Rome Total CIA or waging covert war.

Let me first say this game rocks!

Setting: It's about 230BC in my Parthian VH/Medium campaign. I have control of all modern day Asia, Egypt, Rhodes (for the 40% trade wonder) and southern russia. Needless to say, my income is terrific with 30K profit yearly and 300K in the bank.

One of my rules from MTW days is to not declare war on someone unless they attack me (hey, I'm no George Bush fan!). Now the romans have gotten their Marius reforms and are exploding all over the map. So I am trying to slow them down with covert war.

I have sent a couple of spies with the plague into the Brutii and Julii capitals, I have sent my assassin on sabotage missions in Scipii lands. I am also hoping to tip the balance of the war in North Italy in favor of the Gauls, so I spent 30K on bribing Burtii armies to disperse (they seem more expensive to bribe if you're not roman), and gave the Gauls about 50K in gifts.

Are there other ways I can wage this "cold war"? Has anyone beaten the romans that way?

share your experience.

If you use a combination of spies and assassins, you might be able to get the roman settlements to revolt. The city pretty much has to be away from the factions capital, be big enough to have some squalor, small enough garrison that it will revolt if the public order drops, and even then it isn't guaranteed to work, but if you keep it up it will happen. You dump several spies into the settlement to drop the public order down as low as you can get it, then have the assassins sabotage every building that gives a public order bonus. Hopefully the reduced public order will cause the settlement to revolt. Even if you don't or can't go in and grab that piece of territory for yourself, it gives the roman's enemies a chance to, and if not the romans have to divert attention to retaking it.

You can always use the plague against their cities. Once I read about a guy that had a ship with the plague only for transporting spies into enemy cities.
But I don't like that kind of war, at least not only that. I prefer armies

One of my favourite campaigns in STW was what I called 'The war of the shadows'.

The rules were that you had to win without declaring war on anyone and without invading any province which was occupied by a rival clan. Great fun but regretfully I don't think you can do it in RTW because I think the role of spies has been dumbed down.

Originally Posted by CGS

You can always use the plague against their cities. Once I read about a guy that had a ship with the plague only for transporting spies into enemy cities.
But I don't like that kind of war, at least not only that. I prefer armies

Actually, i am already using that technique. I have a ship in the adriatic (the crossing from Apollonia to Tarentum) that infects my spies on their way to Italy.

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!

Must admit spies and assassins were much more fun in STW. Now they hardly seem worth bothering with.

I took out most of Thrace with Assassins, Spies and Diplomats. Murder, Bribe, incite revolts - then occupy.

You can make other factions declare war on each other by giving them enough to make it worthwhile. This can be very effective.

While playing as the Greeks, I managed to get the Dacians, Thracians and Macedonians all attack the Brutii, thus keeping them out of my hair.

The funny thing is that I'm now fully in control of Greece (Macedonia holds only the nothernmost of it's original cities, plus two former rebel cities), and have several cities in Asia Minor and Africa (taken from rebels). However, I have still to fight a single battle against the Romans.

I got a trade agreements with most of the other factions including the three Roman houses, and alliances with Egypt and Pontus.

Come to think of it, I have only been at war with Macedonia so far, and then only for about 8 turns.

Originally Posted by Didz

One of my favourite campaigns in STW was what I called 'The war of the shadows'.

The rules were that you had to win without declaring war on anyone and without invading any province which was occupied by a rival clan. Great fun but regretfully I don't think you can do it in RTW because I think the role of spies has been dumbed down.

Really? If anything it has been significantly improved. Spies just do so much more now, just like everything else. That's the beauty of RTW for old TW fans.

As for the general discussion of the thread, I am a big plan of subtle victory. I am no Scipio on the battlefield, but I consider myself a real Caesar on the campaign map. Full frontal war is not always the best option, in fact, usually the worst. I mainly use diplomacy to gain strong alliances to jointly win over everybody with my one strong alliance.

in my new scipii game i have destroyed the other 2 roman factions with 2 generations of assassins (makes 2 generations of "the killer" faction leaders ;) )

then took over all of their italian lands and continued my campaign ot piss of the senate. finally (i was still below 30 provinces) i was able to take them on and now i am the only roman :P.

Originally Posted by Silver Rusher

Really? If anything it has been significantly improved. Spies just do so much more now, just like everything else. That's the beauty of RTW for old TW fans.

So, what do they do that STW spies can't?

So, far all I've noticed is a slight chance that they will unlock a gate for you.

The old Shinobi used to cause revolts, prevent rebellions, protect against assassins. Used en-mass they were campaign winners. I haven't seen anything that suggests spies in RTW do anything like as much.

