MTW: Subterfuge Guide

[sbroadbent]

Note: This is for Medieval: Total War (just to make things clear).

Subterfuge being the actions of the various agents (assassins, spies, priests, princesses, etc) is an interesting element in the game if used right. Based on these forums as well as the Faqs and Guides section there doesn't seem to be a particular guide that delves deep within the mechanics of what makes the agents tick.

One of the most difficult elements is trying to increase the Valour rating of your various units. In addition, it's difficult trying to identify when an assassin will be able to get through the border forts, and then strike their intended target (the only safe way to raise assassins is ensure that their target stays within your territories and simply train masses of them to ensure atleast one gets through.

So, has anyone done any work on something like this. I might give it a go. Each agent would be detailed in the following manner:

1.Missions (and how to activate them)
2.How to increase Valour
3.Chances of success (against various targets)

I'll see what I can start. Any suggestions on what else should be in the guide?

[ichi]

Great idea. One thing to include would be a list of hero agents.

There are heroes in the game that appear for each faction in certain year. Folks might miss them easily, and could probably benefit from a listing. For example "Guy of Gisbourne" appears for the English as an assassin in 1190, he allegedly was the Sheriff of Nottingham's sidekick! and starts with high stats.

ichi

[Abdel Hakam]

I am a new player on my first campaign, and have had no luck with any agents other than my clerics. And even the clerics only work for me in a massive number just to help prevent revolts.

I am planning on making some new assasins in Syria, which apparently produces especially good assasins. So far, the agents I've used are a bit inept. My empire has expanded almost to what I hoped for, so I would ideally handle aggressive nations using subterfuge rather than invasions at this point.

I think many people would appreciate any light being shed on this subject.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Which faction are you playing? I assume myself a good user of subterfuge units.
.

[Abdel Hakam]

Hello again Mouzaphaerre. I am playing as the Egyptians. I am recovering from a not so great begining but have a decent position, military, and economy now. My army is really overstretched however, handling Crusaders, Christian Almohad-Rebels, and the Golden Hoard who have just arrived. I have a special reserve of three carefully composed armies to defend against the Mongols, but any help with agents could make a big difference. Thanks very much!

And Ramadan Mubarak if anyone is participating, and even for those who aren't!

[sbroadbent]

Hello again Mouzaphaerre. I am playing as the Egyptians. I am recovering from a not so great begining but have a decent position, military, and economy now. My army is really overstretched however, handling Crusaders, Christian Almohad-Rebels, and the Golden Hoard who have just arrived. I have a special reserve of three carefully composed armies to defend against the Mongols, but any help with agents could make a big difference. Thanks very much!

And Ramadan Mubarak if anyone is participating, and even for those who aren't!

The best way to level up your spies and assassins mostly relies on factions sending loads of assassins and spies your way. All you need to do is leave a few spies and assassins in each of the hot territories, and (depending on how many get sent your way) they level up extremely quickly. I'm currently in 1310 playing the Sicilians. I crusaded all over the crusade objectives and have held them starting in 1150 with the last captured (unfortunately) in 1206. Let's just say I've had a huge number of assassins come my way. Particularly Naples which I've held since the start. There were turns where I got 6-8 assassins/spies in Naples on a consistent regular basis. Before I knew it, my assassins and spies were peaking level 5 (and I mostly had only the first valor upgrade (for assassins). Naples was a sweet training ground.

I currently have a 7 Valor a 6 Valor, and two 5 Valor Spies, along with four 5 Valor Assassins all guarding my important provinces. Only a few of the surviving assassins I've actually used, the others that went on missions eventually met their fate. I believe that having assassins and spies work better than border forts in catching the stealth characters. At the very least you benefit much more by having these agents in your province by the simple fact that you just place them and if someone comes along, they're there to take them out.


It is important to note that I modded my game. I removed the Watchtower and Borderforts from the building file, and much prefer it this way. It changes the game so slightly, and as a result, it's almost a necessity to get the assassins and spies out. I got really annoyed by the fact that if an assassin or spy wandered into a province with a border fort after you assign him to a mission, he's basically dead. If you're targetting enemy agents in your provinces, you have to take a guess on whether the target will move to a different province or stay there. The coin flip nature of this made agents worth more hassle than they were worth. It's important to note that removing the border forts only removed the guaranteed death to your stealth agents. It won't always be guaranteed that your opponent won't always have a similar agent of his own.

Removing the Watch tower and Border forts do have an important consequence. Watchtowers add 20 points to the Loyalty, while borderforts add a further 30 points. What this means is that you're not going to be able to rely on these to boost your loyalty levels (therefore revolts are much more common, which may very well work towards your advantage, as you can quickly seize a potentially profitable target like Venice or Constantinople ;) if the province changes hands too often and the people just don't like it). This means that it will take more time (and troops to build and maintain the people's loyalty).

