When does 5% mean 0%?

[JCoyote]

So I'm in a peculiar situation. I got a Regicide mission from far off... by the time my Assassins get there there are 4 turns left. Worse, by the time they are there the city the target is in has a Timurid invasion force a turn away.

So, if I want to complete the mission, it's now or never.

Fortunately, one of my assassins IS level 9.

Still, the target reads as 17%. I have another assassin there who has no levels and reads at 5%.

Didn't work with either the first time so I opted for save game abuse given this is my only shot.

So I whack a few other things do some spywork and reload... then whack some things do some spywork clearing the seed and then try to kill the king again. Doesn't work. OK. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

I've done this over 100 times now. The king hasn't died once. EVER.

Which definitely makes me think the success percentage we are displayed is a lie. Obviously, at 5% chance even my nothing assassin should have gotten him a few times by now, much less my Subterfuge 9 guy.

Even with an enemy spy hidden in the city, I was under the impression the absolute minimum chance of success was 5%. Obviously not.

[Poulp']

Maybe probabilities are calculated the turn before.
... Well, I'll explain myself.

In Fire Emblem, when one character levels up, his stats grows.
Now, if you load back the game and level up with another character, his stats will grow by the same amount than the previous character.
But if you kill another enemy and then level up, the growth will be different.

There seems to be a data bank in which success / failure rate are pre calculated, and to change it, you need to reset the data.

If there's the same kind of process in MTW, make another action like fighting a battle, and try to assassinate your target after this.

Important: My reasoning is a total hypothesis,
like looking at an iceberg and saying "there might be something bigger underneath, but I won't dive."

[Husar]

Maybe probabilities are calculated the turn before.
... Well, I'll explain myself.

In Fire Emblem, when one character levels up, his stats grows.
Now, if you load back the game and level up with another character, his stats will grow by the same amount than the previous character.
But if you kill another enemy and then level up, the growth will be different.

There seems to be a data bank in which success / failure rate are pre calculated, and to change it, you need to reset the data.

If there's the same kind of process in MTW, make another action like fighting a battle, and try to assassinate your target after this.

Important: My reasoning is a total hypothesis,
like looking at an iceberg and saying "there might be something bigger underneath, but I won't dive."

I know Jagged alliance 2 works something like this but in Medieval 2 I could get completely different outcomes when saving right before an assassination attempt and then trying it with relaoding.

I guess the game generates a random number between 1 and 100 and if that is lower or equal than the kill chance, it's a kill, now with 5% only 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 will kill, you can reload a few thousand times and get numbers only above that but that doesn't mean the chance isn't still 5%.

[TevashSzat]

Still, you might have gotten that many fails just because of chance. There is still 0.6% chance of not being able to assasinate someone with a 5% chance even though you did it 100 times and recleared the seed everytime

[JCoyote]

Still, you might have gotten that many fails just because of chance. There is still 0.6% chance of not being able to assasinate someone with a 5% chance even though you did it 100 times and recleared the seed everytime

Yeah, even so, I'm pretty sure it's not actually 5%. I'm pretty sure it's actually lower... remember, one of my guys was being reported at 17%.

[TevashSzat]

If you used two spies, the first spy might have set the seed for the second spy which coul've altered the results

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

The success probability is generated by your actions that turn it seems. I don't mean that you can do certain things to increase it, what I mean is that if your assassin fails and you have keep reloading and retrying, he will keep failing. You'll have to reload and move some things around. Move an imam over there, use this army to siege that city, build this building, move that fleet over there, and sometimes you'll be able to reverse things and assassinate your target successfully.

[FactionHeir]

Not just moving stuff.
You actually have to perform an action that changes the seed.
That is:
Using a spy/assassin/denouncer/diplomat/battle

[JCoyote]

I explicitly mentioned having assassins kill things and spies do stuff in between, to AVOID people inevitably telling me to do that.

Guess it didn't work.