Why are AI Hashishin visible to me?

[EatYerGreens]

Their Unit parchment says "they can hide in plain sight" but, up against them I find I can see them right from the start of the battle. I was expecting a challenge, like loss of my general but was instantly disappointed.

I'm doing Byz at the moment, so it will be a long while before I can try them for myself, short of getting them as mercs, but I don't have much hopes for being able to exploit their special ability for myself.

I've read an old Hashishin thread, containing reports of success, provided they were not set to 'fire at will' as this permits them their own target choice and their position is revealed to the AI general as soon as they begin firing.

Also success reported when having them hidden in woods (lush terrain), though this makes them little different from other woods-concealable units but, interestingly, no luck when in the desert, of all places. So much for concealment 'in plain sight'.

Any observations about this phenomenon?

Note: I've installed the VI expansion since my last encounter against Hashi's. If the visibility thing was a known bug in original MTW, fixed in VI, please let me know.

Thanks.

[ichi]

You see AI Hashishin when they shoot or move, they should be invisible a few moments after they stop moving.

When you use them place them on Hold Form and turn Fire-at-Will off. This way they'll remain hidden until you order them to attack.

ichi

[IrishMike]

Wow, I'm just surprised to see the AI build Hashishin. Never seen that in one of my games before. What year in the game is it?

[Ironside]

Wow, I'm just surprised to see the AI build Hashishin. Never seen that in one of my games before. What year in the game is it?

Could be Jihad hashishins.

[EatYerGreens]

You see AI Hashishin when they shoot or move, they should be invisible a few moments after they stop moving.

Thanks ichi. I've vague recollections of seeing them in deployment position, even before they began to move but, other than that, I'll take your word for it.

Their big mistake is that they were attacking me and so they HAD to move, in order to get within firing range. Easy meat for my archers.

@ ColdKnight

You're probably right about hardly ever seeing AI use these, outside of Jihads.

In my example, it was a rebellion army, in Portugal. Two battles in rapid succession and they failed miserably each time.

The funniest one was about 6 Hashies and 3 Mangonels, of all things. I don't think the poor Mango's even got a chance to fire because I'd manually deployed, away from the default position and was displaced slightly to one side of the map. Of course, Mango's can't turn once placed, so they just sat there, dumbly, maybe the closest unit got some shots off, until I'd dealt with the H's and could approach them from the side and make the crews run. I'd have liked to have seen them operating properly and in close up but with restricted camera and their crews running away as my Cav units approach, the opportunity didn't arise.

[aleh]

Hehe, I was faced with entire stacks of ballistas and Hashishins during Turkish rebellions, they aren't /that/ hard to beat.

[Ludens]

Off course, generals can never hide, even if they are Hashishin, so if they were the general's unit...

But then Hashishin are 'discouraged' to be the general's unit, so this is probably not the case.

[ichi]

But then Hashishin are 'discouraged' to be the general's unit, so this is probably not the case.

Mother, to her Hashishin son "You'll never become a general at the rate you're going. All of your friends alreadyhave good jobs, and you're still living at home. I think you wo'nt ever amount to anything. You need to work harder, and stop smokin that dope!"

Father, to the mother "now Martha, don't discourage the boy"

[Ludens]

Mother, to her Hashishin son "You'll never become a general at the rate you're going. All of your friends alreadyhave good jobs, and you're still living at home. I think you wo'nt ever amount to anything. You need to work harder, and stop smokin that dope!"

Father, to the mother "now Martha, don't discourage the boy"

That's how Gnome editor calls it.

[EatYerGreens]

Heh heh.

I forget where I got this from, either a forum thread or something on TV recently, but it seems that the word "Hashish" is just Arabic for 'grass'. Hence the intoxicant reference.

Presumably, the word 'Hashishin' would translate as 'people of the grass' or 'people [hiding] in the grass', in reference to their concealment expertise.

The original snipers, no less!

