A padawan seeks advice

[Longbowmen Rock]

I am relatively new to MTW and hope some of you sages will help me with a few questions. As of VI:

1) Is there any way to upgrade units entirely? ie: (hobilars into m sergeants into fuedal knights or archers into crossbowmen into longbowmen) Getting a sweet general and investing in him only to have his unit become obsolete is no good.

2) Can assassins intercept enemy assassins/spies while counterspying? I've searched MTW forums and some claim no, some yes, and some even said their emissary caught some and it raised his valour. If no, how do you raise a spy's valour? The noobs churning out of the brothel aren't going to catch that lvl 6 assassin gunning for my generals.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Wasp]

Hey Longbowmen Rock! I agree, they're pretty nifty units!

For your first question, I don't believe you can, only Royal Knights seem to have this 'ability'.

I think assassins can 'counterspy', and I think spies raise their valour when they reveal hidden vices, plant evidence, etc.

Hope that helps.

[caravel]

I am relatively new to MTW and hope some of you sages will help me with a few questions. As of VI:

1) Is there any way to upgrade units entirely? ie: (hobilars into m sergeants into fuedal knights or archers into crossbowmen into longbowmen) Getting a sweet general and investing in him only to have his unit become obsolete is no good.

No.

2) Can assassins intercept enemy assassins/spies while counterspying? I've searched MTW forums and some claim no, some yes, and some even said their emissary caught some and it raised his valour. If no, how do you raise a spy's valour? The noobs churning out of the brothel aren't going to catch that lvl 6 assassin gunning for my generals.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Counterspying means intercepting rival spies/assassins. Your own spies and assassins can do this. It is debatable whether emissaries can or not (even though emissaries are stated to be "counterspying" when idle this may be just the default text, or they may be doing just that, though not as effectively as assassins and spies perhaps?). I know for definite that they could in STW, but I've never used emissaries enough in MTW to know if they can. The one thing I can say is that I've never noticed them gain valour from it, but that is not to say that they can't. The way to find out is to test it. Remember counterspying is different to your emissary/general/priest/princess suriving the attempt on his life and turning the tables on his attacker, this is the second layer of defense. An assassin caught by counterspies won't even get to the target, and you will simply see a message about an assassin being caught in your province by "bodyguards". The bodyguards are your counterspying agents (assassins/spies) and the border for if it is present.

Remember that the border fort will almost always replace your spy/assassin as the main counterspy if it is present. With a border fort in your province, your spies and assassins won't really have any opportunity to catch rival agents, as the that building will be doing their job.

[Caerfanan]

Remember that the border fort will almost always replace your spy/assassin as the main counterspy if it is present. With a border fort in your province, your spies and assassins won't really have any opportunity to catch rival agents, as the that building will be doing their job.

And that reminds me that I haven't used this strategy yet: no border forts to have good valour spies and assassins....

Would you put both a spy and an assassin in the province, though? Spies are good for loyalty (and prevent civil wars?), maybe assassins are better for counter spying?

To answer another part of the question: to gain valour, for a spy or an assassin, you have two things to consider

1/ If you have Viking Invasion: the buildings for spy and assassin do have upgrades, making your agents start with +1, +2 or +3 valour

2/ When they succeed in missions they gain valour: I don't know if this always happens or not: 'might depend of the valour of the target.

[Longbowmen Rock]

Thanks for the info. If I remember correctly in STW border forts were the equivolent of a lvl 3 spy, which caught anybody nefarious until halfway through the game, at which time your ninjas were well trained. If your assassins in MTW can intercept enemy spies and assassins as well as your spies, then what good are spies save for uncovering hidden vices and the fluke unlocking the gate during a siege? And how do you raise their valour?

[caravel]

Would you put both a spy and an assassin in the province, though? Spies are good for loyalty (and prevent civil wars?), maybe assassins are better for counter spying?

You can use combinations of either. I prefer to have 1 spy (for the happiness bonus) and two assassins, though I move them around a lot. You have to remember is that though they do not have any kind of cumulative effect, if one fouls up and lets a rival agent slip through, the others are there as a back up. As far as their counterspying ability goes, they are equal.

