting things.

After much more testing I find my initial conclusions in error. Things are a lot more complex.

What I think the various settings mean:

<assassinate_base_chance float="12"/>

This is the base chance for a kill. It seems to be multiplied rather than added to by other factors since changing it from 12 to 35 (matching inquisitors) created super assassins that had a 95% chance of assassinating well-guarded faction leaders on home territory as opposed to 16% before. No wonder inquisitors were overpowered.

<assassinate_attack_modifier float="1.0"/>

How much your assassin's agent skill (number of eyes) affects things. Assassins also have an "assassination" bonus that is separate.

<assassinate_defence_modifier float="0.0"/>

This is rather difficult to figure out. Changing it to 1.0 made princess, merchants, priests and inquisitors very very difficult to kill, yet generals are completely unaffected. It seems to trigger some hidden value.

I changed this to 1.0. 10 piety inquisitor vs 10 skill assassin, base_chance set to 35 (super-assassin mode). Chance dropped from 84% to a mere 6% with change.

<assassinate_public_modifier float="1.0"/>

This does nothing I can discern.

<assassinate_personal_modifier float="1.0"/>

If your target has personal security traits (faction heirs and leaders get them automatically) they make things harder. Much harder. Characters also pick up security traits after each failed assassination attempt, making them increasingly harder to kill. Pick important targets well and use your best men. On the bright side, failed assassination attempts will give the target horrible traits like:

Gambling 15%
Girls 20%
Drink 20%
Paranoia 33%
Insane 30% (if paranoia is 3 or higher)
Deranged 10% (if paranoia is 3 or higher)
Xenophobia 8%
Introvert 25%
Doomsayer 100% (Priest)
CowardDiplomat 33% (Diplomat)
WaningConviction 33% (Heretics and Inquisitors)
TimidWoman 33% (Princess)

One point of personal security knocks a huge chunk off the chance of a kill, but increasing amounts have a diminishing effect.

<assassinate_counter_spy_modifier float="1.0"/>

This value divides the kill chance directly. Setting it to 0.5 (but not zero, that messes things up) doubles the chance, setting to 2.0 halves it. Doesn't seem related to spies at all.

<assassinate_agent_modifier float="2.0"/>

This seems to multiply the kill chance on an agent after all other calculations are made. Changing this to 1 halved the percentages, while changing it to 3 increased them by 50%. Generals and captains not affected.

<assassinate_own_region_modifier float="0.7"/>

This is really wonky. Apparently it multiplies the kill chance if the target is on your territory. This means that killing someone wandering around in your very own lands will have only 70% effectiveness (ie significantly harder). Who would have thought it? Rather stupid, since that's where you most want to bump them off in the first place (like when they're leading an army that is beseiging one of your cities).

<assassinate_assassinate_attr_modifier float="0.1"/>

Figured it out. Apparently assassins have an "assassination skill" as well as an agent skill. Since the modifier is so low you won't see much of a difference (approximately 3-5% for each point of assassination skill). Changing this to 1.0 made assassins with even a +1 assassination bonus uber killers again (30-50% increase across the board).

How to get assassination skill:

Prototype Handgun: +1 assassination, +2 law. 33% upon agent creation if there is a gunsmith or higher in the city.
Child Apprentice: +1 assassination. 5% chance on killing a target. This one is ridiculously easy to get for some reason.
Assassin's Blade: +1 assassination. 3% chance on killing a target. Also rather easy to pick up.

<assassinate_chance_min int="5"/>
<assassinate_chance_max int="95"/>

Pretty self-explanatory. Inquisitors have no failure chance at all.

The only variable that seems to affect the chance of killing a general or governor is the number of troops he has in the stack with him. A full stack means 44% chance, 19 is 55%, 18 is 59% and so on (10 skill assassin). Nothing else seems to matter (except the presence of spies and personal security traits). A 10 star, 9 dread, 10 loyalty super Mongol general leading the world's finest army is just as easy to kill as a captain leading 20 cards of town militia.

Here's something else I dug up:

<acquisition_base_chance float="30.0"/>
<acquisition_level_modifier float="3.0"/>
<acquisition_attack_trade_rights_modifier float="1.3"/>
<acquisition_defence_trade_rights_modifier float="0.7"/>
<acquisition_chance_min int="5"/>
<acquisition_chance_max int="95"/>

Notice that level makes a massive difference and that trade rights with the target seems to neutralize his resistance. Maybe this is why AI merchants, who tend to be very aggressive, always seem to win their fights.

Great post! Sounds like I should try to use a few of my awesome killers against the Mongol supergenerals then due to command stars not having an effect and them not having home ground advantage (muwahahaha).