In addition to removing the watch towers and border forts, I adjusted the Tavern and Brothel tree so that you only need a fort to start the Tavern tree and you can start the Brothel tree at Keep level instead of Keep and Castle. The final adjustment was I halved the time to build these to 2 years per Tavern upgrade and 3 years per Brothel upgrade (compared to 4 years for Tavern and 6 years for Brothel). I might double the cost though, just to make them more difficult to build. I did this primarily to allow the units to get into the game faster.

What is important is that the Brothel levels actually give you 10 points to happiness per upgrade. I decided since the towers were gone to also give the Tavern tree a small happiness boost. Taverns now give the small benefit of 5 per upgrade.

With that said, it was incredibly fun sending my early assassins off and assassinating random characters off at a moment's notice. Princesses, Generals, Emissaries, priests, you name it, they killed it. None were sacred. That of course initiated the AI to build their own. Remember, the AI likes to use assassins against you (particularly at higher difficulties), and as you recall above, I mentioned I counted 8 enemy assassins killed in Naples in one year. The great thing was that these were coming from different sources (not all from the same faction).

I still lose generals every once in a while, mostly because I get lazy and forget to bring along a spy or assassin on military expeditions. Some generals do manage to evade the attack and kill the would be assassin.

The best part about this whole thing is that there were a few decades where someone was assassinating the Pope every turn ;) I even took my shot at him when he threatened to excom me. By 5V assassin (50% chance succeeded brilliantly).


That was a little longer than I intended, but here is a bit more. Emissaries are one of your important friends. If you have the available cash, send an emissary out to find a general with low loyalty. Bribe the general, and for the cash you spend you benefit a couple ways. First is that you gain additional troops (always a positive), the second is that you deprive your opponents of those troops. The third (and best part) is if you bribe a garrison army, you'll gain control of the province and no buildings will get destroyed. That is right. Here is an incredibly useful strategy called the Bribery Blitzkrieg.

Build up a large force (3-4 legions/stacks) and move them into an enemy territory. Bring along your emissary and if your troops overwhelmingly outnumber your opponents they'll likely flee leaving a small garrison behind. Bribe the garrison and on the next turn they become immediately available. Normally it takes a turn after a successful bribe before you gain control of the general that you bribed, but a garrison unit is available immediate. In addition, because it is a garrison army, there will be a small number available, and thus it won't cost very much. Just hope the Faction Leader, Heir or another high loyalty general isn't in there...

The advantage of this tactic is that it is quick (turnaround time of 1 province taken per 2 years/turns), low casualty rate (you're forcing your enemies out of the province and spending a minimal amount of time in a siege), and the buildings left behind are untouched. You'll gain income from all the new provinces which should help with offsetting the bribe costs. Because it's very quick, you can sweep through a region (leaving enough troops to eliminate the chances of a revolt... you could even use the bribed troops for this purpose).


A warning before you start bribing everyone. Bribing is the same as declaring war on a faction, so be prepared to go to war with the target faction. Because of this, if you take a province through Bribery, it still counts as Conquest for the purposes of Glorious Achievements, simply because you're gaining new territory


Ok, I think I'm done.


No, really, I should be done....


Yes, I really am done now...

[Evil Eddie]

I like getting emissaries in every province as soon as possible, as they cost so little to produce and this is an excellent way to keep tabs on how every other faction/province is proceeding. The AI often totally ignores you emissaries, so they are very rarely assassinated.

Apart from successful bribery and alliance proposals, is there any other way to get emissaries valour up?

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Ramadan mubarek!

Use your high valour religious agents to break the balance in Christian/Pagan enemy lands, and spies to foster unrest in Muslim ones. It will help a great deal until they build up religious infrastructure. Assasinate enemy clerics in your provinces and always build watch towers and border forts.
.

[sbroadbent]

Here is a little bit of information about the percentage chances that an assassin will strike his target. I've tested my Valor 0-2 assassins against a variety of targets. Based on the numbers returned, I've determined that there is this scale that the game uses to determine the chance that an assassination will succeed. To note, I haven't received the 95% in this table but based on my attempts there was a space between 93% and 97% so it seemed to make the most sense.

0% - 7% - 10% - 14% - 17% - 24% - 34% - 50% - 66% - 76% - 83% - 86% - 90% - 93% - 95% - 97%.


Different targets have different places at which they start on the table. Here is a list of the base points (assume all targets have Valor/Command of 0). Generals use their Command stat, while Agents use the Valor stat. The below chart assumes that you're using a 0 Valor assassin. To determine what percentage chance a particular combo has, move the point on the above scale up one position (to the right) for each point of Valor for the Assassin. Then move the point down one position (to the left) for each point of Valor that the target has.

For instance, a 0 Valor assassin going after a V0 Princess has a 50% chance. A V3 assassin on the other hand has an 83% chance. If a V1 Assassin went after a V3 Princess on the other hand, the assassin would have a 24% chance.

As well, a V6 assassin has an 83% chance of assassinating a Rank 0 Faction leader. The list of targets in order of difficulty.