[manbaps]

Or it could mean there complete stoners hence there crazy abilities, its just one big 'trip out' for them

[Deus Ex]

IIRC - they are called Hashishin because they would use hashish to get into a "drug induced religious trance" whereby they felt very little pain and had increased physical abilities due to the trance like state...

but I could be wrong...

DE

[Deus Ex]

curious, I did a small bit of research and found two slightly different takes on the historical Hashishin:

"Led by Hasan Al Sabah, the "Old Man of the Mountain", the Hashishin were a cult based at the mountain fortress of Alamut, located in what is modern-day Iran. By all accounts (including that of Marco Polo), these people - from whose name the modern term assassin is derived - were a pretty scary bunch. Hasan's followers were a band of fearless political killers, and his method of indoctrination was pretty unique. He constructed a secret garden furnished with all the paradisical delights of paradise - women, great food and, of course, hashish. After the would-be assassins had experienced a few days of this mediaeval rock star lifestyle they were cast out with a mission, and the promise that if they completed it successfully and then committed suicide, they would return to the paradise." http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/DrDrew/history.html

and

"[...]first surfaced in 1090 as the name of a renegade sect of Shia Muslims, the Hashashun or Hashishin. They were so-called because members of the sect, when carrying out their missions, seemed so serene in accepting their own deaths, they were believed to have been drugged with hashish. Thus, they were known as the Hashishin, later corrupted to Assassins.

The sect was founded by Hasan Ibn al-Sabbah, a Persian of 'immense culture, a devotee of poetry profoundly interested in the latest advance of science', and 'an inseparable companion of the poet Omar Khayyam', according to the Lebanese scholar, Amin Maalouf.

Indignant at the fall of the Shia dynasty, the Buwayhids, in Persia, and at the rise to dominance of the Seljuks, upholders of Sunni orthodoxy, across the region, Hasan established a secret politico-religious organisation to reform the Shia caliphate and take revenge on the Sunnis.

'All members of the organisation,' writes Professor Maalouf, 'from novices to the grand master, were ranked according to their level of knowledge, reliability and courage.

'Hasan's favourite technique for sowing terror among his enemies was murder. Members of the sect were sent individually - or more rarely, in small groups of two or three - on assignments to kill some chosen personality. They generally disguised themselves as merchants or ascetics and moved around the city, familiarising themselves with the habits of their victims.

'Although the preparation was always conducted in the utmost secrecy, the execution had to take place in public, indeed before the largest possible crowd.'

Besides striking terror among his opponents by killing off prominent Sunnis - like the architect of Seljuk power, the Nizam al-Mulk, who was assassinated in 1092 in a spectacular raid on his palace - Hasan wished also to advertise the heroism of his group.

His executioners were called fidain (or fedayeen) - or in modern parlance, 'suicide commandos', for they themselves were almost always killed on the spot.

Some other aspects of the Hashishin also have a contemporary aspect. For one thing, like the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Hasan took great pains to establish 'an autonomous fiefdom', far from the major powers. He found it in a remote corner of Syria.

Secondly, like Al-Qaeda's leaders, the chief figures in the Hashishin were astonishingly elusive. One of the most elusive was a man called Rashid al-Din Sinan, a ruthless character who managed to frighten even the great Salah al-Din Yusuf (or Saladin).

Sinan, who was never captured, passed into legend as the 'Old Man of the Mountain'. If Osama bin Laden is not captured or killed soon, he may well be transmogrified in the same fashion.

History may not repeat itself precisely, but it does have a nasty habit of rhyming." http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general508.html


Interesting...


DE

[dgfred]

Very interesting post Deus! . So were they all killed when they
completed their missions, or was there a chance to survive and complete
other missions?

[Deus Ex]

Very interesting post Deus! . So were they all killed when they
completed their missions, or was there a chance to survive and complete
other missions?

That was not clear - from the second post - it seems that the goal of a very public execution meant that the majority of the time they died completing their assigned task.

but it also possible that even if they survived, they might have been terminated to avoid any "loose ends". Not sure...

DE