Originally Posted by Didz

So, far all I've noticed is a slight chance that they will unlock a gate for you.

They cause unrest in enemy cities, often 3 or 4 can cause a city to riot, and eventually rebel. They protect your cities from the actions of enemy spies. They make it harder for diplomats to bribe your units. They have a greater line of sight that reveals more about the enmey city/units.

An issue I have with agents in general is that you still cannot stack that, and as there is more mircomanagement in movement now (which overall I think is a good thing) it makes the production and movement of large numbers of agents a bit tedious...

So I have not yet tried mobbing a settlement with spies to se the effect...

Add to that the somewhat dodgy behaviour you get with revolts and the AI faction, it does not feel worth it at the moment unless someone can convince me otherwise....

Originally Posted by Sleepy

They cause unrest in enemy cities, often 3 or 4 can cause a city to riot, and eventually rebel. They protect your cities from the actions of enemy spies. They make it harder for diplomats to bribe your units. They have a greater line of sight that reveals more about the enmey city/units.

I think they did all that in STW but it ceased to function effectively in MTW and so far I have seen no evidence it has been put back.

Have you seen anything to confirm the impact a spy has on public order n RTW?

Originally Posted by Didz

Have you seen anything to confirm the impact a spy has on public order n RTW?

lol u must be kidding - just put i spy in a city and the public order will drop by 10-20%.

Originally Posted by Didz

Have you seen anything to confirm the impact a spy has on public order n RTW?

Yes, a spy or even several spies will lower the public order of an enemy city, but it is greatly reduced in power from MTW. The closer the city is to the enemy capital, the less the effect is. It drops off pretty fast, and in cities adjacent to the cap, it seems to be near zero. Don't waste your time in capitals. I've also noticed and heard from others that the AI has a bit more lax of a revolt/riot threshold. What may riot for you at 65-70% will go off for the AI at about 50-45%. But they can be ousted. BTW spies do not confer any counter-espionage order bonuses for your cities, which is too bad. Overall, I like the arrangement. It helps keep the frontier loyalty fluid, as it should be.

After this campaign I'm in, I plan on running experiments on many aspects of the game. I've just got so many nagging questions!

I preferred that kind of war in STW, just because I liked the videos. They became quite boring, but when you sent your best ninja against their daimyo i used to see them. I miss that videos.

A bonus to order from counter-espionage? No, they don't. They do make it harder for the enemy to inflitrate the city with spies, though. And, I can't quite identify what the cause is, but I've found that sometimes adding a spy to a settlement won't have any effect on public order, and sometimes it will. I am thinking that perhaps there is a max reduction to public order a spy or group of spies can cause, and perhaps a spy in the settlement has an effect of reducing the unrest and enemy spy can cause.

Originally Posted by Sin Qua Non

BTW spies do not confer any counter-espionage order bonuses for your cities, which is too bad.

Sorry

Are you saying that spies in RTW don't perform any counter-espionage function?

I assumed that by placing spies in my cities I was preventing subversion and boosting public loyalty, is that not the case?

Why has that been changed and what is the new mechanism?

In STW five shinobi could virtually guarantee a revolt in any province which opened up all sorts of non-violent strategies. MTW diluted this option forcing more reliance of blunt edged military action and it seems RTW has taken this one step farther still.

Personally, I think thats a shame. Personally I would have liked to have seen an expansion of the non-military options. But, perhaps its not so much that they don't exist as the fact that like city management the sophistication of the game is being undermined by the appalling lack of information in its stragety guide.

Originally Posted by CGS

I preferred that kind of war in STW, just because I liked the videos. They became quite boring, but when you sent your best ninja against their daimyo i used to see them. I miss that videos.

Yes. My son refused to play MTW because it didn't have any video's. He considered it a cheap and shoddy shortcut.

I must admit collecting the video clips was great fun. I remember the first time I saw the Geisha merged with the wallpaper clip, I got the entire family round the PC to watch a replay.

Just imagine what MTW could have done with some of the mariage proposals and princess killings etc. Instead we got dumped with rather poor quality sephia scrible sketches, very poor.

I think we should start a bring back the Video clips campaign.

Sorry for the confusion. I just meant that as far as I can tell, you can't place spies in your own cities with the intent of helping your own public order. The still do help against other spies and assassins. Sorry, I can be a wordy SOB at times.

Originally Posted by Sin Qua Non

Yes, a spy or even several spies will lower the public order of an enemy city, but it is greatly reduced in power from MTW. The closer the city is to the enemy capital, the less the effect is. It drops off pretty fast, and in cities adjacent to the cap, it seems to be near zero. Don't waste your time in capitals. I've also noticed and heard from others that the AI has a bit more lax of a revolt/riot threshold. What may riot for you at 65-70% will go off for the AI at about 50-45%. But they can be ousted.

