About spies and assasins

[Bucefalo]

I recently read the Twitter update about the spy and assasin strat map models, and it remembered to me an idea i had some time ago about those characters. So i thought it would be nice to share it with you in case you find it interesting or the EB team may like it.

The idea mainly is to remove the spies, and give their functions to the assasin. Then call the character something like "rogue" or similar name. Now, i know what you are going to tell me, that it is hardcoded, i know, but it is still possible. I´ll try to explain with the exact things.

First thing is you remove the spy, this way you avoid the "oh no our spy have open the gates" and you make sieges require siege weapons.
You lose the unrest factor the spies cause, true, but let´s consider a few things:
-Ai settlements need many spies to make them rebel
-I think it is not too realistic to be able to make a city rebel by sending loads of spies
-And last and more important, the assasin can do the same. Yes, the assasin can sabotage the building which gives public order, and this way he causes unrest! I think this is more realistic, and it is more risky too. You can just not send your spies inside and magically they create unrest. With the assasin you have to sabotage the key buildings, and the higher the building is the more difficult it is.

Ok so how would this assasin replace the spy functions? Well it is easy. He won´t able to get inside setlements, true, but the main function of the spy he will still be able to do. You just have to give every assassin the "increase line of range" trait that many spies have, so now the assasins see many things around him, and you can send him to explore the map like you do with your spy. Assasins also use subterfuge like spies do, so it should not be much problem to make traits for them.

In addition, being an assasin now he can kill enemy characters. So you have everything the spy is in a single character, and you only lose the "open the gates" when doing sieges (which is very bad for gameplay in my opinion) and nothing more.

In short the idea would be giving the assasin more range of sight and making him a generic "infiltrated agent" capable of lowering public orders by sabotage of buildings, and killing enemy characters. Of course it should be balanced so that the assasin can not just kill every enemy character. But imo it would be a nice addition and solving the problem of the spy opening the gates, while having the spy and assasin characters in a single agent.

I hope you liked the idea or at least it was a nice reading for you :)

[AncientFanTR]

I recently read the Twitter update about the spy and assasin strat map models, and it remembered to me an idea i had some time ago about those characters. So i thought it would be nice to share it with you in case you find it interesting or the EB team may like it.

The idea mainly is to remove the spies, and give their functions to the assasin. Then call the character something like "rogue" or similar name. Now, i know what you are going to tell me, that it is hardcoded, i know, but it is still possible. I´ll try to explain with the exact things.

First thing is you remove the spy, this way you avoid the "oh no our spy have open the gates" and you make sieges require siege weapons.
You lose the unrest factor the spies cause, true, but let´s consider a few things:
-Ai settlements need many spies to make them rebel
-I think it is not too realistic to be able to make a city rebel by sending loads of spies
-And last and more important, the assasin can do the same. Yes, the assasin can sabotage the building which gives public order, and this way he causes unrest! I think this is more realistic, and it is more risky too. You can just not send your spies inside and magically they create unrest. With the assasin you have to sabotage the key buildings, and the higher the building is the more difficult it is.

Ok so how would this assasin replace the spy functions? Well it is easy. He won´t able to get inside setlements, true, but the main function of the spy he will still be able to do. You just have to give every assassin the "increase line of range" trait that many spies have, so now the assasins see many things around him, and you can send him to explore the map like you do with your spy. Assasins also use subterfuge like spies do, so it should not be much problem to make traits for them.

In addition, being an assasin now he can kill enemy characters. So you have everything the spy is in a single character, and you only lose the "open the gates" when doing sieges (which is very bad for gameplay in my opinion) and nothing more.

In short the idea would be giving the assasin more range of sight and making him a generic "infiltrated agent" capable of lowering public orders by sabotage of buildings, and killing enemy characters. Of course it should be balanced so that the assasin can not just kill every enemy character. But imo it would be a nice addition and solving the problem of the spy opening the gates, while having the spy and assasin characters in a single agent.