When they succeed in missions they gain valour: I don't know if this always happens or not: 'might depend of the valour of the target.

The always gain valour, though later valour stars require many more successful missions to be made (as usual I forget the exact numerics of this, but to gain 5 valour your assassin, for example, would need to kill a lot more than 5 victims).

If your assassins in MTW can intercept enemy spies and assassins as well as your spies, then what good are spies save for uncovering hidden vices and the fluke unlocking the gate during a siege? And how do you raise their valour?

Spies can orchestrate a treason plot on your disloyal generals, and greatly improve the loyalty of the provinces they're in. They can also incite rebellion in rival provinces. There is a cheesey way to valour up your spies when inciting revolts. First train a mass of 0 valour spies, about ten should do it. Next transfer them and another 3 or 4 valour spy to the province you are targeting (If this has a border fort you're throwing their lives way). The target province should already be in trouble, that is, it should already be low loyalty with smallish garrison. When your spies are in position end turn and observe the loyalty drop, if it is not significantly less than 100% you're probably wasting your time. If any of you spies were caught, the enemy has at least one counter spy in there, so you'll need a bit of luck. End turn again and fingers crossed. If a revolt occurred, check the valour of your spies. You will see that all of your spies, though they were just sitting there and were not contributing to inciting the revolt (only the highest valour spy does that) have valoured up, and gone from valour 0 to valour 1. Your main man may have valoured up also. This used to work differently in MTW v1.1 IIRC. In that version the effect of spies was cumulative as with STW.

I by far make my best spies and assassins through counterspying and inciting revolts. Waiting around for the brothel tavern upgrades in order to get valour bonuses just isn't viable.

[The Unknown Guy]

Note: Portugal is a fragfest for spy-incited revolts, if you´re playing the Almohads. Move hordes of spies there and watch as the invasion force is slowly pushed out by rebels.

For extra laughs move in a few imams and turn them into religious revolts.

[Caerfanan]

You can use combinations of either. I prefer to have 1 spy (for the happiness bonus) and two assassins, though I move them around a lot. You have to remember is that though they do not have any kind of cumulative effect, if one fouls up and lets a rival agent slip through, the others are there as a back up. As far as their counterspying ability goes, they are equal.

OK, several spies/assassins will each try to spot the enemy spy/assassin...

The always gain valour, though later valour stars require many more successful missions to be made (as usual I forget the exact numerics of this, but to gain 5 valour your assassin, for example, would need to kill a lot more than 5 victims).

Maybe it works like the command stars? 2 exp (N-1) succes to have N "stars"?

Spies can orchestrate a treason plot on your disloyal generals, and greatly improve the loyalty of the provinces they're in.

OK, this one did catch my attention: how do you plot your disloyal generals for treason? I'm very interested by that one!!!

[Adrian II]

For your first question, I don't believe you can, only Royal Knights seem to have this 'ability'.

The Wasp is right: all Royal Knights (including Princely units) can be upgraded from Early RK through High RK to Late RK. Only your ruler's unit can not.

[gunslinger]

My apologies for hijacking your thread, padawan, but I have a fairly newbish question myself, which I did not think warranted its own thread.

I'm thinking about puting VI / XL on a laptop. Since laptops don't have number pads, how do you control the up / down angle of the cameral during a battle? Froggy's guide only mentions the + - keys on the numberpad.

Also, the laptop has a widescreen. Will this cause issues?

[drone]

My apologies for hijacking your thread, padawan, but I have a fairly newbish question myself, which I did not think warranted its own thread.

I'm thinking about puting VI / XL on a laptop. Since laptops don't have number pads, how do you control the up / down angle of the cameral during a battle? Froggy's guide only mentions the + - keys on the numberpad.

Also, the laptop has a widescreen. Will this cause issues?

I put MTW/VI on a laptop with no problems. It has a 15.4" widescreen, it has a little bit of a stretched look to it but I hardly notice it now. You can also change the up/down view in battle by "right-click and hold", which is even easier than the numberpad.

