Your assassination stories...

[ChaosLord]

While playing as Bohemia in the XL mod I found alot of time building up because I kept ending up with two neighbors(usually on opposite sides) not being allied to me so I had to keep up a good defense. To keep myself occupied I started building Assassins and sending them out to meddle in world politics. As of 1306(started in early) here is a list of everyone i've Assassinated as best I can remember.

3 Hungarian Kings(in a row, then the fourth one just wouldn't die)
1 Grand Lithuanian Duke
1 Danish King
1 Danish Prince
2 Mongol Khans
1 Mongol Prince
4 or 5 Mongol Generals
3 or 4 Princesses
3 or 4 Inquistors
At least 10 Emmisaries

Of all these, the Lithuanians was probably the funniest. They re-emerged in rebel held Prussia and then once they take the province my Assassin pops in and kills him. I nearly wiped out the Hungarians through my many assassinations, but two times they had a 16 year old heir take the throne. So I couldn't cause them to collapse, but they gradually lost power and got attacked by the Byzantines or Spanish which allowed me to move in anyway.

The Danish I did manage to wipe out, though it was a delayed effect thing. I assasinated their King once they re-emerged but they already had heirs(old heir), so then I took out their youngest prince. The old king died, then the other one followed about five years later. The annoying thing was they had married a Venetian Princess, so all the Danish lands went to them ruining my hope for peaceful expansion.

As for the Mongols, they shared a border with me after wiping out the Cumans and Lithuanians so I tried to send them into civil war or rebellion. Sadly, it didn't work. I almost killed their Khan when they had no heirs, but they kept failing and the guy ended up with the Invulnerable v&v. Despite my various failures i'd like to think Bohemian assassins are known(and feared!) around Europe in my game. :)


So yeah, i've been keeping myself quite amused with Assassins and wonder if anyone else has similar stores to tell.

[Roark]

In my current campaign, I have consistently wiped out any agents of opposing factions within my territory, unless they are proposing marriage or alliances.

It's been fun, because it allows me to lay traps for greedy neighbours, who don't really know what they're up against due to lack of spies/emissaries/princesses.

[Martok]

My roommate has a Scottish campaign going (XL mod) where he has an 8-star assassin putting a blade in every king and prince he can lay his hands on. At this point, the assassin's chances of killing someone is always 66-96%, no matter who they are or how many stars they have. Even a 7-star pope has fallen victim to this guy!

My roommate used Mr. Death (as I've taken to calling him) to particularly good effect with the Swedish and the Spanish: His Scottish king had sons married to a Swedish and Spanish princess, so he sent Mr. D to go and kill off the entire royal lines of both nations.

As a result, my roommate gained the lands of both kingdoms. His Spanish "inheritance" was especially nice, as before they were killed off, they had conquered the entire Iberian peninsula except for Granada, plus they'd built two citadels as well.

[Vajk]

What is your strategy for building up the stats of your assassin? I try but I must be selecting the wrong targets as well, so who do you go after first to get the best percentage to kill?

[Martok]

What is your strategy for building up the stats of your assassin? I try but I must be selecting the wrong targets as well, so who do you go after first to get the best percentage to kill?

Emissaries are usually the easiest to kill. Lower-level holy men (Orthodox priests, Catholic bishops, and Mulsim alims), princesses, and 0-star generals are usually fairly easy to take out as well.

This is a cheap tactic to train assassins, but one I sometimes use: I'll ocassionaly train emissaries and spies to serve solely as "target practice" for my assassins. Once they've got a couple stars under their belts, I'll have them start taking out my bad general/governors, particularly ones with 0-2 stars. After that, my assassins (the ones that survive, anyway) are usually experienced enough that they have a reasonable chance of taking down just about anyone.

[Mount Suribachi]

I'm not a huge fan of assassins, mainly cos of the AI cheat whereby if you send an assassin after a bishop or whatever, they suddenly decide to start moving round the map till your assassin gets caught by a watchtower/border fort.

Having said that, I do remember killing a princess once, and being struck buy the gruesome pencil drawing of a princess lying on a bed with her throat slit..

