Assassins - does the AI use any?

[zarkis]

I only played one full campaign so far and never encountered an AI enemy assassin. Also AI spys seem to be very rare which you can't say about their diplomats. It even may be that they don't ever recruit a second one beside the one they get from the start. Does anybody had a different experience?

[Bogdanovist]

I often see spies tagging along with enemy armies. You can see them if you look at the details of an enemy army before a battle. Any spies lurking around by themselves on the campaign map are invisble (unlike the diplomats) so don't assume just cos you can't see em they aint there!

On the assassins though I have also never seen any evidence of them. Never had a character assasinated and never had any pop-up telling me of a failed attempt (which I assume would happen if this did occur).

I guess they are a bit like forts and watchtowers, great additions to the game that someone just forgot to tell the AI about....

[Vlad Tzepes]

I got a spy killed once, he was outside a town, no action from him, it happened during the AI move.

[Sleepy]

I've killed a lot of Egg assassins, but they were defending their cities. Though I did have 1 spy mysteriously die.

The AI can uses a lot of spies to defend its cities from your spies.

Enemy spies/assassins hide on the campaign map and need to be found by one of your agents moving close to them.

[Bob the Insane]

You know you don't need an assassin to kill a spy, spys with attempt to kill each as well I believe.

I have seen enemy assassins revealed by my spies but I have never seen them attack anyone and can't remember ever seeing a message saying I had lost someone to an assassin...

Surprizing considering how effective a well trained assassin can be once he has gotten to the Master level any character except Faction Leaders and Heirs is a dead man and even factions Heirs are about 50% chance of success...

[Feanor]

My spies have seen assassins loitering outside the gates of my city as the spy was passing on by. I've also had family members die under suspicious circumstances. This is on normal difficulty too so I'd imagine they might be more active on the harder difficulty levels.

[Bob the Insane]

I've also had family members die under suspicious circumstances.

What kind of messages do you get?? I don't think I have ever had a family member die of anything but natural causes or battle....

[Quillan]

Unlike bribery, there doesn't appear to be a message about an assassination, aside from the "A Worthy Life Ends" message in the turns faction message. What I have seen is the assassination itself. If you have "Follow AI" turned on, then in the enemy turn, you'll see the act, providing the assassin or spy is out in the countryside. If the assassin/spy is in a town, and the target is adjacent to the town, then you won't see anything. It doesn't happen a lot, but I have seen it. Egypt seems to use them more than anyone. I had a really nasty agent war going with Egypt at one point in my Bruti game. Bastid killed off my 10 subterfuge assassin.

[praetorians cavalry]

Of course yes.I can surely remember a family member of mine died by the blade of an assassin.The message mentioned something like "we must find out and have a revenge.The one doing this will surely have to regrette...".

[Bob the Insane]

Of course yes.I can surely remember a family member of mine died by the blade of an assassin.The message mentioned something like "we must find out and have a revenge.The one doing this will surely have to regrette...".

hmmm... I have definately seen that message after I lost a general in a battle...

The context was odd because I won the battle killing all the enemy soldier, zero left, so I don't know how we will have revenge on..

[praetorians cavalry]

Unlike bribery, there doesn't appear to be a message about an assassination, aside from the "A Worthy Life Ends" message in the turns faction message. What I have seen is the assassination itself. If you have "Follow AI" turned on, then in the enemy turn, you'll see the act, providing the assassin or spy is out in the countryside. If the assassin/spy is in a town, and the target is adjacent to the town, then you won't see anything. It doesn't happen a lot, but I have seen it. Egypt seems to use them more than anyone. I had a really nasty agent war going with Egypt at one point in my Bruti game. Bastid killed off my 10 subterfuge assassin.

Maybe you are right.But I can ENSURE my memory.There Is a message called "A Worthy Life Ends", and the detail is what I already said...something about revenge...

[Lonewarrior]

In my campain i have still yet to see the Ai use a assasin.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

I have seen a few AI assassins, but I don't think I've lost anyone to them. The only unusual death I've had was to "disaster" mentioning something about the disfavor of the gods, so I assume a tree fell on him.

I had one Greek assassin park outside Artartaxes after I took it, but if he made any attempts on Julianus the Mighty, he was unsuccessful. Fortunately he stayed put for the two years it took my assassin Oppius the Killer to amble over & dispatch him.

[nokhor]

i had a big stack and was about to attack a greek city next turn that had a diplomat outside. my stack had 2 family members in it. when my turn came up again. i got the 'worthy life ends' message for both family members in that stack though they were 20 years apart in age and neither had plague. i attributed that to assassins.

[chemchok]

i had a big stack and was about to attack a greek city next turn that had a diplomat outside. my stack had 2 family members in it. when my turn came up again. i got the 'worthy life ends' message for both family members in that stack though they were 20 years apart in age and neither had plague. i attributed that to assassins.

I've had similar suspicious deaths. I suspect that you can have a family member assassinated and, depending on the success rate of the assassin, only be told it was a natural death at the start of the turn.