17% - Faction Leader
34% - Faction Heir/Normal General
50% - Princess
66% - Assassin/Spy*
66% - Cardinal/O.Bishop/Ulama
66% - Inquisitor/Grand Inquisitor
76% - C.Bishop/Priest/Mullah
83% - Emisary

* Only applicable if you're going after your own, but likewise also good to know the chances of a particular assassin catching spies and assassins on their own. I presume it uses these numbers behind the scenes for stealth vs stealth.


Inquisitors

I haven't tested inquisitors in the game yet but it does appear that the percentage chance that an inquisitor puts a general on trial for is based on the Zeal in the province. A higher Zeal increases the chance. For instance I tried a V0 Inquisitor trying 2 V3 generals. One was in a province with 56% Zeal, while the other was in a province with 98% Zeal. The general in the 58% Zeal province had a percent chance of 14% while the other had a 24% chance. I will have to run some tests. If anyone would like to assist with this, write down the following information for each combo you attempt. All you need to do is drag and drop an inquisitor on an individual but you needn't go through with the Inquisition. The more results I can get, the better it can be developed into a simple formula. For instance, if I can get 10 sets of results from just 10 people, that will give 100 sets of values to start working out the math.

- Inquisitor Valor
- Province Zeal
- Target Command Rank and Piety score (possibly the later).
- Percentage Chance received.

[sbroadbent]

I like getting emissaries in every province as soon as possible, as they cost so little to produce and this is an excellent way to keep tabs on how every other faction/province is proceeding. The AI often totally ignores you emissaries, so they are very rarely assassinated.

Apart from successful bribery and alliance proposals, is there any other way to get emissaries valour up?

I don't believe so. Agents get Valor for sucessful missions (other than spies and assassins who can get Valor passively. Early on Emisarries are unlikely to be touched, but I've seen some factions get assassins early. I've found though that often in mid and late game emissaries become a prime target. I suppose even moreso when they are the tool to use your armies against you ;)

For the most part, I've found most of your agents become targets once you become influencial.

Spies are even better (once you're able to get a few into enemy territory). Depending on their Valor they can let you know when and where an attack is going to go. That's not to mention that a high valor spy can (or atleast should) hide pretty good. They are also possibly able to open the castle gates. Spies can also be used to frame a general for treason. I had a general who got the really bad drinking vice (something like -4 acumen, -3 command (or something similar). His loyalty was the only thing keeping him alive, but he was the govenor of I believe Naples, and I couldn't let a 2 acumen general be govenor when there are other suitable candidates. The first thing I did was use the emissary to strip him of his title. The second thing was to use my Spy to frame him for treason. When it works, it's amazing what kind of Loyalty generator the spy is ;)

[EatYerGreens]

I've been compiling assassination probabilities myself, lately but my table is still incomplete, so I'm glad someone else got there first! The player is told of the success chances before every mission, so the info is more useful in terms of seeing the trends - eg faction heirs having same chance as plain generals and so on - and you've done a thourough job in elucidating these. Thanks.

Inquisitors

I haven't tested inquisitors in the game yet but it does appear that the percentage chance that an inquisitor puts a general on trial for is based on the Zeal in the province.

Now, I only wished I'd made a note of province zeal myself. I've recently got two separate inquisitors up to 5 valour each, on a variety of targets. One of them got his first star frying one of my own unit leaders (!!) but, since then they've been working on a steady diet of re-emerged Sicilians and - would you believe it - a stack of loyalist rebels who are with the Papacy LOL

The criteria I use for selecting a likely target is the general's Piety rating and, the lower the piety, the better the chances. You'll need to add this to the list of factors you asked people to report on.

For instance, being a 3* general seemed to confer little protection for them and, in that particular case, my 0 valour Inquisitor jumped up to valour 2.

Similar 'jumps' in valour can happen with spies and assassins guarding friendly provinces, according to the valour of who they just caught and killed. Shuttling emissaries and bishops from enemy ports back to your waiting guard, to suck enemy assassins into the trap, can work well.

The one thing outside of your control, with Inquisitors, is that they can only try the leader of a stack. This is handy because, in the absence of leaders with a star rating above zero, the ones with Govenor titles become leader by default, so the ones you fry will be the ones with high acumen, too.

A multi stack re-emergence will give them plenty of choice of targets, without wasting time moving about. Given time, all the stack leaders will be pious types and get themselves released so, eventually, you'll have to move your guy on.

There's another mode, where they simply preach and increase zeal. However, with announcements about Bogomils, Cathars and so forth, 'preacher mode' will eventually lead to them burning the general population. Percentage heresy in the region is reduced but I've found the zeal rating actually decreases, as a result of all the burnings. (This doesn't count as a 'mission' and has no effect on valour rating).

I've seen threads where the player has set a chain of Inquisitors, along the intended route a Crusade is due to take, to increase zeal. High zeal supposedly decreases the desertion rate and increases the 'troop suckage' rate - handy when passing through lands held by a rival Catholic faction.

