The chances can be pretty high. 3 stars aren't much. I've had fully trained assasins, and I reckon I'd have a greater than 50% chance. Probably ~90%? I forget the numbers.

Quote Originally Posted by Eques
Spys:
Yes, they can open city gates (wich you could destroy using a mere battleram anyway). That is of some use, i agree. But if you can use watchtowers to watch your lands, why to use a spy-chain and pay a LOT for that?
As for units recon, does anyone start an army thinking about "the stinky gauls inside narbo matius walls" ? Does anyone think: "They only got missile units! I will start an army of horses" come on! I like to make an army using all 3 forces and i wont change it cuz "they got thousands of pigs".
I believe you can see if a general is greedy (and more like to be bribed) or not just sometimes. In most times you will probably see if he prefers the company of boys rather than girls (wich is a good reason for assassination!) and other stuff i just find... useless...

Hell yeah, in medieval they were more like spys!!! You got messages like "there is a rumor that your sons plan a revolt..." or "Spain will attack very soon" or... "your spy discovered a conspiration, the leader of that conspiration is bla bla" yeah... that was nice! THAT was more like spys stuff. Not just open gates or give details about the "burning-pigs army coming from the east".
I would pay a "LOT" for that, because firstly it's not much and secondly watchtowers only work in your lands. It's helpful to see if a big bloody army just got dispached from the enemy's city - towards you, towards someone else? Should I get a defensive army up quick, or try and peg it with a city-taker?

And yes, I do change my armies against the enemy. You'd be a fool not to. If you play as the Seleucids, for example, you'll be facing the Greek Cities, Pontus, Egypt, Armenia and Parthia. Armenia and Parthia are almost exclusively weak infantry and horse archers. The Greeks and Pontus have a lot of strong infantry, some horse archers and some cavalry. Egypt has slightly inferior phalanxes but chariots. They all require different armies to defeat them efficiently. I challenge you to defeat 20 horse archers with one of your "balanced" armies!

Those messages were useful, yes. But you could work all that out using your spies in RTW, too, by spying on the enemy (not that your sons were planning a revolt - but I never had anything like that anyway?).