[Deus Ex]

I don't like any of the other leaders to know what is going on in my provinces, so I use my assasins on emissarys and low level religious figures that wander into my territories - that gives them some practice.... and helps keep the other leaders guessing... :-)

DE

[professorspatula]

In an attempt to quickly finish off my Saxon VI campaign, I tried to kill off the last members of the Pict and Irish Royal families (all the other factions had been destroyed, except for the Vikings who I can't reach, as my men on their longboats refuse to paddle across to Scandinavia). After a couple of successes in the same turn killing both their kings (and creating a civil war in Ireland), everything has gone wrong on the assassination front. The new king of Ireland refuses to sit still whenever I try and kill him. I send in 10 or more assassins, but he moves to the next provence whenever my agents try to poison the Royal soup. The result: one failed assassination attempt, and 9 dead assassins who turn up in the wrong place, or just decide to not to bother trying to kill the king, and hand themselves into the authorities instead, under the misconception that they'll be spared their life. The same thing is happening in the land of the Picts, where my assassins get cold feet when trying to off the king, and just get captured instead. I've now lost about 40 assassins who seem to suffer from a strange bout of amnesia whenever they leave my borders. I'm planning on setting up a banning order on all gin and mead on sale in their taverns until they remember their job is to kill.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I rarely use Assassins Guy of Gisborne killed a Spanish heir once but then I left him in the province and he got nuked.

[Roark]

@ Suribachi

I HATE THAT!! I've ranted about it here before.

But, don't you guys all have Viking Invasion? Apparently, your assassins and spies can start on 2-3 valour with upgraded brothels etc...

I only just got it yesterday.

[Martok]

My previous post notwithstanding, I usually don't employ assassins that much either--at least not for "seek-and-destroy" missions. I generally keep an assassin in each of my provinces for defensive purposes, but that's about it. Oh yeah, I also often have extra assassins to help protect my empire's major players--faction leader, princes (at least my good ones), and all my important generals. Wherever a royal or an uber-general goes, he's a got dark angel quietly tagging along to make sure nothing happens to him.

About the only time I use assassins for offensive purposes is if someone is really pissing me off, the Pope probably being the best example. If he irritates me enough, it's only a matter of time before I send someone to help His Holiness shuffle loose the mortal coil.

[Mujalumbo]

Earlier in my MTW career, I was playing a glorious achievement game as the Turks. Started in early, but due to poor generalship and cash-management woes, couldn't construct the requirements to train JHI's before the dreaded Golden Horde invasion.

Nonetheless, they showed up in Khazar (whew), so I sent some emissaries, and all the hard-ass troops I could pull from other fronts to Georgia in case dimplomatic overtures failed. My emissaries were to meet with the great Khan and the bulk of his forces, but some cowardly dog had slipped in the night and poisoned his drink. Shocked at the senseless tragedy, my sultan could only watch as the Golden Horde dissolved into minor rebel factions without their great leader. It was rumoured the assassin was from some despicable den of scum and villiany in Syria (!) of all places. My sultan knew nothing about such activities, and vowed to bring the responsible one to justice, of course...

In the meantime, and purely out of concern for the peoples of the northern lands, you see, it was thought best if the various factions of the Golden Horde come to the banner of the Turkish sultan.

[Patron]

I hate it when an assassin is chasing an emmissary or an enemy priest across the map and the target travels to an enemy province with a border fort and my well trained assassin gets captures and killed...

[Roark]

Earlier in my MTW career, I was playing a glorious achievement game as the Turks. Started in early, but due to poor generalship and cash-management woes, couldn't construct the requirements to train JHI's before the dreaded Golden Horde invasion.

Nonetheless, they showed up in Khazar (whew), so I sent some emissaries, and all the hard-ass troops I could pull from other fronts to Georgia in case dimplomatic overtures failed. My emissaries were to meet with the great Khan and the bulk of his forces, but some cowardly dog had slipped in the night and poisoned his drink. Shocked at the senseless tragedy, my sultan could only watch as the Golden Horde dissolved into minor rebel factions without their great leader. It was rumoured the assassin was from some despicable den of scum and villiany in Syria (!) of all places. My sultan knew nothing about such activities, and vowed to bring the responsible one to justice, of course...

In the meantime, and purely out of concern for the peoples of the northern lands, you see, it was thought best if the various factions of the Golden Horde come to the banner of the Turkish sultan.

What a humanitarian!!

I'm sure the Mongol people were grateful for your benevolence.