So are these values changed at all post-patch? What about the relevant numbers for Inquisitors?

Outstanding research dopp. You should post something like this in the mod chat forums or the mod wiki, along with some information on what each value does (increasing or decreasing makes it more/less effective).

It's still preliminary stuff and doesn't say much yet. I will run more tests using my "mature" campaign where there are lots of different targets to pick from.

Inquisitors are completely unchanged. The file wasn't even touched by the patch. If CA has indeed toned down the inquisitors, it must be something AI-related.

Some updates to the above post.

Well, since the traits now seem to indicate that you get bonusses for successes and you are not certain to get it from failures (25-33% now) I can see now that inquisitors might not be so deadly. For if they don't just walk about and burn everything (which they still can if they want to), then they shouldn't be getting to insanely high levels either. Which in turn should make it a bit easier to be assassin, which should also be at higher level becasue of the less chances of losing traits.

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This is really wonky. Apparently it multiplies the kill chance if the target is on your territory. This means that killing someone wandering around in your very own lands will have only 70% effectiveness (ie significantly harder). Who would have thought it? Rather stupid, since that's where you most want to bump them off in the first place (like when they're leading an army that is beseiging one of your cities).

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They might have taken the view that when on YOUR lands they are wary of dangers, whilst when at home on their OWN lands they relax and let their guard down.

It makes sense I guess.....(a bit anyway) :juggle2:

The unpacked traits file is unchanged from the one before the patch. It has always been 50% chance to lose skill after a botched assassination and 33% chance to lose piety after a failed trial.

I strongly suspect the changes were to inquisitor target priority (ie burn the witch first, not the player's faction leader).

Another interesting titbit:

Trigger agents42_inquisitor_big_failure
WhenToTest DenouncementMission

Condition not MissionSucceeded
and AgentType = inquisitor
and Trait BadDenouncer >= 2

Affects InquisitorFailure 1 Chance 100

Inquisitor failure is a hidden trait that causes the poor fellow to lose all his piety if he fails 3 to burn someone times (strike three).

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Originally Posted by Darkmoor_Dragon

They might have taken the view that when on YOUR lands they are wary of dangers, whilst when at home on their OWN lands they relax and let their guard down.

It makes sense I guess.....(a bit anyway) :juggle2:

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That would be my reasoning too yes. When you're in enemy lands, you're supposed to expect any kind of sneaky trick.

I'd surmise it's also this way to make sure you don't easily decapitate a whole crusade/jihad with just one bloke and his monkey :laugh4:

@dopp : yes, I've been puzzled by this StrikeThree trigger myself - instant Piety -10 is very, very brutal :sweatdrop:. I don't really get the reasoning behind it either. Maybe a last minute fix to try and make them less overpowered, only I've never seen it happen *ever* ?

they have done something to make it hard to level up your assasins in the patch - apparently you can no longer train them up by taking out rebel captains. i dont really see any other way of getting decent assasins.

i would be interested in some post-patch research on assasins.

as it is if i want to improve my assasins would you suggest:

<assassinate_counter_spy_modifier float="1.0"/>

changing this value to 0.5

<assassinate_agent_modifier float="2.0"/>

and changing this to 3.

would you say that would ramp up their abilite a bit without making them rediculous?

There is a {new (?)} trait you now gain if an inquisitor fails which gives +1 piety and presumably helps or prevents further inquisition trials.

Sadly not at my game PC and cant remember what its called - doh

Some conclusions so far:

1. Kill chance for generals and captains is determined by number of troops they are leading. None of their primary stats seems to affect the result at all. Even a Mongol or Timurid general with maximum stats can be killed as easily as some newbie general with nothing but 5 loyalty, as long as they are leading the same number of unit cards. Captains have a slightly higher chance of being killed than generals.

Two other factors (besides assassin skill and home ground disadvantage) affect the result. Personal security drops the chance considerably. +1 security can decrease the chance by 30% or more. Faction heirs and leaders get security bonuses automatically, but the main way for other characters to pick it up is to get attacked and get lucky (not die).

2. For agents the chance of getting killed is dependent on their skill level. This appears to be hardcoded. Merchants, diplomats and princesses seem to be the hardest to kill (but you'll never notice the last two because they hardly have any skill at all). Priests, heretics, witches and, surprisingly, inquisitors are much easier to silence (except that inquisitors have annoyingly high piety, they start with 6 or something, and usually have +1 security traits). Spies and assassins are in the middle. Some agents can gain personal security bonuses from failed assassinations if they can kill the assassin (rare but it happens).

The <assassinate_agent_modifier float="2.0"/> seems to affect the chance of killing agents as opposed to generals. So if you want your assassins to be better at killing agents only, then increase the value. It seems to be a straight multiplier, so 3.0 is maybe a bit excessive (60% chance will become 90% chance).