[Longbowmen Rock]

No problem Gunslinger. But back to spies vs assassins, it seems that spies in MTW are as inferior to assassins as they were in STW where I didn't even use them. My style of play relies on squaring off in pitched battles with teched up units and good tactical decisions; my main use of operatives is to prevent enemies from getting to me.
Raising the valour of spies by going on suicide missions in provences with border forts just seems to be a waste because to build up assassins all you need to do is pick off foreign emissaries and alims blithely hanging around your king with Kill Me stickers on their backs.
However, if spies raised their valour by uncovering hidden vices that would change things considerably...Anyone want to weigh in on that?

[caravel]

OK, this one did catch my attention: how do you plot your disloyal generals for treason? I'm very interested by that one!!!

Just drag the spy over your (disloyal) general.

[Martok]

First off, welcome to the Org, Longbowmen Rock. Good to see you here.

All right, now to quick clarify a couple things:

When counterspying, spies get first crack at capturing enemy spies & assassins. If the spy fails to capture the enemy agent (or you don't have a spy in that province), then the assassin will have a chance to capture him. If both the spy and assassin fail, then the emissary has a chance to capture the enemy saboteur/assassin. Thus, when determining who will have the first chance at capturing enemy agents, the heirarchy goes: Spies > Assassins > Emissaries.

However, if spies raised their valour by uncovering hidden vices that would change things considerably...Anyone want to weigh in on that?

I can't say this with certainty (as it's not something I've done that often), but I believe the answer to your question is yes -- which makes sense if you think about it: Your spies gain valour for convicting your faction's own generals for treason, so to successfully uncover vices in enemy generals should bestow valour as well. Again, however, I'm not absolutely certain of this.

[Deus ret.]

However, if spies raised their valour by uncovering hidden vices that would change things considerably...Anyone want to weigh in on that?

There are some other threads dealing with this ... can't find one atm so I'll add my twopence:

You don't want to valour them up by trying to uncover something and achieving little, except that the victims gain anti-spy traits. This will happen in most cases with low-level spies. A much better way to valour them up (this also counts for assassins) is to put them in your provinces to catch enemy spies/assassins. Remove any border forts as they will do the job for your spies. Depending on the province (some seem to be preferred by agents, probably because of their position) the defensive spies will gain valour quickly without any danger to them; once they have reached a certain level they are ready to be sent on the aforementioned missions - uncovering vices, trying your disloyal generals for treason and opening castle gates. The latter is especially nice imho because the castle will be captured without a fight. Although it seems to help greatly in that if the spy has already spent several turns in the province to be taken. Valour 5+ spies have a reasonable chance of escaping border guards and enemy defensive agents (don't overplay it, though) ... okay, they may be not quite the instrument for taking over the map but they add a nice touch to the game.

[Longbowmen Rock]

Thanks for the warm welcome Martok, and to the rest of you; I think I understand how it works.

It seems then, if you want to bother with spies, that you should borderfort every provence, train some lvl 6+ assassins, remove the bfs on your border provences and stick spies there. They get the first crack at the intruders and if they miss your assassins will get them (or the bfs if they move into the interior) but eventually you'll get some experienced spies which you can then unleash on some hapless junior generals, build up even more, and save for some risky but crucial siege or rebellion. Perhaps I was too hard on them before.

[caravel]

Thus, when determining who will have the first chance at capturing enemy agents, the heirarchy goes: Spies > Assassins > Emissaries.

This is why when training assassins, I always place about 4 of them in a province on their own, with no spies. When one of the valours up to about 3 I move him out and give the others a chance.

I can't say this with certainty (as it's not something I've done that often), but I believe the answer to your question is yes -- which makes sense if you think about it: Your spies gain valour for convicting your faction's own generals for treason, so to successfully uncover vices in enemy generals should bestow valour as well. Again, however, I'm not absolutely certain of this.

Revealing vices does increase valour. The question I have always had about so called 'secret vices' is that my own generals seem to have those revealed for no particular reason? Do they eventually get revealed anyway? Rival factions' spies aren't doing this because I've switched faction (ian mode) to check to see if they're in the province, and they're not. I've also checked ever year for AI spies on missions and never seen any. I am now convinced that the AI spies cannot conduct treason plots, reveal vices, or open the castle gates during a siege. So do secret vices get automatically revealed after a certain time anyway?