[The Electric Celt]

Cracking tale Patron!
I have a distaste for farming assassins,prefering legitimate,realistic kills,hence I treasure my 5*+ assassins.Especially fond of 2 of them recently who gave the good word to the Turkish sultan and 2 heirs when he re-emerged in Nicea.The A.I wasn't impressed and re-emerged again 3 years later...same result, but the now huge rebel army on the borders of Constatinople gives me the willies!!

[Mujalumbo]

What a humanitarian!!

I'm sure the Mongol people were grateful for your benevolence.

Yes, well... My sultan thought it best to put those idle emissaries, who just happened to have brought with them sacks of florins, to good use. You must understand, that particular sultan was a man of peace, and abhorred violence, so in exchange for modest sums of florins and various other gifts, the majority of the Khan's old forces agreed to convert to Islam.

Being of a coarse, and violent nature, it was decided they would be put to best use defending the sultanate's borders from barbarous infidels. However, these gifts had placed a terrible burden on the treasury, and the sultan only deemed it fair that the people of the newly acquired territories should prove their gratefulness to the sultan. They complained of heavy taxation, and some even rose in revolt! Ungrateful dogs. But were quickly put down.

Examples had to be made, of course, and everybody associated with these dangerous movements were put to the sword. Sad and unfortunate, but neccessary. Such are the wearies of ruling.

That assassin eventually was found. I'm sure you've heard of the old adage, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." From that day on, the assassin was never far from the sultan. Some actually accused the sultan of keeping the assassin around as some sort of personal counter-spy! Propersterous!

[Alouette]

Well, playing Italians in the basic MTW campaign, on conquest, on Normal (got the game last weekend).

I get my trade fleet online, bribe a Frog in Provence, get ILI's in Tuscany, and take Rhodes from some rebels. Problem is, I'm surrounded by Catholics, so I have no one to kill! Then the Sicilians start sinking my ships, and I sink their in return...

And get excommed. So I assassinate the Pope, get recommed, pull my troops south, keep sinking the sicilian fleet (in the meantime relieving his siege in Sardinia), get excommed, and then get annoyed, take my new light inf, and take Rome, burn everything, take the Papal States, Pope captured, faction eliminated, burn everything, head south to Naples and Sicily (hopefully before he reemerges).

Meanwhile I'm bleeding cash because the naval disruption more than halved my trade income, I've dropped from 60K to 30K in the bank. BUT as soon as Naples is gone and I finish blockading Sicily, that should quickly correct itself (had 3K a year net income before the unfortunate intercession of the Mafia).

Meanwhile my now-4-star assassin is wailing on the French, taking out general after general and I use the time I'm excommed to grab Toulouse too.

Big front to the north but HRE likes me and it's well defended.

Alou.

[EatYerGreens]

My previous post notwithstanding, I usually don't employ assassins that much either--at least not for "seek-and-destroy" missions. I generally keep an assassin in each of my provinces for defensive purposes, but that's about it. Oh yeah, I also often have extra assassins to help protect my empire's major players--faction leader, princes (at least my good ones), and all my important generals. Wherever a royal or an uber-general goes, he's a got dark angel quietly tagging along to make sure nothing happens to him.

That pretty much sums up the way I use them myself. I am usually content to let them get their 1st star by hitting a passing emissary or bishop and after that I leave them 'on the plot', particularly in port provinces, since these are the proverbial back-door where enemy agents are going to get in. If I'm in luck, they will get trained up by catching incoming assassins.

It's important to remember that this won't work if you put up border forts of your own, as the forts seem to always get the credit for the kills.

I've never had much success with 'proper' assassination missions, that is enemy generals, heirs, leaders and the 'pape'. I can get them up to maybe 4-star status on milk-run missions but the really worthwhile targets still don't offer odds that I like (not very rewarding after all the work put in to get them up to this level), so I've sent them after some easy target like a no-star or 1-star general (76% or better) and the silly sods still get themself killed, so I quickly gave up bothering to use them offensively at all.

I think 3* agents and above are able to survive within enemy border forts but it's still probability based and even a 8* one has a slim chance of getting caught on each turn. Also, it's not just a roll of the dice as you cross each frontier; remaining static in an enemy BF'd province is the same gamble.


I have previously contemplated that thing where you train them up on your own emissaries, built for the purpose but have yet to put this into practice. I'd rather not end up with a bunch of paranoid generals...