[sbroadbent]

I've been compiling assassination probabilities myself, lately but my table is still incomplete, so I'm glad someone else got there first! The player is told of the success chances before every mission, so the info is more useful in terms of seeing the trends - eg faction heirs having same chance as plain generals and so on - and you've done a thourough job in elucidating these. Thanks.

It's something that I had been trying to figure out myself when I first started. I got the game a while back (probably early March) and played it for a few weeks beat the game with the Italians and then ended up moving to a different game. I had just recently got the Viking Invasion expansion, so I have therefore been playing MTW again.

It's good to know that it's helpful.

Now, I only wished I'd made a note of province zeal myself. I've recently got two separate inquisitors up to 5 valour each, on a variety of targets. One of them got his first star frying one of my own unit leaders (!!) but, since then they've been working on a steady diet of re-emerged Sicilians and - would you believe it - a stack of loyalist rebels who are with the Papacy LOL

Yep. A 1 Piety General in a 100% Zeal province has a 100% chance of getting fried even by a 0 Valour Inquisitor. With equal piety and Zeal levels, Grand Inquisitors seem to double the chance of success, so they are well worth picking up.

My goal will be to inevitably fry the Pope. The pope has been assassinated more times than I can count (there must be a 9 Valor assassin wandering around at this point) so it's not as important.

The criteria I use for selecting a likely target is the general's Piety rating and, the lower the piety, the better the chances. You'll need to add this to the list of factors you asked people to report on.

Yep, Piety is one of the things I asked for. I quickly determined that Command ability had no basis on the general's chance of survival.

"- Target Command Rank and Piety score (possibly the later)."

The one thing outside of your control, with Inquisitors, is that they can only try the leader of a stack. This is handy because, in the absence of leaders with a star rating above zero, the ones with Govenor titles become leader by default, so the ones you fry will be the ones with high acumen, too.

That is interesting to know. What's even more interesting are some of the V&V's like Deep Thinker which increase acumen at the expense of Piety

It definately makes you consider what your general's piety levels are, and to be concerned about low piety generals if the opposition starts to use Inquisitors.

There's another mode, where they simply preach and increase zeal. However, with announcements about Bogomils, Cathars and so forth, 'preacher mode' will eventually lead to them burning the general population. Percentage heresy in the region is reduced but I've found the zeal rating actually decreases, as a result of all the burnings. (This doesn't count as a 'mission' and has no effect on valour rating).

Yeah, Zeal will slowly increase with the Inquisitors presence. At about the 70-80% Zeal mark the Inquisitor will start burning people (this drops the population loyalty by about 25 points), but likewise the Zeal drops the turn afterwards. The loyalty drop is unfortunately only for a turn, and is therefore only useful in a province that is bordering on rebellion. I tried to bring down Constantinople like this (I pumped out so many Bishops and Inquisitors that the entire province of Constantinople was filled with them). Multiple Inquisitors in a province will quickly increase Zeal (but the increase is based on the Catholic population. An inquisitor sitting in a province that is 100% muslim will have a very difficult time with increasing Zeal. I don't know if the Inquisitor increases the Catholic percentage of the population. In any event it's always good when trying to build up Zeal in low Catholic provinces to bring along some Bishops. They will convert the population and the Inquisitors will then increase Zeal. Unfortunately Bishops have a dampening effect on the Inquisitors job so you'll want to get them out of there. Therefore keep lots of Bishops around your low piety generals so that Inquisitors have a much more difficult time putting them on trial.

I've seen threads where the player has set a chain of Inquisitors, along the intended route a Crusade is due to take, to increase zeal. High zeal supposedly decreases the desertion rate and increases the 'troop suckage' rate - handy when passing through lands held by a rival Catholic faction.

How it works is that the percentage of Zeal determines how many troops get drained from local forces. The most that can be drained by a crusade is 50% of the total armies. So, if the Zeal in the province is 100% and you have 2000 troops in the province, a crusade will devastate your forces by stealing 1000 troops. This happened to me in Flanders. I had something like 2200 troops stationed in Flanders. Flanders had a 99% Zeal rate. The Spanish sent a crusade through Flanders (in order to use my port and chain of ships). Of each 100-man unit (say spearmen) I lost 49 of them. I lost 29 men from each group of 60-man units. My total forces went from 2200 to around 1100. then the Spanish sent an additional crusade to a different province and further drained another 550 troops.

As a note, it doesn't matter if you block it or allow the crusade to pass through your province. By the simple matter of it entering the province, it will gain converts.

At 0% Zeal, you don't lose any troops, and likely the crusade loses members (which you might be able to pick up if you have an inn in the province )

Thus what you want to do is try to lower the Zeal rating whenever possible. You may need an Inquisitor to burn some of the population.

While I haven't verified it, I believe that having Bishops in your provinces will slowly reduce the Zeal in the province.

[EatYerGreens]

"- Target Command Rank and Piety score (possibly the later)."

Oops. I think I had a brain fart and only the first half of that registered...

