Quote Originally Posted by Bramborough View Post
Nice write-up. Some good stuff here.

A few additional thoughts:

There's really no viable alternative to using champs in armies. The military training buff is just too valuable. Plus their zeal bonuses for the army's combat capabilities and movement range. The obvious skill spec is +zeal for army movement range and military training bonus. I rarely use champs for direct action...even when I do, it's usually to prevent an enemy army from reinforcing, which doesn't require a crit, just "normal" success. The champ's basic skill rank is usually plenty sufficient for this.

I've kinda flipped around on dignitaries...a pretty versatile agent. For 2 campaigns I used them as civil administrators in my richest provinces, for income boost. This worked well enough on Normal difficulty. At Hard and above, however, there's really too much AI agent spam to keep agents away from the front lines. I've now shifted to embedding them in armies as well...the military admin upkeep reduction has pretty much the same effect as using them for civil admin at home. Meanwhile the dignitary is closer to the action if needed against enemy agents/armies, and his +authority bonuses help out the general. I generally spec dignitaries toward military administration, but also the basic +zeal for army movement bonus.

Spies are my main direct-action agents; I'll supplement them with champs/dignitaries from nearby armies if things really get hairy. As you suggest, however, first I just deploy them in intelligence mode for the first 2 or 3 skill-ups, getting them to at least rank 3 and preferably Rank 4. At this point they become reasonably effective for direct-action missions, even against higher-rank targets. I generally spec my spies up the Poison tree (the snake icon), and also the authority tree for the boosted crit chance. Once these are maxed, then I go with the 2nd poison skill to boost casualty infliction.

Sometimes, this orderly scheme of things breaks down when an all-out agent spam erupts, and one needs all hands on deck to beat back an enemy agent flood. The basic +authority skill is good here for all agent types, as it substantially increases crit chance. This in turn greatly increases the rate of enemy agent conversion, which is usually how these "agent wars" are finally won.
Excellent addition, Bram. I think just wrapping your brain around the basic system is probably a bit overwhelming at first, and reading other's basic systems helps.

Yeah, I hear you on the training being the only real option for champions. Except in my Pontus campaign I was running into some terrible issues with public order while expanding...then having the Civil War hit. So I used them all in those territories to try to stem the public order issues. But the whole time I was unhappy at having to do so, because I would rather they be in the army. Really, that needs to be toned down though lol. I had one general with 60 exp per turn for soldiers, then he also had that one that lowers morale of enemy AND raises your charge? Then add army movement range? Come'on!! lol I guess if AI used it effectively also, it would balance it out, but I haven't seen it.

And yeah, except when I am (safetly) leveling my spies just setting up spy networks for defense or intel, I mostly use spies for sabotage, converting and assassination. Almost exclusively direct action.

Dignitaries are my weakest link. I haven't really solidified their use in my system yet.

And yeah, I agree, at higher difficulties converting is the only way to win that agent spam war. It feels almost a little too much. I remember once on Legenday playing Iceni, I had 5 enemy agents around my city, assassinating, sabotaging and causing a huge ruckus. Then, and I kid you not this was all within 12 turns, a flood hit, then some other natural disaster, can't even remember what it was, then Brigantes declared war and attacked. I was wiped off the face of the earth in 14 turns and blame it completely on those agents. I got poor rolls, they did anything they want and I never even got off the ground. They sabotaged my military building, the floor crushed all by building etc.