With the border forts, it's not necessary to build them at all - leave them for the AI to use, otherwise it's too vulnerable. Get your spies in there early, and they will fill the same role. For provinces that don't have any loyalty problem use assassins. Once they're valoured up, replace them, move them out, and get them working.

[Caerfanan]

Just drag the spy over your (disloyal) general.

Uh? Isn't that about vices or...

OK, I only used spies maybe twice on enemies' generals...

Thanks!

[caravel]

Uh? Isn't that about vices or...

OK, I only used spies maybe twice on enemies' generals...

Thanks!

When a spy is dragged over your own generals: Orchestrate a treason plot, when dragged over a rival faction's general: Reveal secret vices.

You cannot orchestrate a treason plot on a rival faction's general, nor can you reveal the vices of your own generals.

[Caerfanan]

When a spy is dragged over your own generals: Orchestrate a treason plot, when dragged over a rival faction's general: Reveal secret vices.

You cannot orchestrate a treason plot on a rival faction's general, nor can you reveal the vices of your own generals.

So does this treason stuff KILL the general?

[caravel]

So does this treason stuff KILL the general?

A successful treason plot sees your general executed. If it fails his loyalty decreases further and he may get one of the 'suspicious' or 'informants' line of vices. Failed plots apparently decrease the loyalty of all generals, and successful plots seems to increase their loyalty*. This is where having a lot of decent valour spies in all of your provinces comes in very useful for many reasons.

Imagine that your faction leader has just died, and you now have an overfed 1 influence hedonist on the throne? The number of disloyal generals has increased and civil war is likely. You've just built some expensive and slow to construct structures that you don't feel like losing and having to rebuild after a civil war.

The answer is to pull out the worst of those generals from their stacks and begin the treason trials. You will need to start as many at once as you can, not 1 or 2 at a time. If you pull off about 75% of these, it will be good, and your spies will have increased in valour. The next year you need to have another go and so on. Those stubborn ones that just won't die and have 0 loyalty and some nasty vices will probably need to be assassinated, though you can move your spies around and give your highest valour spy a try at bringing him down, before you resort to that.

-Edit: You should really restrict the use of this to worthless traitors or lesser general with no good stats. Generals that have very good stats but poor loyalty should usually be bought off with a marriage or title. Keeping him in the faction leaders stack for a while should also increase his loyalty.

*I haven't noticed this so much myself but I believe it is true. I don't know the exact figures/effects.

[Maximillian von Hapsburg]

I've never had a one-influence hedonist, thankfully, but yeah, you ought to bring them to the province the king's in, and orchestrate some trials. That'll hurt (...your disyloyal generals xD)

Yours,



Max

[Deus ret.]

nor can you reveal the vices of your own generals.

Which ís actually a deplorable thing because of a single but very annoying case in the game: the interchanged effects of pride/secret pride. Oh how I'd love to have someone uncover the 'pride' vice (or virtue?) on my former six-star general because it would only slightly decrease command, whereas the 'secret pride' trait which is currently sticking to him causes the loss of 2 command and acumen each

Anyway, it's fun to play around with spies. Several high-level ones might even become a power factor themselves by destabilizing an enemy empire, either by lowering loyalty or by constantly revealing vices. I remember bringing down the Spanish once mainly by using spies - a team of two/three of them tried each turn to uncover some other hidden vice on their king, and after 10 turns or so he had accumulated so many happiness-decreasing traits that revolts started in his core provinces, followed soon by a massive civil war However I must admit that it takes a while to do it this way and it may also result in the king becoming virtually immune to spies (that's what happened when I tried the trick a second time).

[Caerfanan]

Which ís actually a deplorable thing because of a single but very annoying case in the game: the interchanged effects of pride/secret pride. Oh how I'd love to have someone uncover the 'pride' vice (or virtue?) on my former six-star general because it would only slightly decrease command, whereas the 'secret pride' trait which is currently sticking to him causes the loss of 2 command and acumen each

Uuuh... I wonder about this. Your leaders will have vice, virtues, and hidden vices. My first guess would be that only the officially hidden vice are unveil-able? Or can a spy "create" a vice on a character? Whatever vice?