Incidentally, I had a session after seeing your previous post and did a few trial targetings with my pair (actually one's a 5* and one's 4*) and was interested to note that province zeal seemed to be the only factor in determining burn probability. The Pope has had a pair of Inquisitors in Naples for about 20 years (now Sicilian) but none of his have any valour. Mine nip in and fry half a dozen individuals, on and off, with no problems. Meantime, all that preaching and frying has reduced zeal to 30% and that's the probability I get even for my 5* one.

I did get a slight anomaly when comparing two of my own unit leaders (neither were stack leader, I pulled them out of the stack for comparison purposes). One had piety 1 and he registered the same % as the zeal level, the other was piety 5 or 6 and got a lower percentage, 24 or 34 versus 76% zeal for the province.

So it seems your initial assertion was correct. Interesting discovery.

I'll still go gunning for 0 or 1 piety generals to get the initial stars onto new Inqui's but will remember to take the zeal level into account. The thing to do is to keep them on the move, or always targeting individuals. It's when you get carried away by military operations and leave them 'parked' for a turn that they start burning the population and, as you say, that reduces zeal and your chances of burning further enemy generals.

Not a lot I can add to your other observations, save for a minor detail.

After a few campaigns, some users may decide to switch off the incidental messages. I always leave them on, so I don't know which ones get filtered out when this feature is turned off (the switch is on the pop-out menu, click the arrow on the edge of the mini-map). Amongst them are events which do increase or decrease zeal, so for 'unexplained' changes, make allowances for these - most affect a specific set of provinces. I think that, after the historical period for crusading has passed, zeal begins to gradually tail off. There's certainly a trend in the events for more writings by educated men and women, which divert the attentions of the populace and dampen zeal.

I can only speculate about what people thought, at that time but some might have perceived excessive piety as being just as bad as atheism and heresy. It would be interesting to see if there is a 'wrap around' point with the generals, whereby piety 8 or 9 are just as vulnerable to being fried as those with 0 or 1 and the ones with 4, 5 or 6, being 'average' are actually the ones which are hardest to zap. We'll have to test it and see.

[sbroadbent]

Incidentally, I had a session after seeing your previous post and did a few trial targetings with my pair (actually one's a 5* and one's 4*) and was interested to note that province zeal seemed to be the only factor in determining burn probability. The Pope has had a pair of Inquisitors in Naples for about 20 years (now Sicilian) but none of his have any valour. Mine nip in and fry half a dozen individuals, on and off, with no problems. Meantime, all that preaching and frying has reduced zeal to 30% and that's the probability I get even for my 5* one.

Well, it's interesting to see that Valor level has little to do with the probability of trying a general. The greatest benefit a high valour has is that it is more difficult for the opposition to assassinate your inquisitor before he's done his work.

For the most part there are two reactions when the inquisitor goes to work. When an inquisitor sticks around a province, Zeal rises. At a certain threshold the population begins to burn, and Zeal plummets. If there is only one (or maybe two) inquisitors the inquisition will still continue. Zeal will rise again, and the population will burn again. If you swamp a province with inquisitors on the other hand, after the first or second time, the inquisition will be dismantled, and there will be no further effects, and Zeal will stay at a low level.

I did get a slight anomaly when comparing two of my own unit leaders (neither were stack leader, I pulled them out of the stack for comparison purposes). One had piety 1 and he registered the same % as the zeal level, the other was piety 5 or 6 and got a lower percentage, 24 or 34 versus 76% zeal for the province.

So it seems your initial assertion was correct. Interesting discovery.

There is an interesting quirk. Faction Heirs seem practically impossible to try for Heresy, regardless of how low their piety.

I have two heirs both with 1 Piety. They are currently in Naples which has 100% Zeal. When I try to fry them with a Grand Inquisitor there is a 0% chance of success. When I try to burn their father, in this case he has 0 Piety, there is a 12% chance.

It's when you get carried away by military operations and leave them 'parked' for a turn that they start burning the population and, as you say, that reduces zeal and your chances of burning further enemy generals.

I've found that regardless of whether you move a Inquisitor or not, just his presence will increase Zeal slightly in the province. Enough times, and Zeal is fairly maxed out, and the population is ready to burn. Of course, it does take a month or two before the inquisitor starts an inquisition.

[Dutch_guy]

Here is a little bit of information about the percentage chances that an assassin will strike his target. I've tested my Valor 0-2 assassins against a variety of targets. Based on the numbers returned, I've determined that there is this scale that the game uses to determine the chance that an assassination will succeed. To note, I haven't received the 95% in this table but based on my attempts there was a space between 93% and 97% so it seemed to make the most sense.

0% - 7% - 10% - 14% - 17% - 24% - 34% - 50% - 66% - 76% - 83% - 86% - 90% - 93% - 95% - 97%.


Different targets have different places at which they start on the table. Here is a list of the base points (assume all targets have Valor/Command of 0). Generals use their Command stat, while Agents use the Valor stat. The below chart assumes that you're using a 0 Valor assassin. To determine what percentage chance a particular combo has, move the point on the above scale up one position (to the right) for each point of Valor for the Assassin. Then move the point down one position (to the left) for each point of Valor that the target has.

