Assassins are great

[Whoz'onE]

I just wanted to share how much I'm enjoying assassins in M2TW. I recruit them obsessively and ensure that every single one performs an assassination or sabotage mission every turn. As a result, I have about 15 assassins at 10+ stealth at present.

A side effect of this is that I don't generally need to attack other factions. I simply track down their Family Members and assassinate them one by one, leaving the Heir and King til last. If I achieve it all in one turn then they don't spawn any more Family Members over the turn end, and the Faction is destroyed, allowing me to freely take the new Rebel cities. This has been invaluable in taking the territories occupied by my (former) allies.

[Philbert]

Funny you should say that because I was about to make a post in despair about assassins.
So tell me: how do you train assassins? Whenever I have a new one I try out all targets in the area but they all give under 10% chance of success. If my assassin is lucky enough to survive the first assault, the second below-tenner will certainly kill him. Even enemy captains of 2 unit stacks can't be taken on by a beginner assassin.
So where do you start?

[HoreTore]

Sabotage is where you start. Keep a spy in the target province, and target the churces, they'll have a 95% chance of blowing up if you are at level 2. After a succesful sabotage, he'll have a 50% chance of getting the GoodConspirator line of traits. Note that it's a 100% chance of getting better when assassinating. When he's gotten a bit better, target 0-1 level diplomats/merchants/priests, you should have at least a 60% chance of whacking them. After that, you can go after higher and higher targets. But be careful when the odds are below 50%, if he gets caught, you may start a war or break an alliance.

Also, in the settlements you recruit them, build the highest level of market and inn you can have, as he'll have a good chance of starting with a nice ancillary.

Remember though, assassination makes your King dreadful, with the traits StrategyDread, spymaster and assassinmaster increasing with assassinations, spying, sabotage and recruiting the agents. However, he'll also get a MASSIVE authorityboost, as StrategyDread maxes out at +3, and so does DecieverVirtue. He'll also get Despoiler, which maxes out at +30% from sacking.

Building an agent network is probably the easiest way of getting a good king, altough it limits crusading benefits...
I usually start out with a chivalrous, pious and crusading king, getting a high StrategyChivalry and BattleChivalry authority, before I have the cash to build a huge agent network, and turn the future king into a villian...

[Whoz'onE]

Hmm... interesting. I suppose I should have disclosed that I play on M/M, in case that affects the effectiveness of assassins.

Most of my assassins start out with 3-4 'eyes', due to the Assassins Guild and typically a retainer. This gives them a 60+% chance with Captains and zero-level diplomats, etc. They gain levels every time for at least the first 2-3 kills, at which point they are pretty effective on low-level Family Members too.

[HoreTore]

Never played on anything but VH/VH, so I wouldn't know if chances are different on lower difficulties, altough it would be logical.

A couple more points on increasing chances: you get a higher chance of success if the target is on YOUR province, and lower if it's on his own. Not sure what happens when he's on neutral ground though. Also, a spy in the same settlement gives a rather big bonus. Not sure if the skill of the spy counts.

The treshold for the GoodAssassinskill is:
1 kill = +1
2 kills = +2
4 kills = +3
8 kills = +4
16 kills = +5

Also, you can get ancillaries from any kill. The difficulty of the job doesn't matter at all, however.

[Quillan]

The conspirator line of traits can get you up to a +3 subterfuge bonus from nothing but sabotaging. I usually do sabotage until I max it out. Also, those agents probably get a couple of ancillaries along the way, though a lot of them give bonuses to sabotage only. Once they've maxed out the conspirator line of traits I move on to killing people, which raises the good assassin trait line. Doing enough of this will earn you points towards an assassin's guild. Once you have one, training your new assassins there will give them starting skill bonuses. Enough long term assassination will give you a world headquarters. Once you get there, your starting assassins will probably have between 4-6 subterfuge, and it's pretty easy to get to 10 from that point.

However, I think the game considers total skill rather than capping it at 10. I've had assassins who, if I added up all their trait and ancillary bonuses to skill and assassination, had 18-20 total. These guys always had better success chances at assassinating difficult targets than the ones who'd just barely made 10 subterfuge.

[gardibolt]

I've been churning out assassins and trying to assassinate (with precious little luck), but still no Assassin's Guild after over 120 turns. I don't think this strategy is doable without one, since there's only like a 6-9% chance of succeeding in any assassination (other than 0 level diplomat, but good luck finding one of those). Even if you get lucky, the next attempt with that assassin results in him either dying or losing that one point he got through ineptitude.