3. Killing people in your territory is 30% less effective. Go outside to kill people. Anywhere outside your borders will do.

4. Assassins are more-or-less balanced (or were, no free training after the patch). It's really difficult to strike a balance with them because their primary targets, generals, are pretty much defenseless against attack unless they spend their entire lives leading huge stacks of troops.

Case in point: I changed the assassination base rate to 35%. I killed the entire Mongol faction off using 3 grand master assassins. Nothing lower than 72%, even for the ultra-paranoid Khan with numerous personal security measures and a full stack of elite troops. Within 30 turns 6 factions had been destroyed, mostly due to assassins (mine and AI) killing off all the family members faster than they could be replaced. Every jihad and crusade that formed was instantly decapitated. Tweaking the value down still produced unsatisfactory results, until finally I decided to use vanilla settings. I modded the trait triggers instead so my assassins didn't lose skill quite so easily and picked my targets more carefully.

5. The computer either doesn't use spies to protect its generals or the spies are not having much of an effect. I use my own spies to scout but it's hard to be sure if there's not an AI spy somewhere around spoiling my observations. If anyone knows how to make spies lose their hidden status, let me know please.

I'm pretty sure that spies and assasins are revealed by rival spies.

Whatever the situation is, it's next to impossible to level up an assassin. Even rebel captains, the easiest target, are only a 15% chance, and if those don't increase your trait then it's utterly hopeless. :inquisitive: I built eight assassins and tried taking out a low level merchant with a 12% shot, and none of them succeeded, four died and two of the remaining four died the next time they tried. I'm not wasting my time on assassins any more.


Now, if I could build Inquisitors.... :idea2:

So dopp, where is this info stored?

Perhaps a base_chance of around 0.2 (slight increase) and perhaps the defence modifier could be the same? That would make good general hard to kill, but lousy captains and other low end units faily easy, thus making somewhat skilled assassins a bit easier without makign the game a walkover for them (though the Pope would be a problem with his measly 1 Command, which should be his main skill).

Actually the assasins are uber-powered. No matter how much the general or the king etc has in security, no matter how troops there are, no matter how many spies there are, no matter how noobish are the assasins, they have at leats 5% chance of success.
This may seem very little, but actually is VERY VERY much. Think about this - every jerk may decide to kill the american president with 5% chance for a try. It is wonder there are still presidents left alive.
As in the game - several noobish assasins for 3-4 turns will kill everyone and there is no defence against those 5% chance. Actually there must be ever 1% or 2% and even 0% chance of success.

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Originally Posted by Darkmoor_Dragon

There is a {new (?)} trait you now gain if an inquisitor fails which gives +1 piety and presumably helps or prevents further inquisition trials.

Sadly not at my game PC and cant remember what its called - doh

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ForcedReligious. +1/+2/+3 Piety, thresholds 1/2/4 survived trials. Only for generals, though.

You can also get it from natural disasters...which, taken the other way, could probably mean even the generals know that inquis are unescapable forces of nature :laugh4:

I'm the opposite. I find the assassins totally useless in this game. I have played five different factions so far and my experience with them just plain sucks. They cant seem to kill anything. Not other assassins, not merchants, not priests, not generals. I dont know what the CA designers did to the assassin unit but I'm not happy with them at all.

The AI assassins on the other hand kill almost the majority of the time. The only use I have found for the assassin that works even worthy of having them is in defensive positions. Place them in a army stack, or a town and they keep other assassins and spies from getting in and doing mayhem. Offensively assassins are terrible in my experiences so far and I have spent alot of time trying to get them to work. I play my campaigns on H/H. I dont know if this has anything to do with it or not. I liked how assassins worked in RTW much better than how they work in MTW2. :furious3:

I would agree. The RTW assassins weren't overpowered, and were kind of useful. The M2TW assassins aren't worth anything and could be eliminated from the game as an option without losing a bit.

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

I would agree. The RTW assassins weren't overpowered, and were kind of useful. The M2TW assassins aren't worth anything and could be eliminated from the game as an option without losing a bit.

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Somewhat agree and disagree. Early patch assassins and diplomats felt more useful. After CA implemented the "you fail and you lose 5 levels" bit and some other tweaking, they felt significantly more useless.

Per dopp's research, I knocked my assassin base chance up to 25 from 12, and they finally feel about right where they should be. Chances to kill nameless captains in charge of small stacks is 50 or so, which is where I think it should be. Even my uber assassins now will still fail probably 1 out of 5-10 tries, which is fine by me.

@Kraxis: The values are found in the "descr_campaign_db" near the bottom of the file. Hope that helps.

