Any defence against assassins?

[econ21]

There's a Macedonian assassin with a subterfuge rating of 6 who is killing my generals - he's killed three already. What can I do to stop him? I've never bothered much with assassins and they've never bothered me, until now (playing RTR 6.0 if that matters). Thanks for any advice!

[Oaty]

More info would definately help, wich faction you are and what area you control.

The A.I. does'nt travel far with thier asassins in my observations. You can bait the asassin away from your cities by risking a general and hopefully he won't wonder back into your territory.

The A.I.'s prime targets seem to be whatever the asassin can reach in 1 turn or a border city. I can almost guarantee the asaasin will hunt a general down if you march into thier territory. So keep your generals out of the border cities. If your short on property you may be best off taking an island and camping for a while.

Or you can train up an asassin yourself and try to take him out wich can be hard.

There's 2 cheesy ways to take care of him. 1 is using a console command and the other involves a cheesy exploit wich I won't go into detail, but think what happens to your diplomats.

[econ21]

Thanks - knowing they are geographically limited is helpful. His three victims were all in the same area, it is true. I am playing Rome - the assassin is loitering in a city near modern day Albania. I have 34 provinces and campaigns going on all over the place (where he is, north of it, Carthage, Turkey etc) so I might be able to avoid him.

[Ironside]

Unless they changed it in RTR 6.0 using assassins yourself should work wonders. Enemy assassins is the easiest target in the game AFAIK.

BTW anyone got ideas on a good way to remove high-level enemy spies? They can really be annoying when it comes to newly conquered cities with low loyalty.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Some of the earlier threads discussed the assassin.

Apparently, they are easier targets for assassination than a general or diplomat of equal skill level. They are not always the easiest however.

Solutions:

Send a general in there whose ancillaries make him a deathtrap target.

Send your own assassin.

Do both.

[RabidGibbon]

A high level assassin of your own would solve the problem of troublesome enemy agents.

Of course Assassins dont live long enough to get very experienced normally, so you need to send them to assassin school.

I've never tried this in Rome, but it worked in Mediveal. Create a lot of Assassins; I normally used 6 to 10, and place them all near each other. Then have the Assassins proceed to kill each other. The plus point of having assassins killing assassins (rather than diplomats) is that the survivor, be he victim or attacker, is always going to be an assassin.

Hopefully from the carnage will emerge one super assassin who can slay all manner of foreign agents with style!

[Deus ret.]

BTW anyone got ideas on a good way to remove high-level enemy spies? They can really be annoying when it comes to newly conquered cities with low loyalty.

Sorry, none that I know of, at least not offensively. Generally it's a good idea to adorn your cities with a spy; in case of newly-conquered settlements, use more than one and watch enemy spies fall victim to your barrage of counterespionage. That's the best I can recommend.

[Rapidly]

I'm pretty sure that spy vs. spy is a matter of "eyes," i.e. it doesn't matter how many spies are trying to out each other in a particular city, rather, the side with the highest combined total of subterfuge/experience (eyes) trumps the other. So for example, 3 spies with 2 eyes each will not counteract the unrest created by one enemy spy with 7 eyes.

[The Germanic Centurion]

I assassinated an enemy spy last time out by having a spy already in the city he was attempted to spy in.
I do not know if it matters or not but he was stationed there for some time before it happened.
Perhaps that gives the defending spy some sort of entrenced bonus.

[Celt Centurion]

Unless they changed it in RTR 6.0 using assassins yourself should work wonders. Enemy assassins is the easiest target in the game AFAIK.

BTW anyone got ideas on a good way to remove high-level enemy spies? They can really be annoying when it comes to newly conquered cities with low loyalty.

I like using assassins to go after Generals, spys and assassins as well. The fellow who suggested training your own assassins gave you what I agree is good advice. The challenge comes in getting him proficient enough to get the job done.

