Spies & Assasins, training and valo(u)r

[Grond]

Offhand, does anyone know how high in valour the spies and assasins may rise?

I usually eschew border forts and use an assasin/spy combination instead (so they get credit for the kills). This gives me lots of 2-3 star intel people, some 4s, and every so often, a 5 (though many times the 5 seems to just be born that way- De Vere [Oxford!] from England is a 5 star at creation). While chopping up the HRE using assasins is great fun, especially after the 20th crusade has marched through Toulese again on their way to Egypt, I despair at getting better assasins/spies.

Also, I don't recall if there's a way to improve the stars on your religious folks, or an emissary.

[Dutch_guy]

since I can't properly answer all of your questions here is a link that you will find very informativel;

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54932

[Grond]

Dank, I appreciate the link.

[sbroadbent]

Offhand, does anyone know how high in valour the spies and assasins may rise?

I usually eschew border forts and use an assasin/spy combination instead (so they get credit for the kills). This gives me lots of 2-3 star intel people, some 4s, and every so often, a 5 (though many times the 5 seems to just be born that way- De Vere [Oxford!] from England is a 5 star at creation). While chopping up the HRE using assasins is great fun, especially after the 20th crusade has marched through Toulese again on their way to Egypt, I despair at getting better assasins/spies.

Also, I don't recall if there's a way to improve the stars on your religious folks, or an emissary.

It has been a little while since I've had a chance to play MTW, but I've seen 6 and 7 Valor assassins and spies. I did one further in my game, and edited watchtowers and border forts out of the game completely. This takes the game to a different level making assassins and spies even more useful. I still lose plenty of spies and assassins when I send them out on missions, as my opponents have spies and assassins of their own.

With the watchtowers and border forts gone, I've had reports of up to 10 assassins in a single turn being captured trying to get into Naples which had plenty of assassin bait (ie emissaries). Emissaries are great units to train up your spies and assassins.

The only place I've seen Valor 5 assassins get trained is from Syria. In Syria, assassins get an automatic +2 bonus, and then with the highest level tavern upgrade, they get an additional +3.

Watchtowers and completely give huge happiness bonuses (+50 happiness, which translates to loyalty), so removing them has the added effect of turning a province like Portugal or Scotland (for instance) even more difficult to keep loyal. I've seen a huge number of rebellions appear in AI provinces in games I've played with the edit. Usually when the Byzantines lose their naval ability you will almost often see frequent rebellions on their Mediterranean islands as they are cut off from their ruler.

As to Emissaries and religious characters gaining Valor, one way of improving Emissaries is to send them out to make alliances. Success gains them valor. Though I've not tested it, I believe that if you are successful in bribing a unit (drop your emissary on a stack) it can also gain Valor. I believe successful alliances also gain religious types Valor. I can't yet say much more about the priest characters valor enhancements because I find I rarely get any priest characters with more than 0 Valor.

I'm currently writing a more complete guide to the various agents, and I've gotten through Assassins, Spies, Emissaries, and Princesses. I have yet to get into the religious agents (bishops and inquisitors), but the thread in that link should have some useful information.

[Grond]

I saw your post on your modifications (at length) on the other thread pointed out by Dutch_guy and printed it out for consideration, as I'm fascinated by the idea of modding it to exclude watchtowers and the like. This, of course, means I'll need to figure out how to mod, which is probably one of the threads I've ignored till now because it wasn't something I needed/was interested in.

It took some work, but I did some playing with assasins for a few hours last night.

The best I had was a 5 star. Nothing better. I had several fellows go from 0 to about 2-3 stars, but no one seemed to go higher. The 5 star I trained on the bait that landed on my shores, though it was touchy when sometimes they'd head off to foreign shores. Still, the high level guy seemed to be able to survive watchtowers, which is more than I can say for the 0 star fodder.

[sbroadbent]

I saw your post on your modifications (at length) on the other thread pointed out by Dutch_guy and printed it out for consideration, as I'm fascinated by the idea of modding it to exclude watchtowers and the like. This, of course, means I'll need to figure out how to mod, which is probably one of the threads I've ignored till now because it wasn't something I needed/was interested in.

Modding is fairly easy. Most of the config files are text files. For the units and building files, it's best to use the Gnome editor, as it makes it much easier to figure out.

The best I had was a 5 star. Nothing better. I had several fellows go from 0 to about 2-3 stars, but no one seemed to go higher. The 5 star I trained on the bait that landed on my shores, though it was touchy when sometimes they'd head off to foreign shores. Still, the high level guy seemed to be able to survive watchtowers, which is more than I can say for the 0 star fodder.

How many enemy assassins and spies did you get on average in some of your assassin hot spots? Likely one of the reasons my assassins and spies got so high was simply due to the number of assassins and spies that attempted to enter my territories. I did notice that only one assassin or spy tended to benefit in a particular turn (so it was not unlikely that a low valor spy or assassin might gain 2 or 3 Valor in a turn. In such a case, it's best to move the higher Valor assassins out to defend the other provinces, and let others train up.