[Caerfanan]

A successful treason plot sees your general executed. If it fails his loyalty decreases further and he may get one of the 'suspicious' or 'informants' line of vices. Failed plots apparently decrease the loyalty of all generals, and successful plots seems to increase their loyalty*. This is where having a lot of decent valour spies in all of your provinces comes in very useful for many reasons.

Imagine that your faction leader has just died, and you now have an overfed 1 influence hedonist on the throne? The number of disloyal generals has increased and civil war is likely. You've just built some expensive and slow to construct structures that you don't feel like losing and having to rebuild after a civil war.

The answer is to pull out the worst of those generals from their stacks and begin the treason trials. You will need to start as many at once as you can, not 1 or 2 at a time. If you pull off about 75% of these, it will be good, and your spies will have increased in valour. The next year you need to have another go and so on. Those stubborn ones that just won't die and have 0 loyalty and some nasty vices will probably need to be assassinated, though you can move your spies around and give your highest valour spy a try at bringing him down, before you resort to that.

-Edit: You should really restrict the use of this to worthless traitors or lesser general with no good stats. Generals that have very good stats but poor loyalty should usually be bought off with a marriage or title. Keeping him in the faction leaders stack for a while should also increase his loyalty.

*I haven't noticed this so much myself but I believe it is true. I don't know the exact figures/effects.

Wow. Now that's an answer. Thank you very much Cambyses II!!!

[caravel]

Uuuh... I wonder about this. Your leaders will have vice, virtues, and hidden vices. My first guess would be that only the officially hidden vice are unveil-able?

This is correct, only the currently existing secret vices can be revealed. So "Secret Pride" would become "Pride" => "Secret Perversion" => "Perversion", "Secret Adultery" => "Adultery" and so on. You can't perform this action on rebel generals... well not always anyway. There seems to be a bug because on occasions I have done so, the same applies to Inquistions, I did once target and burn a rebel general.

[Caerfanan]

This is correct, only the currently existing secret vices can be revealed. So "Secret Pride" would become "Pride" => "Secret Perversion" => "Perversion", "Secret Adultery" => "Adultery" and so on. You can't perform this action on rebel generals... well not always anyway. There seems to be a bug because on occasions I have done so, the same applies to Inquistions, I did once target and burn a rebel general.

Do you think that all the vices have a secret version? The "Secret Pride" is quite an oxymoron... I'll try to check that!

[Martok]

I am now convinced that the AI spies cannot conduct treason plots, reveal vices, or open the castle gates during a siege.

Unfortunately, this has been my observation as well. The other factions don't utilize most of a spy's abilities.

So do secret vices get automatically revealed after a certain time anyway?

I would say yes, as that's consistently been my expierence -- my generals' secret vices are *always* revealed sooner or later. Vices usually seem to come out into the open around 5-10 years after the general picked up the "secret" version of the vice in question.

[caravel]

Unfortunately, this has been my observation as well. The other factions don't utilize most of a spy's abilities.

It is doubtful if the AI would be able to make effective use of orchestrating a treason plot anyway. I have seen the AI send it's own inquisitors against it's own generals on several occasions. Not bad or impious generals either, just random ones. The AI can't tell the difference between a good general and a bad one. The reveal vices, function would have worked well for the AI, but that is probably somehow linked to the treason plot function and allowing one may have meant allowing the other, so maybe that's why it's not available? Then again AI controlled assassins seem to be prevented from murdering their own sides generals, so I don't see why the reveal vices function isn't there.

I would say yes, as that's consistently been my expierence -- my generals' secret vices are *always* revealed sooner or later. Vices usually seem to come out into the open around 5-10 years after the general picked up the "secret" version of the vice in question.

There must be a check that is done every turn, with a percentage chance of them being revealed (the same as with gaining any other vice or virtue. No doubt when the general is checked to see if he's eligible for any vices or virtues, this is also checked.

[gunslinger]

If an enemy general has the annoying trait of just being too pious to set up for heresy, I always like to send in a spy to reveal all of his secret perversions and such. Making these piety reducing vices public makes the inquisitor's job much easier.