And I have yet to get any points from sabotaging. It's fun, but there's nothing happening in the traits, no matter how much I blow up. Are you playing a modded game?

[caius britannicus]

Try and assassinate captains, rebel or enemy factions doesn't matter. I churned out assassins and focus on captains once you get your first kill the assassin starts getting better faster and you can move up to killing family members. I employed the same strategy as the OP. All the factions I have eliminated (moors, spain, france, england) so far in my portugal campaign was via assassinations. IT has kept my papal standing at 100% since I haven't been aggressively attacking my catholic enemies. The only problem is in the late game other factions will swoop in fast and try and take the rebel settlements. This had particular effect in my war with france. I killed their family off and the settlements rebelled. I was able to take the castles of caen, angers, bordeaux, and toulouse but england swept down and took the cities bordering the HRE (which was now held by denmark). So far, with the assassins the campaign has been a blast.

[HoreTore]

@Gardibolt

The only mod I'm playing is the Cherryvanilla trait mod, and that one doesn't change anything on the assassin traits.

You do not have a 100% chance of getting goodconspirator from sabotaging, you only have 50% per succesful sabotage. So it will take longer than with assassination, but with 8-10 sabotages you should have maxed it, or at least get Schemer(+2). There are a lot of good targets for an assassination after that. Level 0-1 diplomats and priests are abundant in the middle game, and family members with a bad trait or two are easy to kill if they are inside a settlement with your spy. The spy is absolutely critical, however.

As for the assassins guild, there's a reason why you don't get it. To get the guild, you have to collect 100 points for the first level, 250 for the second and 500 for the HQ. to get points, you'll have to do the folowing:
- recruiting an assassin gives +10 points in that settlement
- succesful assassination(not sabotage) gives +20 points to ALL settlements
- if the Governor of the settlement has 4 or more dread, he provides +4 points for EVERY turn he stays governor.
- Building the Brothel line of buildings gives +10/15/20/25/30 for that settlement

Not sure if you get -10 points for every failed assassination, or if it's only on the missions the guild gives you(assassinate random guy within 10 turns). To get the guild, place a high dread governor in a province, build taverns, recruit some assassins and then whack some targets. And most important of all, deny any other guild setting up in that province. Thieves, merchant and sometimes theologians guild are all available early. to get the assassins, you'll have to deny those.

[LordKhaine]

Well the trick is to get family members on the first strike. For just a single failure will give the family member traits increasing his security. If you fail a few times you'll almost certainly be facing a 5% chance no matter how good your assassin is. The upside to this is that you can drive family members insane from repeated assasination attempts, so it's worthwhile pumping lots of newbie assassins at them. Insanity means lots of negative morale traits, which in turn makes their armies easier to beat.

Princesses are a good target for assassins. They tend to always have a low charm level, making them fairly easy targets. Captains are another good choice, since they're fairly easy to kill and wont develop traits to protect themselves.

I don't think sabotage is the best way to get an uber assassin. It seems too slow to me to level up, though it is a safer route than assassination. Sabotage to me is when you want that final push to put an enemy city into revolt after filling it with spies.

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya's assassins typically run away like little girls at the sight of other people. Sad, really. They even fail when Vanya orders them to kill themselves!

Vanya will have to order them to do some sabotage then, as was suggested.

Vanya asks... can assassins turn into heretics if ordered to kill a heretic?

It sure seems Vanya's clergy loves turning to the dark side... Too bad CA didn't include videos of heretics "burning over a mighty pyre" or of pious priests embracing Satan...

GAH!

[ChaosLord]

Assassins are way too good to MTW2, as are Spies really. Assassins because its much easier for a smart player to train them up and simply kill every AI general (command stars don't seem to grant them extra defense anymore), and Spies because three-four Spies is nearly 100% chance to open gates and because of the siege-wrecking bug AI Spies induce. I'm really suprised that with all the other buildings CA didn't think to include a Watchtower-Borderfort line again. Or at least made the Watchtowers you can build have some effect on Spies/Assassins.

[Merciless_Doge]

I feel, with some evidence to back it up, that being a heavy user of assassins produces an "Very untrustworthy" reputation amongst other nations.

[HoreTore]

@Vanya nope, your assassins can't turn heretic.

