The dreaded assassin

[SirGrotius]

I've started playing BI, and am patched up to 1.6.

Playing as the Alemani, I've had some trouble with (what I think to be Roman) assassins.

My faction leader, my heir, and a couple generals have already been killed by an assassin. (I think it's the same one.) Now I've finally killed a few of them, but I'm wondering:

1. Does grouping spies with Leaders (either in the same army, or same city, if he's managing, etc.) protect them?

2. Does grouping assassins with Leaders (same scenarios) protect them?

3. Anything else I should be doing?

These deaths all came within a couple years of each other, so caused me some concern.

[A.Saturnus]

Grouping them with spies should help. Keeping them in cities helps too, I think. Even a high level assassin should have trouble entering a city with a spy.

Oh, and counter-assassination is also useful. Assassins are the easiest victims of assassination.

[Watchman]

You need to see the git first, though. Spies help in that too.

[Zalmoxis]

I personally don't use assasins, just spies. I propably have only one assasin at a time.

[Lanemerkel1]

I use hordes of Assassins in my work.


easy way to weaken and demoralize the enemy :-)

[Oaty]

Both 1 and 2 I believe decrease the chances of asassination, although I believe spies decrease the chances better(I could be wrong there). Also for balance reasons the spies may work on a bell curve the first one will drastically reduce the chance of asassination while the fifth may make very little difference.

Anyways since the subject is up. Spies can only detect asassins within a certain distance of thier subterfuge from my knowledge, does this seem right to anyone else.

[x-dANGEr]

I really never clearly figured it out. All I know is that I have a lvl 11 assaisan and a level 6 spy together. And another spy lvl 2 with another 2 assaisans around lvl 5. They are great for counter-espionage. My spy lvl 6 goes into cities, assaisan lvl 11 assinate a family member or if none is their, I let one of my lower assaisans sabutage a the temple. Publick order goes way down, enemy revolt and can't build anything. With the 2 other assaisans, I killed enemy spies, assaisans and diplomats. And if their is anyone too strong for them, their is always the lvl 11 :P

I tell you this, to counter them, you must attack them. Dont try to decrease chances etc.. Just don't let them exist more than 1 turn.

[Antiochius]

both help.But i prefer taking a spies My best familiy members always have a spies next to them. it helps a lot!
An assassin hasn`t such a great area, where he can watch the enemy. He is only useful, if you want to kill the enemy assassin

[x-dANGEr]

I find an assaisan useless without a spy. I put a spy to find targets for the assaisan. And whenever the enemy recruit spies/assaisans/dplomats, I kill them. I learnt that leaving them is a threat in the hard way. I was Scythia and I was netural with Mecedonia after cracking up Thracians. In 1 turn they attacked the spy had opened the gates. Believe me, my infantry is baaaad to their Royals. So I died miserabely.

[SirGrotius]

Linking my assassin(s) with my spies has helped me enormously.

1) I'm suffering only one assassination every few years, rather than one every turn!

2) My assassin has eyes, and isn't forced to take on very difficult tasks just to have the opportunity to increase his traits.

For a while, I thought that assassinations were just random, that the AI would get a certain numerical chance to do them, whether or not they had an assassin piece in position--with a spy, I can see my enemey, and as someone stated above, enemy assassins, even highly skilled ones, are extremely easy to remove, i.e., kill.

[x-dANGEr]

The easiest yes, but a lvl 1 assaisan would have problems with a lvl 11 :P. I suggest you train them on Diplomats and Captains. You will lose quite a lot, but the ones who survive will be super assaisans. Also, if their any enemy assaisan around he'd be fine.

[JLEACH]

I always train up some super assassins and spies to protect my hiers, my faction leader seems to have enough security on his own. Never had him assassinated or sucessfully kill an enemy faction leader.

Makes me think of the days of shogun when you could train up some Geishas and just pluck them down like ducks with a machine gun.

Watch Towers also help btw.

[Cras]

I have made my first super assassin.. by killing captains,actually of one rebel army... just post him next to the rebels and every round kill the captain.. when he was at level 11 I took him out to play. I have found that killing family hord members is very easy.. there you can take your pick of the asiest member to kill...
I think so far he has killed about 9-10 family members, makes battles in the field a lot easier!

[x-dANGEr]

What happens if a faction loses all it's family members ?

[Watchman]

Curtains.

[gardibolt]

I'm not so sure about that any more. I had Macedon down to one province last night in my 1.5 Brutii game, killed the Faction heir in combat and the Faction leader by assassination. There were still troops in the last city, and a small stack standing outside the city, but no family members. I ended turn, expecting to see the faction eliminated, but it wasn't. My spy checked, and in the one province there were troops but no family members, and no other family members on the map. So I killed all the troops in that last province and only then did I get the Faction Eliminated screen.

[SirGrotius]

I was just looking through my family tree, and I realized that the assassin which had provided the impetus for this post was a super assassin.

Not only had he killed two faction heirs, but he killed my faction leader. A little later, my new faction leader's brother was killed as well. Fortunately, I had a prolific original faction leader.

So, final tally for this super assassin was 1 faction leader, 3 faction heirs.

This has raised a few questions for me:

1) Have others had experience with AI-controlled super assassins? (My enemy was Western Rome.)

2) I thought such a skilled assassin might destroy some of my temples, etc. He committed no acts of sabotage, in fact, I don't think I ever had a building sabotaged by the AI. Is this normal?

3) I killed this super assassin with a moderately-gifted assassin (maybe level three). The chance was very high (I think 95%). Isn't this a bit too easy?

Thanks

[x-dANGEr]

1) Nope in R: TW, don't know about BI, only played Saissaidns their..

2) I think so, none of my buildings was ever sabotaged, even non of my captains/family members had an assaisination trial.

3) I don't think so, if you want your super assaisin to live, you can simply pack him with 2 spies and 2 assaisans, assaisans take care of assaisans, spies take care of 'seeing' them. (And one spy to go in city, so you can sabotage buildings too.. Etc..)

[Kickius Buttius]

Only once have I had a building sabatouged by the AI, and I have put in many, many hours of gaming in both RTW and BI, in multiple versions of each.