The mysterious Portugese assassin... Or maybe Mughal, but more likely Portugese.

[Dayve]

Funny thing in my game as Marathas today, i conquered Goa from the Portugese, you know, India for the Indians and all that. It was a grand battle, many corpses littered the field, mostly theirs, thousands of them, and maybe a hundred of mine, but that's what they get for sending hordes of colonial militia against my line infantry and cannons with splatter shot, as i've lovingly come to call it.

Anyway, afterwards i decided to get rid of this strange religion the Portugese had brought to my peoples rightful home, and replace it with the ancient and only religion that belongs in my lands, so i sent a religious dude into the city and ended turn.

As soon as my next turn started, i saw he had been assassinated. I looked in the agents tab of the city and saw nothing, and there were no agents there and none in the province, because i can usually see them, especially if i have an agent of my own around. I sent an assassin of my own to the city and another religious agent. He was assassinated again, and once more there was no sign of the agent.

I sent a third and another assassin of my own into the city in the hopes of catching this agent, so i now had 2 assassins and a third religious agent in the city. The next turn, religious agent number 3 was assassinated, and i was out of religious agents and had to wait another 4 years before i could send another, because Goa has no towns and i couldn't build a religious school.

So 4 years later i sent a 4th religious agent, and there he remains, 20 years later, the mysterious and untraceable Portugese assassin having disappeared for good, it seems.

The Portugese have a trade route of mine blocked and won't make peace, and i was going to invade them by sea, but if you saw how many full stacks of men and ships they have sat around the Spanish peninsula, you'd agree with me when i say it's better to just let them continue to blockade my trade route.

Oh, and the Portugese have conquered Spain. The entire peninsula. Heh...

[Quillan]

There have only been two situations where I have seen enemy rakes in the game:

1) I infiltrated a city successfully and he was on the list, or
2) The enemy agent tried and failed an action against me.

Other than these, they don't show up at all in my experience. Considering that I only see 30% chance of success on assassinations I find it stunning that the enemy can get the runs of luck they do. I had a similar situation once where I'd put 5 missionaries into Algiers, and had 3 assassinated in a row on successive turns. I even lost a general once to a "suspicious death".

I'm with you, I suspect the agent to be Portuguese, but off the top of my head I don't think there are any structures in Goa that can spawn them, so it could have been Mughal.

[Feanaro]

Wait, the AI uses rakes?

[antisocialmunky]

Could be a new bug, can't be too sure nowadays.

[MadKow]

As prussia i had a couple of gentlemen killed mysteriously in route from the city of origin to the university of my choice, two regions away. There as a game message saying the death had been mysterious. No rake in view, but that's the only explanation i can find.

[Quillan]

Wait, the AI uses rakes?

Oh, yes they do. When I started this campaign as the UP, I stuck my gentleman in the school outside Amsterdam just long enough to research Empyricism, then I moved him down towards France to start stealing tech. At the end of the first turn's movement he'd just crossed over Flanders into France. The following turn I had a floating message "Agent spotted" and there was a French rake standing right next to him. France had tried (and failed) to either assassinate my gentleman or investigate him via spy.

[Sheogorath]

Could be a new feature, can't be too sure nowadays.

Fix'd

EDIT:
Oh shi- Terrorist post.

[IlDuce]

The AI definitely uses rakes. I conquered Prussia's eternal enemy Poland-Lithuania and decided to turn my attention to their allies that had almost destroyed me, Russia. A quick scorched earth campaign was in order. Take out all their bordering regions, destroy everything and leave it for the rebels. If there was still the option to massacre the population I would have used it. Who better to command this expedition than my veteran general known for his penchant to attack, attack, attack. I march him and his full stack army to the Russian border, he runs out of movement points just before he can cross into enemy territory. Never mind, he can wait for his glory. Next turn I'm informed he's died a mysterious death and when I send my rake to investigate there's a Russian rake suspiciously close to where he died. I had my revenge by destroying everything but one barren, poverty stricken region. They beg for mercy, I grin and humiliate them further by making them swear fealty to me and they become my protectorate. I somehow demean them even further by failing to come to their aid when they're attacked. All because the AI used one rake.

I've had fun roleplaying, adds an extra dimension to the game other than killing everything.

[Dayve]

It's not that the AI used a rake that bothered me, it's that the rake was so mysterious. Goa is a tiny province, and i had 2 of my own rakes inside the city, and 4 of my religious agents were assassinated, so the rake must have been stood right outside the city for at least 4 turns and i couldn't see him, and then he slipped out of my empire, completely undetected, not being spotted once, and was never heard from again.

I'm not complaining, not at all... these little nuggets of intelligence by the AI are golden and i enjoy them, it's just strange that it was able to pull something off like that without being detected once.

I'm on VH campaign difficulty by the way.

[KozaK13]

It is just that he suceeded, so you couldn't see him...
I once had a rake die a suspicious death....he had previously failed to sabotage a farm.

[antisocialmunky]

How exactly do you sabotage a farm? Do you burn the fields or what?

[A Very Super Market]

You... kill the cows? I dunno.

I would think that you burn the fields, which is only a temporary stop to farming though.

[IlDuce]

You... kill the cows? I dunno.

I would think that you burn the fields, which is only a temporary stop to farming though.

A whole season's worth of farming.

I suppose you destroy the ploughs and other tools needed to plant and harvest.

[lugh]

Or poison the farmhands.

Anyway, the AI actually seems to use its agents intelligently, which is really nice. And while I'm finding a use for rakes and gentlemen in my latest campaign, I miss watching the pips on my assassins and spies rising slowly and surely to rank of 6* master spy or master assassin.
They should patch in a short "Infamy" scroll to the agents window, listing their kills, duels, sabotages etc.