How to train agents? Please give some clue!

[Tomcat]

Try 2 of your Assassins against each other. That way you will always have a winner increasing in valour - and also unfortunately a loser! Depends if you think it is worth it.....

Tomcat

[bretwalda]

Well, I 'd rather do it on the enemy... ;) and getting the extra benefit of actually killing some. But with assassins its pretty straight forward - but what to do with spies and all the rest?

Try 2 of your Assassins against each other. That way you will always have a winner increasing in valour - and also unfortunately a loser! Depends if you think it is worth it.....

Tomcat

[el_slapper]

you'd better do that on a peasant unit, this is faaaar cheaper. Even with the upkeep cost, you only lose 33 per turn instead of 200..... plus you can train your spies on them too. Just don't rely over that unit!!!

[bretwalda]

Doesn't that get my king awful vices? I heard that killing you own men has some very disturbing consequences...

you'd better do that on a peasant unit, this is faaaar cheaper. Even with the upkeep cost, you only lose 33 per turn instead of 200..... plus you can train your spies on them too. Just don't rely over that unit!!!

[metatron]

Inqusitors can get them for investigating heresey, but I think I've seen them get it if they have a succesful inquisition running. Bishops, Priests, and Cardinals can only get them from diplomatic missions; same for Princesses and Emissaries.

Spies have to try generals/get information. Assassins, you know. And yes, they're hard to get, but high valor spies are worth it.

PS: There are provinces that have bonuses (listed and not listed) to agents. Castile (I think) and Portugal give them to Inquisitors and Grand Inquisitors respectively. Check the forums.

[Ludens]

If you install VI you can build upgrades for the brothel and the drinking den. Also, Syria gives a +2 bonus to assassins (again with VI installed) and Castile a +1 to inquisitors and grand inquisitors. Portugal gives bonus to caravels, not inquisitors.

You can train spies by letting them cause revolts in rebellious provinces (like Portugal) or by having them catch assassins and other spies. The valour calculation system is not entirely logical, so they will gain stars even if a border fort or higher valour spy is present. There are other ways of letting them gain valour, but these are risky.

For assassin only training helps, but you can train them on emissaries or on themselves. Attacking peasants will result in a lot of dead assassins and a paranoid, disloyal peasant commander, but it might just work .

Emissaries can be trained by sending them to a monarch that is sending you an offer of alliance. If you see an emissary that is heading for you, move your king away and send one of your men to their king. Success is guaranteed, and your emissary gets the valour bonus.

[Procrustes]

The way I see it it's a waste to purposely train your agents - just let them do their job and they will train themselves. I mean, two plain assassins have about as much chance of success as one one-star assassin - so instead of spending all the time and money to train a one star assassin, send two plain assassins against the target. If one succeeds then you have trained him and accomplished a goal.

I do build towards the upper level agent buildings, though - get VI if you can.

Regarding spies, I routinely use them to end seiges - great way to gain stars. Each year you wait the odds of success go up. When you succeed you get all the tech in the province - little or nothing gets destroyed.

Assassins may gain more than one star if they manage to murder a high-value target like a king. Also, the odds of a successful assassination are pretty good when you target a general who is under seige. I routinely assassinate and inquisit beseiged generals - makes the waiting more fun and demoralizes the enemy.