But they have a high upkeep. Plus spies aren't too powerful. And to take out a faction leader can be quite expensive. @ 500(?) denari a pop and pumping out 30 of them to get near a 100 percent chance of killing a faction leader would cost 15000. And if you can sport 15000 to take out a faction leader the games already won.

Of course there was 1 time I'd been more than willing to pay that to kill a faction leader who was an 8 British chariot general with 3 golden chevrons, who killed 1200 of my soldiers in battle.

Out of curiousity I went into custom battle to see what his unit cost and it was something around 10 thousand denrai, and he was the faction leader wich meant a doublesized unit.