Are assassins bugged?

[Barbarossa82]

I think I've experienced a similar effect of unexpectedly frequent failures at high success rates. It struck me that this might just possibly be a "feature". Lame excuse, I know, but it's just about conceivable that these failures are not being caused by the dangers which are being taken into account in the % chance of success figure (e.g. bodyguards, alertness of general, number of troops, competence of assassin etc.), but by the presence of an enemy spy with the army/character being targeted. This would introduce a separate element causing failure which is separate to the features of the target, and therefore not taken into account in the % figure.
Of course that could still be a mistake (and given our experiences with this game, that seems quite plausible), but it could also be deliberate and realistic. It's in the very nature of spies that they're undercover - your assassin wouldn't know about them shadowing his target, so he wouldn't factor them in when assessing his own chance of pulling it off. It comes as an unpleasant surprise to him when he sneaks into the target's tent and the nubile young camp concubine in the corner takes off her wig and reveals herself to actually be Jamesus Bondus. Just looking at the guards etc. that he knew about, he calculated 95% chance of success, but the spy he couldn't foresee reduces this.

[Rapidly]

Sounds reasonable; I'd like to believe it's another "fog of war" feature and that the game is that well designed...

[SpencerH]

Of course that could still be a mistake (and given our experiences with this game, that seems quite plausible), but it could also be deliberate and realistic. It's in the very nature of spies that they're undercover - your assassin wouldn't know about them shadowing his target, so he wouldn't factor them in when assessing his own chance of pulling it off. It comes as an unpleasant surprise to him when he sneaks into the target's tent and the nubile young camp concubine in the corner takes off her wig and reveals herself to actually be Jamesus Bondus. Just looking at the guards etc. that he knew about, he calculated 95% chance of success, but the spy he couldn't foresee reduces this.

It would be nice to have an opinion from CA on this. If its a mistake it should go in the bug/issue thread for possible correction but if its a real feature it's something that needs to be advertised and discussed (here).

[LordKhaine]

I don't bother to build up assassins now. It was enough work before, now with the max chance of 95% it's usually not worth the effort. I don't see why they changed it, even a ten star assassin isn't *that* powerful. Last ten star assassin I had still only had a ~20% chance of assassinating a leader or heir.

[SpencerH]

I mostly use them to cut down enemy assassins and spies. I just had a general killed by an AI assassin where I had no one around to deal with him. It was especially interesting since it was immediately prior to a battle (that I barely won without him)!

[SpencerH]

After noticing that 'first' assassination, I looked at my family tree and found that I had actually lost 5 family members out of 24 (total male family dead) to assassins!