I hope you liked the idea or at least it was a nice reading for you :)

Perhaps it would make more sense to make the assassin into the spy and remove the assassin. This is more sensible gameplay-wise, and realistic, as spies and assassins would usually always go into the settlement before finding their mark or gathering intelligence, and once inside, it is much easier to infiltrate buildings and palaces to destroy them or murder people, and they could reduce the chance of the spy opening the gate, so you need many of them (this did happen in real life, though, in Rome when Sulla attacked Marius, the spies killed the men on the walls and opened the gates).

[anubis88]

So what would the "rogue" do then?

[Watchman]

"Rogue" ? How very D&D.

Also kinda inaccurate in the context.

[Bucefalo]

Well i said rogue for a lack of a better word, sorry english is not my native tongue. The basic idea is to have both spy and assassin in a single infiltrated agent.

AncientFanTR, yes it could be the other way around as you say. The only thing i dislike is the opening of gates which undermines the importance of siege weapons. For the rest of things i´m fine as to how the spy works in the game.

[Rahwana]

Listen up, if you remove teh spies and assassins, you made Barbarian, and especially Horse bound Nomadic factions at severe disadvantage, as they mostly relied on spies to open the door and asault a settlement.

[Ca Putt]

I agree with Sonic, Imo City walls are overpowered enough as they are now already - probably half the battles in RTW are sieges, it takes several years until a large city runs out of supplies, Siege engines are extremely rare and expensive not to mention they take more time to move. Cavalry units cannot dismount and carry a ram or even some ladders. tho I have to admit that I rather wait for the AI to sally than getting a spy into the city ^^ afterall it is not possible to sneak into the city without the enemy being prepared which did happen in history once in while.

and the unrest is probably generated by spies who instigate the plebs to revolts or spread lies(or truth ;) ) about the rulers. getting up city dwellers against one another and do minor sabotage acts that don't really decrease the effectiveness of a city but seed confusion and chaos.

not to mention that they are extremely useful when used against the AS :D

still they would probably be many assasins that are spies aswell and the other way around.

[Macilrille]

There is also, as I have pointed out before, the fact that the spy is in fact not really a sinister guy in a hooded cloak and with a dagger (how very D & D indeed), but represents money/weapons/resources sent as support to malcontents in an enemy culture so they will be restive, riot, sabotage, spy on troops, etc...

[Belisarius II]

Instead of rogue, the Roman agents could be called Deletores, who were actual agents and informers for Rome. I don't know if each faction could have its own uniquely named agent though.

[Horatius]

This may be unoriginal but maybe it could be a good idea for spies and assasins to have male and female models?

Off the top of my head there were the poisoning trials of 331 BC, Sempronia sister of the Grachii was a top suspect in the assasination of Aemelianus, Cicero learned about the Cataline Conspiracy from a female informant, and during the civil war Appian records a lot of women hiding their husbands from proscription, including by disguising themselves, in order so the men they were with wouldn't be looked over.

Would it be possible for some of the agents to be female (recycling the Princess model) while the vast majority are males? The Romans don't make sense using the Princess because royal marriage simply wasn't how things were done in the Republic, it was very late in the Empire before marriage was used to cement an alliance for the first time, and that was well beyond the Europa Barborum timeline.

[B-Wing]

This may be unoriginal but maybe it could be a good idea for spies and assasins to have male and female models?

I can't say this with certainty, but I don't think there can be multiple models for a single agent type. That is, I believe all diplomats of a given culture have exactly one model, and the same goes for all other agent types. So I don't think it would be possible for any particular agent type to have both male and female versions within the same culture group.

That does raise a question which I haven't thought of before, which is whether or not princesses will be used in EB2. I personally really like the role princesses play in M2TW (general stealer & temporary diplomat), but I doubt they will be deemed fitting for the degree of realism desired by this mod.

[HunGeneral]

I never imagined spies as hooded knife wielding stealth fighters. Rather as poor looking simple men (best word I could find is vandering beggar or maybe vagabund) - they don't atract attention and can keep walking around town unsuspected. In other cases they simply stay on important croosing or a hill overlooking a large area and observe enemy troop movements.
In other cases the spy simply represents a scout or two riding ahead of the army ("Black Steed" retinues comes to mind)
If need be they can take some abendoned orphan or beggar child as there "retinue" and send him to take some letters to "some man waiting before a tavern" or "some merchant in a nearby town" in exchange for some coins and food - atleast I think it doesn't seem too unrealistic - the child can't read (has no idea what he's carying around), has no ties to any lord or town/kingdom (being a beggars child or an orphan) and so on.

