My spies watch movies?

[Martok]

Man, I have an Assassin who is so fond of ice cream he refuses to operate outside of Italy.

It's hard to find good help these days.

Ah, that's so true.

[Adrian II]

Ah, that's so true.

Oh, the things we veterans have to put up with. In my fifth Polish campaign I have conquered Khazar which has an Inn. Mind you, the year is 1243 and Gunpowder has not been invented. I click on my Mercenaries in Khazar and lo and behold, there is a unit of Handgunners.

It's unnatural, I tell you. Must be some kind of black art.

Vade retro, Satane!

[macsen rufus]

I always see handgunners in the mercenary pool before it's been "invented", same way as there are a few mongol types there before the Horde arrives. I put it down to a few adventurous individuals running westward with inventions that haven't been made public in Europe yet, trying to grab a better paycheck with their stolen technology

[Lord Cazaric]

I simply don't use spies.

My problem with them is that they always get assassinated within a year or two of training. Surely if they can manage to gather information about a massing army in Wessex, they should be able to find out about the man in the hooded cloak who intends on plunging a knife into their heart!

Imbeciles...

[caravel]

My problem with them is that they always get assassinated within a year or two of training.

You can't lose spies to assassinations, as they're invisible, so I'm assuming you're losing them to counterspying spies, assassins or (more likely) border forts, in foreign provinces? If this is the case then you're not using your spies correctly. The greatest ability of a spy is to keep your provinces loyal and guard against rival spies/assassins (counterspying), while gaining valour for doing so. Once your spy has valoured up he will then be read for foreign missions. The only reason why you would want to send a spy on a foreign missions would be to attempt to incite revolt there, or to try and reveal vices. If that province has a border fort, you can expect your spy to die fast unless he is valour 5 or above. Valour 5 and above spies have a fighting chance of getting past border forts, lower valour spies have virtually no chance whatsoever.

[The Unknown Guy]

So high valor spies have a chance at bypassing border forts? Interesting. I gave it up as hopeless after I failed several spy man-waves and used them as fodder to protect my assasins (the border forts target spies first, methinks. At least if you launch an assasin and four or five spies against a border fort province target, chances are the assasin will be able to get to his target)

[Lord Cazaric]

Ah, well. I can still do fine without using spies.

[Caerfanan]

I always see handgunners in the mercenary pool before it's been "invented", same way as there are a few mongol types there before the Horde arrives. I put it down to a few adventurous individuals running westward with inventions that haven't been made public in Europe yet, trying to grab a better paycheck with their stolen technology

Exactly! Thus creating a technological leek leading to the new inventions!