For instance, a 0 Valor assassin going after a V0 Princess has a 50% chance. A V3 assassin on the other hand has an 83% chance. If a V1 Assassin went after a V3 Princess on the other hand, the assassin would have a 24% chance.

As well, a V6 assassin has an 83% chance of assassinating a Rank 0 Faction leader. The list of targets in order of difficulty.

17% - Faction Leader
34% - Faction Heir/Normal General
50% - Princess
66% - Assassin/Spy*
66% - Cardinal/O.Bishop/Ulama
66% - Inquisitor/Grand Inquisitor
76% - C.Bishop/Priest/Mullah
83% - Emisary

* Only applicable if you're going after your own, but likewise also good to know the chances of a particular assassin catching spies and assassins on their own. I presume it uses these numbers behind the scenes for stealth vs stealth.


Inquisitors

I haven't tested inquisitors in the game yet but it does appear that the percentage chance that an inquisitor puts a general on trial for is based on the Zeal in the province. A higher Zeal increases the chance. For instance I tried a V0 Inquisitor trying 2 V3 generals. One was in a province with 56% Zeal, while the other was in a province with 98% Zeal. The general in the 58% Zeal province had a percent chance of 14% while the other had a 24% chance. I will have to run some tests. If anyone would like to assist with this, write down the following information for each combo you attempt. All you need to do is drag and drop an inquisitor on an individual but you needn't go through with the Inquisition. The more results I can get, the better it can be developed into a simple formula. For instance, if I can get 10 sets of results from just 10 people, that will give 100 sets of values to start working out the math.

- Inquisitor Valor
- Province Zeal
- Target Command Rank and Piety score (possibly the later).
- Percentage Chance received.

That was very interresting , never knew a scale like that existed , or did you just figure that out by yourself.?

anyway, nice job !

[sbroadbent]

That was very interresting , never knew a scale like that existed , or did you just figure that out by yourself.?

anyway, nice job !

Essentially I took my assassins, noted their valor levels and then dropped them on a variety of targets and noted the target's valor level and the percentage chance of success. From there I filled them into a chart and eventually I noticed a pattern. After I worked out the pattern I was able to easily guess the percentages of the missing entries.

I had a chart like below for each of the agent and general types. As I tested each valor/command combination, I put it in it's appropriate position. This might be a sample of the chart I had for assassins with the empty blanks as values I didn't know (since I hadn't come across that combination), but it was very easy to figure out. After comparing to the other charts it was clear this scale was hardcoded into the game (whether you can change the numbers I don't yet know).

......V0......V1......V2......V3......V4
V0...66...............34......24......17
V1.....................50................
V2...83......76......66...............34

There are a few other things that have % chance that are told to the player. Inquisitors tell you how likely to burn a target (based on province Zeal). When you use spies during a siege, they can be used to "open the doors" allowing you to end the siege immediately and with fewer casualties. This may prove tricky to calculate because you'd have to first get into a siege situation and then there are a variety of variables that are unknown. For instance, a spy had I believe a 50% chance against a garrison with an average general (and that was a 3 or 4 star Spy). Even my 6 Star Spy had only a 7% chance to open the gates of a garrison that had the Faction Leader in it. It may also be based on number of troops in the garrison as well. This is something that will either take a lot of trial and error, or searching through the code or other files (or just asking someone working at CA if they have the numbers )

[Ludens]

Excellent idea, sbroadbent. I tried to compile an agent guide myself some time ago, but the idea stalled due to lack of interest (and I am afraid that not everything in it is accuracte). You can find the guide somewhere in this thread: Agents. You can also find information about agents in the Numerology thread at the .Com.

Good job, please keep it up!

[sbroadbent]

Just thought I'd bump this thread as this has some very useful information that might be useful for new players (particularly with the release of the Total War: Eras Collection set there's bound to be some new players).

I had intended to write a more polished version of this guide, but at the time I had moved onto other things and stopped playing mtw. As I recall I was probably also in the middle of selling my house, and I moved back to the parents around that time.

In the interim I think that maybe this thread should get moved to the mtw guides forum, so it doesn't disappear into the depths of the forum again.

[Lurker on the Threshold]

In one game, as the English, I attempted to assasinate my own heir as he was so horribly bad while his younger brother showed great promise. The assasination failed and on the next turn I had a civil war break out. I assume this was the result of the king attempting a little fratricide. Now I just send my heir and his motley band of knights on a one way mission to some island to fight and be captured or killed. No jedi knights yet.

[Martok]

In one game, as the English, I attempted to assasinate my own heir as he was so horribly bad while his younger brother showed great promise. The assasination failed and on the next turn I had a civil war break out. I assume this was the result of the king attempting a little fratricide.

Yep, a civil war can occur if you try (and fail) to assassinate one of your sons/brothers. That's not always a bad thing, however....

Now I just send my heir and his motley band of knights on a one way mission to some island to fight and be captured or killed. No jedi knights yet.