Now the Assasssins is a little different: mostly a criminal sentenced to death, but given a choice to kill or end up at the gallows. He might learn some useful tricks or now some from earlier (might have been a thief in his younger years).

That does raise a question which I haven't thought of before, which is whether or not princesses will be used in EB2. I personally really like the role princesses play in M2TW (general stealer & temporary diplomat), but I doubt they will be deemed fitting for the degree of realism desired by this mod.

I think some factions could get princesses (although I never liked them in MedII.....)

[Ludens]

I rather like this idea, actually. It will cut down on agent micromanagement, and spies opening city gates happened rather too frequently in my campaign. Or maybe that's just because I recruit loads of spies...

However, aren't assassins rather poor at reconnaissance, even at high skill levels?

Perhaps it would make more sense to make the assassin into the spy and remove the assassin.

Realistic, but not possible. You cannot change agent functions.

So I don't think it would be possible for any particular agent type to have both male and female versions within the same culture group.

Correct. Furthermore, the engine offers no means to tie a certain name or names to a portrait, so female agents would get male names and vica versa.

That does raise a question which I haven't thought of before, which is whether or not princesses will be used in EB2.

Some months ago that was one of the most frequently recurring questions. IIRC the team has not given a definite answer, but suggested that certain factions might get princesses.

[Watchman]

...say, wasn't the most common type of assassin in the period IRL an "inside man"...? That is, someone in close proximity to the target and able to approach him legitimately who was for any number of reasons - personal falling-outs, sheer greed, excessive ambition, whatever - open to suggestions by agents of the enemy to fatally abuse that access...?
I mean I'm pretty sure most of the high-profile cases I remember reading of involved bribed and/or disgruntled officers, bodyguards and so on whacking their commanders (or, in some cases, rulers - didn't one Roman Emperor get offed by a bodyguard somewhere in Syria while taking a piss in the bushes by the roadside...?)... and, conversely, I seem to recall quite a few officers and similar whose loyalty had come into question getting pre-emptively executed or otherwise gotten rid of by their superiors worried that they might be plotting such a move.

[Horatius]

I can't say this with certainty, but I don't think there can be multiple models for a single agent type. That is, I believe all diplomats of a given culture have exactly one model, and the same goes for all other agent types. So I don't think it would be possible for any particular agent type to have both male and female versions within the same culture group.

That does raise a question which I haven't thought of before, which is whether or not princesses will be used in EB2. I personally really like the role princesses play in M2TW (general stealer & temporary diplomat), but I doubt they will be deemed fitting for the degree of realism desired by this mod.

Well perhaps a very high level and very expensive (so not always desireable) spy or assasin then? It would be realistic, especially if you think Sempronia killed Aemelianus, and certainly a lot more realistic then just bringing the Princess, women had remarkable rights in Rome but they had nothing to do with the visible affairs of state like diplomacy, so I don't see how the princess could work anyway.

[B-Wing]

Not sure I understand exactly what you're suggesting at this point, Horatius. Are you saying replace the Princess with an elite Assassin agent? You could of course remove Princesses, but you cannot have two separate agent types both capable of assassination.

That is, there is an agent type the game recognizes as Assassin, which can sabotage buildings and murder other characters. You can rename it, remodel it, and give it all the traits you like, but it will only be able to do those two things (sabotage and murder). That is my understanding of how the game is programmed. So I think the closest you could come to having both male and female agents who dabbled in subterfuge is to represent all Spies as males and all Assassins as females, or vice versa.

Now, to expand on that, if you for whatever reason felt that female Assassins were fitting for certain factions, but not others, I think each culture group has it's own model and voice effects for each agent type (I know they at least have their own army and general models on the campaign map). When I say culture group, I'm referring to classifications like Celts, Romans, Greeks, Eastern, etc., which determine a faction's accents and campaign map appearance. I'm pretty sure all factions are designated as belonging to a certain culture and all their characters reflect this, rather than each faction having separate culture designations for generals, merchants, diplomats, etc.. Might be wrong on this. That make any sense?