After he is "trained", unless his rating shows him as a "natural born assassin" he will still have low probablility of success. The way I deal with this and make him better is to send him to kill "captains" who are in charge of armies outside of cities. His first might only have a possibility of 32%, but as he kills these "captains" his success possibility percentage goes up.

Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he is killed himself. Having a literal "army" of assassins in an area can result in killing a lot of "captains" and enemy agents when they are available.

Sometimes, to save your General's life, it may pay to send your assassin after the enemy assassin immediately. It may, or may not work, but if he succeeds, your General lives another day, your assassin gets experience, and an enemy assassin is "riding Charon's boat."

[PseRamesses]

Since I started to have spies, diplos and ass in all my armies (and cities) I haven´t lost a single unit to foreign assasins.

[econ21]

Thanks for all the advice. Leaving enemy assassins alone did not really work - I looked on the family tree and was shocked to find I've lost about 8 within 10 years. So out of frustration, I started building my own. Assassins are very easy targets for other assassins - once I had a five eye one, he could kill a six eye one with something like 95% probability. Scouting with spies seems a pretty reliable way of finding assassins.

Is there any benefit to killing enemy captains? Or is it just for training up your assassins?

[Oaty]

Is there any benefit to killing enemy captains? Or is it just for training up your assassins?

I do believe asassinating a captain is supposed to reduce morale for 1 turn. So if the odds are close all men will have a reduced morale, giving you the edge when you attack the stack. I know for sure it reduces the morale of a stack that was led by a general at least that's was said by dev pre-release. Captains may be immune to this just for the fact they are such easy targets and could be very easily exploited

[Doug-Thompson]

I've found assassins to be less useful in RTW than in MTW, mainly because they now have an upkeep costs (admittedly light) and I can't get the province bonus I knew and loved in MTW. Also, you can't target your own assassins any more, which was a very useful training method.

[Mr Frost]

...Also, you can't target your own assassins any more, which was a very useful training method.

You can however target your own spys when they are in another Factions' settlement ; useful if a spy has become useless through "bad dice rolls" .

[A.Saturnus]

Note that you can protect any general with a spy, whereever he is. If you have a spy and an assassin in your general´s army, enemy assassins should be no problem. But be careful: whenever your general enters a settlement and leaves it again, any spies, assassins and diplomats stay in that settlement. This includes forts. You have to reassign them to the general after that.

[Celt Centurion]

I do believe asassinating a captain is supposed to reduce morale for 1 turn. So if the odds are close all men will have a reduced morale, giving you the edge when you attack the stack. I know for sure it reduces the morale of a stack that was led by a general at least that's was said by dev pre-release. Captains may be immune to this just for the fact they are such easy targets and could be very easily exploited

Killing a Captain also gives Experience to your Assassin. As he gets better, "promote" him up to Generals and Spies.

Celt Centurion

[Silver Rusher]

Assassins are the only counters to assassins.

[Divinus Arma]

There is a guide some where that assists in the training of assassins. I recommend you produce at least five or zix and then set them to the task of destroying buildings and killing low level captains. I believe captains with less troops are easier to kill, but I cant remember.

Either way...

as your assassin develops experience, point him towards more difficult targets. Try and stay above the 50% success level, and remember that the more risk you take, the more benefit you will get. That said, don't go on suicide missions. But the more assassins you train, the better chance you have of getting one that can consistently knock guys out at 30% or better risk. Keep an eye on guys who are born with good traits already.

By training your guys up like this, you should have a qualified assassin in ten turns or less. That is a lot, but your enemy seems to have trained up a good one.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

When fighting Macedon, do not send generals in your stacks. Just send some units. That's what I would do. Besides bribing him, that is

[Horatius]

Spies will rescue your general, and cities from enemy spies.

Build a spy for your armies on the march and cities.

Assassins are good too, but if they fail then you wasted a lot of cash that could have produced spies to foil the enemy assassin.

I use both, I have assassins posted at a variety of points while playing, and spies everywere.

It is annoying when they die and flood the faction anouncements with a worthy life ends.