Yeah, that usually is the best way to dispose of unwanted heirs. Occasionally, though, suicide missions can backfire--but in a good way!

Every once in a while, I'll dispatch a crappy prince on a "glorious quest" who refuses to die. I send him on repeated suicide missions, but he keeps managing to somehow survive them. Before you know it, the prince I was trying to kill off suddenly has 5 command stars and 8 dread, along with the "Expert Attacker" trait. Such a phenomenon is not a frequent occurrence, but it does happen.

[sbroadbent]

Slightly later than planned, I now have a pre-release version of the Subterfuge guide I call Medieval: Total Subterfuge. It's in pdf format, and only 83KB in size.

This guide does not yet include the religious characters as I'm still working on them, but does include assassins, spies, emissaries and princesses.

I would appreciate any feedback on the layout, organization or content of the guide. If you have anything that can be added, please feel free to let me know.

[Ludens]

Excellent work, sbroadbent. I second the motion to have this moved to M:TW guides.

A few additions:

Assassin/spy valour upgrades
IIRC the valour-upgrade buildings for these agents only became available upon the installation of VI. The same goes for the +2 valour bonus for assassins in Syria. In the VI campaign you there is another upgrade of the spy-building branch: the cunnywarren (+3 valour). Lastly, there also is a hero assassin for the English: Guy of Grisbourne has 5 base stars and is available after 1190.

Assassin/spy valouring
Priests make bad assassination bait: the A.I. seldom seems to go after them for some reason.

Vice detection (whether something is discovered or not) leads the repicient to get the informants line of vices. This is cheap way of lowering his loyalty. Before VI, you could also apply this to your own generals (IIRC before VI this could also be done to your own generals).

Spies also give advance warning if a general in their province is contemplating treason.

Princesses
Marrying one to a general of the royal blood (whether or not he is in the line of succession) will result in a secret incest vice. Fortunatly, the game does not keep track of the relations between various royal families, so there is no risk of incest by marrying only princesses from one friendly nation.

[Geezer57]

In one game, as the English, I attempted to assasinate my own heir as he was so horribly bad while his younger brother showed great promise. The assasination failed and on the next turn I had a civil war break out. I assume this was the result of the king attempting a little fratricide. Now I just send my heir and his motley band of knights on a one way mission to some island to fight and be captured or killed. No jedi knights yet.

When you set-up one of these "one-way" missions to an island for unwanted heir, always move your ships after he arrives to break the sea connection back to your territory. I've had some of these cheeky Royals with the gall to rout off the battle map (so avoiding death or capture), then show back up in my territory at the start of the next year.

[sbroadbent]

Assassin/spy valour upgrades
IIRC the valour-upgrade buildings for these agents only became available upon the installation of VI. The same goes for the +2 valour bonus for assassins in Syria. In the VI campaign you there is another upgrade of the spy-building branch: the cunnywarren (+3 valour). Lastly, there also is a hero assassin for the English: Guy of Grisbourne has 5 base stars and is available after 1190.

I'll make a note about the bonuses requiring VI. As to the Cunnywarren, I hadn't realized that there was a +3 bonus for spies, and seems to be only available for the Viking campaign. I'll make a note of that.

As to the Hero units, are there any special requirements, or do you just need to be of the particular faction and train the particular unit during a certain time period? Will just having a basic Tavern be all that is necessary? Will these agents only train in certain provinces?

Assassin/spy valouring
Priests make bad assassination bait: the A.I. seldom seems to go after them for some reason.

True, the AI rarely goes after them, but I've had games where my religious characters do get targeted. For instance, I'll have Sweden pumping out priests, and I'll have a few years where my priests will start dropping one by one. I've also noticed that assassins are more likely to start going after your priests when they are in enemy territory and trying to convert pagan (or orthox) provinces, but that doesn't help much for the assassin bait. Still, Emissaries are simply better assassin magnets.

Vice detection (whether something is discovered or not) leads the repicient to get the informants line of vices. This is cheap way of lowering his loyalty. Before VI, you could also apply this to your own generals (IIRC before VI this could also be done to your own generals).

True, that is a use for the Vice Detection. How much does loyalty get affected? This would likewise be useful if you're preparing to bribe a particular unit. It'll make bribing more successful, and most likely at a reduced cost.

Spies also give advance warning if a general in their province is contemplating treason.

Princesses
Marrying one to a general of the royal blood (whether or not he is in the line of succession) will result in a secret incest vice. Fortunatly, the game does not keep track of the relations between various royal families, so there is no risk of incest by marrying only princesses from one friendly nation.

I'll make a note of these two as well.

[Ludens]

As to the Hero units, are there any special requirements, or do you just need to be of the particular faction and train the particular unit during a certain time period? Will just having a basic Tavern be all that is necessary? Will these agents only train in certain provinces?

There are no special requirements. IIRC agents are unusual in appearing immediatly after their "birthdate" as opposed to generals, who wait until they are 16. I suppose this is because agents (apart from princesses) are ageless.