[Horatius]

Not sure I understand exactly what you're suggesting at this point, Horatius. Are you saying replace the Princess with an elite Assassin agent? You could of course remove Princesses, but you cannot have two separate agent types both capable of assassination.

That is, there is an agent type the game recognizes as Assassin, which can sabotage buildings and murder other characters. You can rename it, remodel it, and give it all the traits you like, but it will only be able to do those two things (sabotage and murder). That is my understanding of how the game is programmed. So I think the closest you could come to having both male and female agents who dabbled in subterfuge is to represent all Spies as males and all Assassins as females, or vice versa.

Now, to expand on that, if you for whatever reason felt that female Assassins were fitting for certain factions, but not others, I think each culture group has it's own model and voice effects for each agent type (I know they at least have their own army and general models on the campaign map). When I say culture group, I'm referring to classifications like Celts, Romans, Greeks, Eastern, etc., which determine a faction's accents and campaign map appearance. I'm pretty sure all factions are designated as belonging to a certain culture and all their characters reflect this, rather than each faction having separate culture designations for generals, merchants, diplomats, etc.. Might be wrong on this. That make any sense?

Well I was thinking more along the lines of not elite, but it comes along much later, is a lot more expensive, more to give a feel of evolution and innovation but not to change anything. Similar in many ways to a lot of other endgame units nobody ever uses, i.e. in my Venive Campaign I never touched their endgame cavalry.

I think your right (but have no expertise in modding), although if it has to either be all of them or none of them I would go with none of them, since there aren't any cultures were female as an agent makes more sense then males, if they could just be a minority of the agents for some cultures, or a less disireable choice later on it would be interesting, but having all agents of any culture be female makes no sense.

So to replace the bad suggestion with a good one

A working tunic on an average Marcus would work I think, the tunic only going down to the knees, because unlike patricians he isn't constantly shaving (not enough leisure time) he has some body hair although because it's Roman probably not a lot (they frowned on body hair), no cloak or hoods.

In other words a plebian look for the spy

[ziegenpeter]

Well I also imagined an assassin more like an inside-man who becomes disloyal (Brutus). Because this Ninja-like concept seems a bit to romantic and unfitting for such a historical mod.
The same counts maybe for the Spies. They are are a badly depicted mixture of scouts and traders/other voyaging people/disloyal insders.
But unfortunatly, thats hardcoded, so we need to imagine this model on the map as a network of scouts and other helpers

[anubis88]

I still have no idea why would the assasin and spy be merged.
What's the point? I think the way they are portrayed now are good.
What would you want to do wit the extra one?

[Bucefalo]

I still have no idea why would the assasin and spy be merged.
What's the point? I think the way they are portrayed now are good.
What would you want to do wit the extra one?

The whole point was to delete the "spy have opened the gates" from the game, by giving the assassin more line of sight and making it the infiltrated agent. The extra agent would disappear from the game, so you would only have one.

Besides i think agents can be named depending on the culture, for example in the americas campaign the native americans have different names for their priest thath what the europeans have. But i am not too sure about it, someone with more modding knowledge should be able to tell us better.

[Skullheadhq]

But you couldn't see buildings and units in the settlement with an assasin, and that's the only reason I use these guys

[B-Wing]

The whole point was to delete the "spy have opened the gates" from the game...

I really don't see why spy-opened gates are a problem, especially considering the lack of catapults in the game. Boiling oil still works with opened gates (at least in M2TW), so relying solely on spies to allow an assault on a city is still very costly to the attackers. Why is this feature so disliked?

[Ludens]

I really don't see why spy-opened gates are a problem, especially considering the lack of catapults in the game. Boiling oil still works with opened gates (at least in M2TW), so relying solely on spies to allow an assault on a city is still very costly to the attackers. Why is this feature so disliked?

Because it is realistic that assaulting armies suffer heavy casualties. In EB, it's too easy to open gates using spies, especially since the A.I. is not very good at counter-intelligence.