I, playing as the Scipii, waged economic warfare against the Eggs. I caused 5 cities to eventually rebel ( Jerusalem twice), including all the Nile cities - that was 2 Egg capitals. I was using about 5 spies and 1 assassin. The assassin was the key cos spies effect on PO maxs out. But with the assassin sabotaging PO buildings such as temple and secret police HQ et al, you eventually caused a rebellion. Occaissonaly I had to change target if the Eggs had to big a garrisson. In which case I moved to a city with a slightly smaller one.

The problem with this statergy is getting the v6+ assassin in the first place.

Originally Posted by Didz

But, perhaps its not so much that they don't exist as the fact that like city management the sophistication of the game is being undermined by the appalling lack of information in its stragety guide.

Hear, hear!!! I cannot express how much I agree with this. I think the diplomacy engine is a real kicker, and I guess that there's a lot going on under the economic hood, but there's absolutely NO official information about it. So we're left to theorise and hypothesise and drive ourselves bananas with the lack of info.

It's enough to drive one to drink... dandelion milkshakes are my choice, anyone else?

Sleepy:

Thanks for the info. That's good to know you can actually get capitals to revolt. I've never had any luck, even after sabotaging all public order buldings with agents that were craftier than a sack of hungry weasels, or whatever it says. Did the cities have the faction leader or heir in them? There does seem to be much more to this game than any manual or guide has let on. I've never really had a problem getting high rank assasins, especially after their retinue expands, so I'll try your strategy.

Does anyone remember the undocumented features that came up during the early days of STW?

The idea that massed shinobi's (spy's) could cause enemy peasants to riot was first disclosed during these debates and proved to be true.

But another was that massed emissaries (diplomat's) located in an enemy provinces flattened out the hills making it easier for a subsequent invasion to capture it. I never actually tried this but it doesn't sound very plausible.

Originally Posted by Sin Qua Non

Did the cities have the faction leader or heir in them?

My memory is a bit vague but I think that the AI was keeping the leader with a large army so. I wouldn't have had much luck there but whether the faction leader was responsible as the faction leader and not just as a governor with influence and a large garrison I don't know

I've never really had a problem getting high rank assasins

Please tell me your secret.

Newly minted assassins usually have v1 and about a 30% chance of killing an insignificant Captain. So I typically lose 66% of my new assassins before they get their first kill and generally a skill increase plus retinue member. As v3 assassins they have about a 60% (IIRC) chance of killing. Now after killing a few other Captains/Brigands they get to v5 and have about 100% sabotage chance. At this stage they are ready as Economic Disruptors.

As it takes alot of time and management and a bit of money for me to get a good assassin. I often transfer the retinue from one 50 something to a newbie just to not lose them to early death. Of course the old assassin then lives on to his 70's.

In my Eygpt campaign it took 5 goes to get a worthy successor and considering the distance in an African campaign thats a lot of time and money. Eventually a new Assassin turned up who was an "assassination genius" ie v3 from the getgo

Another problem I have with building up assassins is opportunity. I very rarely encounter brigands in my territories so I don't have anybody handy for them to practise on.

Originally Posted by Sleepy

Please tell me your secret.

This is probably going to disappoint you, but I think the secret is that you have better housekeeping than I. My assassins come out of the chute with daggers flailing, and I have them kill anything they can get their hands on. I usually have no end of brigands, and my assassins roam freely across the map. Playing as Spain, I had assassins killing Egyptians in Siwa. Nothing seems to stop them from going anywhere, and they are rarely detected. Even if they are detected, they often get away. I do have spectacular failures, such as a 6+ assassin getting killed on a routine mission, but they are few and far between.

Rebel and AI captains are good targets, and even with the 30% success rate, they seem to get away from a botched mission 50% of the time. Diplomats and even low level faction members are very killable with a 4 star assassin. Ironically, other spies and assassins are easy to kill, and have a good chance of netting you another subterfuge level. And after a few back to back successes, I usually get a retinue member. They also seem to occasionally be born with a killing virtue about 20% of the time. Does this happen to you? Maybe I'm just the master of lucky dice rolls. BTW I'm on VH/H. Hope this helps.

That's exactly how I do it. Make a bunch of assassins, have them go kill stuff. About half of them die right off. Those who succeed get better. Keep it going. Eventually you get a couple of decent ones.

Have any of you had one who failed repeatedly at missions, but didn't die, wind up with the "Inept Poisoner" trait?

I've never had an assassin with a vice! Didn't know they got them. I just thought getting killed was a bad enough vice.