True, that is a use for the Vice Detection. How much does loyalty get affected? This would likewise be useful if you're preparing to bribe a particular unit. It'll make bribing more successful, and most likely at a reduced cost.

The "informants"-line of vices has six levels, and each level reduces loyalty with one, starting at the second level (informants network) so at the sixth level (assasinator) the character has a -5 modifier for loyalty. The fifth and sixth levels (secret assasination and assasinator) also reduce hapiness with a -2 and -4 modifier respectively (this probably means -20 and -40 province loyalty).

[sbroadbent]

There are no special requirements. IIRC agents are unusual in appearing immediatly after their "birthdate" as opposed to generals, who wait until they are 16. I suppose this is because agents (apart from princesses) are ageless.

I presume that means that all you need to do is train a bunch of the particular agents and eventually one will pop up as the special character. That reminds me, in my game as the Sicilians in which I have 4 star spies (a sweet -120% province happiness penalty ;) I noticed that one of my catholic bishops is V5. I wasn't sure if this was as a result of a failed assassination attempt, and the bishop got some crazy Valor boost, or if this could be a special character. The bishops name is Don Cosmas of Mahdia. I did a google search, and Mahdia is a place in Tunisia, while "Cosmas" comes up in a number of different places. In this case, a particular Cosmas Atticus was the Patriarch of Constantinople between the years 1146 and 1147. Seems to be the right era.

The "informants"-line of vices has six levels, and each level reduces loyalty with one, starting at the second level (informants network) so at the sixth level (assasinator) the character has a -5 modifier for loyalty. The fifth and sixth levels (secret assasination and assasinator) also reduce hapiness with a -2 and -4 modifier respectively (this probably means -20 and -40 province loyalty).

This information has been added.

Thanks for the help. Any idea on when the thread might get moved to the MTW Guides forum?

[Ludens]

I presume that means that all you need to do is train a bunch of the particular agents and eventually one will pop up as the special character.

No, they appear after a set date once train the appropriate agent. You can find them in a M:TW heroes guide (Ky Kiske's guide for M:TW can be found here, IIRC VI does not feature hero agents), but I am not sure which parameter (Command? Loyalty? Piety?) stands for their skill rating.

Also, whereas generals appear 16 years after their birth, I recall seeing Guy of Grisbourne once before 1200, so perhaps they are available immediatly upon birth.

Any idea on when the thread might get moved to the MTW Guides forum?

I don't know; I am not a moderator of this forum.

[Martok]

I noticed that one of my catholic bishops is V5. I wasn't sure if this was as a result of a failed assassination attempt, and the bishop got some crazy Valor boost, or if this could be a special character. The bishops name is Don Cosmas of Mahdia.

I haven't looked at the heroes list in a while, but the odds are extremely good that Don Cosmas Mahdia is indeed a special character. (Valour-5 bishops usually don't just appear at random. ) I know the game does have "Hero" religous agents, so there's no reason why Cosmas isn't one as well. For other examples, the Spanish get some uber-Inquisitor (whose name I forget), and the English get Thomas Beckett.

EDIT: I PM'ed kekvitirae. She responded and said she'll run it by FrogBeastEgg, and that if nothing else she'll add a link to this thread in the Guides' Table of Contents.

[frogbeastegg]

Very good work

sbroadbent, I think your work would benefit from being compiled into a single post rather than scattered across several as it is now. Then it will be easier for people to read and consider, without all the 'interruptions'. I suggest editing your final guide into the first post of the topic, or starting a new topic with it; then it will be the first thing people see on opening the thread. I know you have the PDF version, but a second, forum based version is never a bad thing and is helpful to those with slow connections or behind a firewall and unable to view PDFs. You can then add a link to the PDF near the start, for those who prefer to view it in that format.

Since the thread is attracting comments and additions here, I think it may be best for it to stay for a short while. When a thread moves to guides comments tend to drop off. From my own experience comments are important to a guide's growth and refinement; I won't want to hamper that When it goes quieter we'll look at a move.

[sbroadbent]

Well, I found my answer, Cosmas is a special character that appears in the XL mod. Going through the default_heroes text file, Guy of Gisbourne is the only special assassin with the rest being emissaries, bishops and inquisitors. I'm not sure if I'm reading it right, but the Egyptians get an inquisitor by the name of Ibn Taymiya al-Harrani. I presume Inquisitors are only available to Catholic factions?

As to their skill level, I'm presuming that special agents start at V5. The Command, Dread, Piety and Acumen ratings should only to apply to Generals. I suppose it's so if you say wanted to make Guy of Gisbourne a General instead of an assassin you'd just need to change his type and that he'd have ratings of 3/2/2/2.

As to editing the first message, I'll get around to it when I complete the pdf version.

Thanks Frogbeastegg, when I finish the guide, I'll revise the first message of this thread to include the complete guide.

With that said, version 0.2 has been uploaded here: Medieval: Total Subterfuge v0.2.

My time has been divided between this and Rome Total War, so hopefully I can balance my time ;)