Just to clarify: unlike agents, the kill chance for CHARACTERS and CAPTAINS is based on the number of troops they lead, NOT on their skill. A 10-star Mongol General leading 20 3-gold Khan's guards is as easy to bump off as some random newbie leading 20 town militia. This chance is 44% for a 10-skill assassin against a full stack of troops. Only other thing that will modify this chance (besides having protective spies nearby) is if your general has personal security traits. These tend to be rare for family members other than the faction leader and heir; you need to get hit and escape to get them usually, not an easy gamble with a 44% chance of dying.

This is what makes assassins really deadly: their effectiveness against unguarded family members. I use vanilla settings in my game because 6 factions died in 30 turns or so from assassinations when I tried to buff them. Even now I managed to kill off the Aztecs using three 7-skill assassins and I'm working on the Timurids with four 10-skill. What I would recommend is changing the trait triggers for failed assassinations to 10-20% rather than the 50% it is now so that assassins don't lose skill so easily. Their target already gains personal security and becomes harder to kill with each failed try, so no point making things even worse for them by making them lose skill.

As they are now (I'm still playing the unpatched game) assassins arent of much use as I stated earlier but I dont think they should be removed from the game. Having a useful unit like assassins would make the game more enjoyable so I dont advocate removing them. Just tweak them. Make them less difficult to use. I guess increase their chances like mentioned above by others.

Unfortunately CA, as usual in their games, didnt fully play test and balance their game enough before releasing it. So we need a mod I guess. I havent tried to mod before. I'd rather let others more talented and knowing work their magic in this area. :yes:

I think it should be virtually impossible to assassinate generals or family members, or else the game would be simply far too easy.

Now, asssinating spies and diplomats and priests and such is all well and good :)

So, then in conclusion how would u get the strongest assassins? And would you have to start a new campaign?

EDIT: And what file?

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Originally Posted by ShadowStriker

So, then in conclusion how would u get the strongest assassins? And would you have to start a new campaign?

EDIT: And what file?

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How to get the strongest assassins playing vanilla or through modding?

Modding:

If you want to mod, extract the descr_campaign_db file and scroll to the bottom. Change the following value to something higher to increase the kill chances:

<assassinate_base_chance float="12"/>

Now extract the export_descr_character_traits file and do a search for the following line:

Affects BadAssassin 1 Chance 50

Change the value to something lower, 10-33 is a good range to choose from.

Save and do either a modswitch or tweak your game to run the modded files. Check the mods section for information on how to do this. The changes should show up in any campaign you load, you don't have to start a new one.

Vanilla:

Train lots of assassins in the city of your choice until you are offered an Assassin's guild, Master Assassin's guild and so on. Killing people also increases the chance of getting the guilds. A Master Assassin's guild will easily increase the skill of all assassins produced there by 2 or more. If you are lucky enough to have a gunsmith in the city, assassins trained there will have a 33% chance of picking up a prototype handgun for a modest boost in killing people.

All assassins start with at least 1 skill and have a 33% chance of starting with 2 skill. If they start will 2 skill, they have a 33% chance of starting with 3 skill. Training them in a city with a an Assassin's Guild gives +1 skill. Build a Master Assassin's guild by spamming assassins and you get a +2 bonus for assassins produced from any city in your empire. Therefore, most assassins you produce will have 4 skill to start with and a high chance of 5 skill.

You are going to need plenty of assassins, one or two just won't cut it. Build at least 4-6 of them to start with (should be enough to get you an assassin's guild offered once they start making some kills). Start out small by sabotaging buildings in rival cities. Put a few spies in them first so you can see what you're whacking. It won't give a message like killing people would, but sabotaging a building will give the GoodConspirator trait line that gives +3 skill at the highest level. It takes 8 successful sabotage attempts to gain the highest level. Your assassins will now have 7-8 skill.

You are now ready to start killing people. Look for hapless 0-1 skill diplomats wandering around, or princesses with no charm (you are doing the world a favor by getting rid of them). Whack them. Your skill will start increasing rapidly as ancillaries and GoodAssassin traits start pouring in. The first successful kill you pull off should give +1 skill for GoodAssassin, and maybe an ancillary of some kind:

Catamite +1 skill
Beguiling Bard +1 skill
Courtesan +1 skill
Dancer +2 skill
Femme Fatale +2 skill
Poisoner +2 skill
Young Apprentice +1 assassination
Assassin's Blade +1 assassination

You stand a 3-5% chance of picking up any one of these on a successful kill, which is pretty high considering how many there are available. Congrats, you now have a 8-10 skill assassin after only 1 successful kill. Whack another fellow and your skill should increase by +1 again. Repeat.