BTW, another good use for sabotage, is whacking key enemy production structures of a faction you're at war with.

For example, I hate enemy artillery. They always seem to whack my generals with the first shot. So, I'll have my assassins sabotage their catapult ranges and siege engineers, that way I wont have to face them.
Or, if I have a lot of horse arhers, my advantage is lost if the enemy also has a lot of them, so I'll sabotage those buildings.

And so on...

[LordKhaine]

I feel, with some evidence to back it up, that being a heavy user of assassins produces an "Very untrustworthy" reputation amongst other nations.

Depends. If you get caught trying to assassinate a neutral (or even worse allied) faction your reputation will freefall. I went from trustworthy to very untrustworthy in the matter of a few years! I'll admit I was a bit trigger happy with assassins during those years...

However against an enemy I don't think it would effect your reputation, at least not directly. But I don't know for sure.

[Tran]

Indeed assassins are great, especially against those gray people (rebels). They made good 'target practice' for your assassins, when you're dealing with expert heretics and witches just send your assassins to wipe them out...assassins couldn't care less about whatever faith and preach those infidels spread, unlike those slow priests...

Long live M2TW assassins!

[General Zhukov]

Assassins are way too good to MTW2, as are Spies really.

Pretty much. It's way too easy to pull a Godfather finale in this game. Also, spy abilities stacking is just way over the top. Only the highest rated spy in a city should affect happiness and gates. And the gate percentage needs to be at least cut in half just for the one spy. It should be a rare thing...

And, I guarantee that people wouldn't be so bullish on assassins if the computer used them to full advantage. The computer could really shut your economy down if it sabotaged intelligently. Too bad it never even tries.

[SadCat]

I have a real problem with my Assassins. As a wise man said they run away allot. I do not have a Guild and did not save a city for them. Does this mean I am stuck with 1 dot assassins forever? Well this game any way. By saving before each try and reloading if it fails i have one up to 4 dots. I do not like that method but was desperate. He still can not kill at 65% odds more than 1 out of 10 tries. I started h/h with no mods. Please advise SadCat

[Memnoch]

I just wanted to share how much I'm enjoying assassins in M2TW. I recruit them obsessively and ensure that every single one performs an assassination or sabotage mission every turn. As a result, I have about 15 assassins at 10+ stealth at present.

A side effect of this is that I don't generally need to attack other factions. I simply track down their Family Members and assassinate them one by one, leaving the Heir and King til last. If I achieve it all in one turn then they don't spawn any more Family Members over the turn end, and the Faction is destroyed, allowing me to freely take the new Rebel cities. This has been invaluable in taking the territories occupied by my (former) allies.

Not only that, I've found it to be a good way to fight a war with a fellow Catholic faction, particularly one which the Pope has told you not to attack on pain of excommunication. It can be annoying when you lose a 10+ rated assassin, but I usually have enough of them around (I have lots of those Assassin Guilds) and I usually send them out in "Hands" (groups of five at a time). Once you can eliminate the leadership of a faction and it turns rebel, then the Pope doesn't care what you do with it.

[Orda Khan]

I don't really care for them, in fact I think assassins are over done. The AI seems to want to build too many assassins and not enough troops. I see loads of assassins and spies scurrying around the map and then a pathetically weak army lays siege to one of my cities which had a very large garrison. There goes his army, wasted (in more ways than one) not good strategy.
I usually build a spy or two per city to counter all this espionage but rarely use assassins at all.
I prefer to let the enemy see death approaching

........Orda

[crpcarrot]

"However, I think the game considers total skill rather than capping it at 10. I've had assassins who, if I added up all their trait and ancillary bonuses to skill and assassination, had 18-20 total. These guys always had better success chances at assassinating difficult targets than the ones who'd just barely made 10 subterfuge."

I agree i think they gp above 10 as well.

I had one assasin who even when targettign a 9 piety cardinal with only 20-30% sucess chance, he never failed always got hits man. he had loads of ancilliaries and traits.

[crpcarrot]

"However, I think the game considers total skill rather than capping it at 10. I've had assassins who, if I added up all their trait and ancillary bonuses to skill and assassination, had 18-20 total. These guys always had better success chances at assassinating difficult targets than the ones who'd just barely made 10 subterfuge."

I agree i think they gp above 10 as well.

I had one assasin who even when targettign a 9 piety cardinal with only 20-30% sucess chance, he never failed always got hits man. he had loads of ancilliaries and traits.

