Quote Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Hmmm. Inquisitors can start burning the local populace if they don't zap their target on the first attempt, or worse - they may find him innocent (disloyal, yet still has high piety rating, so it's not the inquisitor's 'area', so to speak).
If you keep ordering inquisitions, the target will end up being a heretic or an atheist, thus getting a severe penalty for their piety. Seems a bit stupid really: you know the Inquisition is out to get you, so this is not the moment to openly start doubting the church, but I guess these inquisition trials mainly prove how corrupt the church had become. By the way, you can prevent Inquisitors from burning the populace by giving them an assignment or moving them to another province, or simply picking them up and putting them down again. The presence of bishops and cardinals also slows them down.

Quote Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
You can try using an assassin but high-star generals get good survival probability and you're more than likely to lose your top assassin, which would be a lot of effort down the drain, plus I hear the general gets 'security network' V&Vs and becomes ever harder to bump off the more times you fail. A potential side effect of merely attempting this a few times may be that loyalty of all other generals is boosted, since they suss out what's in store for them if they don't play their cards right...
'Security network' is I believe related to spies attempting to reveal secrets, with or without success. (I had a list of V&V's, but it went missing when I got a new computer. Anyone know where I can find it again?) I am pretty sure that assassination attempts on other generals, whether successful or not, do not improve the loyalty of other generals.

Using a spy against a general is great in early stages of the game, but if it goes wrong the general will be even less inclined to support your regime, and he gains a 'security' vice. As a result of the trumped-up charge, other generals will also lose loyalty. On the plus side, I understand that there is a loyalty bonus for the other generals if the suspect general is convicted, but I have never seen it.