I also enjoy the quiet pleasure of a covert war. I've found that I actively train and use dips/spies/assassins than in any other TW game. Especially assassins. In MTW and STW, I used to train them and maybe send them on a few missions before I got distracted. After that, the only thing they would end up killing is another pint at some pub on the fringe of my empire. Now, I'm usually finding any reason to use them. I don't care what you stab, just stab something!