[gardibolt]

I'm quite sure I've built more than 10 assassins each in Alexandria and Cairo (since I've had a hard time fighting the Mongols on the open field), and even had one successful assassination by them. But no guild. I don't have any other guilds there, so what gives? I should have well over 100 points in both of those cities. Something's not right here....

It's frustrating to see everyone claiming assassins are overpowered when I can't get them to work at all. I still haven't gotten a single point from sabotages either. I don't know how many buildings I've blown up, but it's a lot.

[Quillan]

That doesn't show, Gardibolt. When the trait GoodAssassin goes up (which is only by successful assassination) you'll get a dropdown indicator on the left that says Trait Increase. Check those assassins. If you see Schemer, Plotter, or Grand Conspirator on their list of traits, they've gotten increases. Those are the names of the three levels, though at the moment I can't remember if Plotter or Schemer is the first level and which is the second level. It's only three levels to that trait. Grand Conspirator will make a 1 subterfuge newbie into a 4 subterfuge capable beginner. 4 isn't great, but you could probably pull off some assassinations on rank 0 diplomats and princesses, and you don't have to worry about losing skill from failure either.

[Gratian]

Hmm... assassins

Sometimes it is hard to understand - for example i have one with 4-5 "eyes"
and he manages to kill Mongol 8 star general and receive no trait increase. On the next turn he fails to kill another and receives "trait decrease" to 2-3 levels! I mean, WTF ?! Sometimes it took ages to build up his skill and now i should start everything from a scratch. Save/load isn't a remedy in this case - you have to wait for another turn.

Also I have noticed a funny thing in my last HRE campaign. After city of Novgorod was seized by my troops, I was able to build 4 level assassins from the start (due to presence of Coaching House). HOWEVER, when a Gunsmith was build in this city, my assassins started to appear only with 2 levels and sometimes with "Hand-gun prototype" ancillary (not sure if correct), which gives exactly +2 to assassination skill.
That means some buildings can decrease assassins (also merchant/spy/diplomat/priest) skill?

[HoreTore]

Nope. But it means that you were fortunate with the basic skill level of the assassin. One trait he will always get, is NaturalAssassinSkill. This trait ranges from 1-3, and it seems that you started getting a low score after the gunsmith, this is just coincidence however.

No building reduce the skill of assassins.

Oh, and the skill increase from killing comes just from the kill. The difficulty of the target doesn't matter at all. 8 star mongol/0 level diplomat, it's all the same....

[gardibolt]

Well, after more concentrated work on assassins I did finally manage to get a guild, playing as England. Not in Alexandria,though, even though it has no guild and I built 6 more assassins there (which should bring me up to about 20 build there); I lost Cairo to the Mongols for half a dozen turns so I wasn't able to continue my assassin building program there. I get offered Thieves Guilds and Explorers Guilds there over and over, but no Assassins. Which ticks me off, because it would come in handy in trying to wear down the Mongols.

What DID work was picking a city in Europe with a 1st level Thieves Guild (Dijon), and then tearing it down. The next turn it was offered as an Assassins' Guild, and a Master Assassins' Guild the turn after that. It seems like I clearly had a ton of Assassination points stored up, but for some reason I couldn't use them in Alexandira or Cairo. And I had guilds everywhere else, I was shocked to discover.

I wonder...is there something that has to do with me playing England being unable to build an Assassins Guild in Egypt? Or distance from capital?

Anyway, I now have a couple of 4-eye assassins thanks to the guild so I'm on a murder spree. My king is Master of Assassins now.

[HoreTore]

More notes on the points:

You get 4 points each turn for a settlement with a 4 or more dread governor. That's why you got that master assassins guild.

Also, after turn 25, you get -1 point to all guilds for every settlement, EVERY turn.

Further, there is no point increase from sabotage. Only succesful assassinations count.

[DanMasey]

I've only just started to play the game, and at the moment I'm finding Assassins very hard to level up. The % to kill is usually always lower than 20%, so it makes it very hard for my Assassins to level up. Usually they get to rank 3 or 4 and then they'll get caught and die in a mission.

[Carl]

Advice with assassins:

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt ANYTHING other than Sabotage until their skill is AT LEAST 4 points. Then send them after Captins and Dimplomats and Princesses, they are easy kills, don't even try to attack anyone with more than 2 skill or who is a named general/family member until you have 6-7 skill.