Defeating the enemy with spies

[History Geek]

Hello everyone,

Since I've been reading the forum for quite a while now, perhaps it was time to post a question.

In my current campaign as the Turks (late era vanilla MTW/VI GA) I've found that even though I now (1401) hold a quarter of the map, I'm waaay behind in the GA race. To be precise, the Rus and the Spanish are both 20+ points ahead of me, and this made me wonder: Since they are at each end of the map, it would be quite difficult to assult them both in time, perhaps it would be fruitful to try to make the Almos reemerge in Spain? I've done a bit of spying with some imams, and found a province (Cordoba) without BF.

So my question is; Can you really make it happen with a lot of 0-valour spies (my current stock). Does assasination of province guvenor help? Should there be a "support-mission" consisting of holy men to shift the province religion (back) to Islam? Is it really worthwhile??? I don't mind the micro-management, it would be quite fun in role-playing terms

Your History Geek

PS As a side note - I most really say I love this game; I've played games for 15 years, and this is one of the very best (I have MTW2 installed as well - no need to talk about that)

[ULC]

I suggest a sound Naval attack for the Spanish. If the Spanish are to powerful, then bringing back the Almos may do nothing. More then likely though, your just going to start revolts, with the majority of them peasant. For the Rus, it's not to late to wipe them out if you take strong military action against them now. The Rus also have problems with loyalty just like the HRE, so stategic agents will be extremely useful against them if done correctly. In either case, a form of military action is recommend against either of them since GA points don't go down. The spies/imams/assassins can help, but they can't do it alone.

[Deus ret.]

Welcome to the .org, History Geek ! Hope you enjoy your stay.

As far as your problem is concerned, you're in a tricky situation indeed. Against the Russians, a massed military strike as suggested by YourLordandConqueror would probalby be the best option, although depending on your size and resources it may well consume all your available strength. But it should be possible to bring them down before 1453.

With the Spanish, the situation is trickier. If you can't attack them directly you could resort to a somewhat cheesy method - taking them down by assassination of their royal line. Use v2 assassins (+ brothel etc.) from Syria for this, you'll have to push them to v5+ to give them a reasonable chance against the BFs, though. Pick off the monarch several times and they may fall into a civil war, facilitating their removal or at least preventing them from amassing more GA points. If they don't, try and extinct them. I'm afraid that if you can't attack them there's not much else you can do except for praying that their royal line's not overly blessed with command stars. If you could provoke them to send crusades and beat off several of those the effects (civil war) may be the same, but this is difficult to attain.

Playing GA in vanilla Late is nasty because it's a merciless race against the Russians who soon emerge as the dominant faction regularly. I never had a similar problem with the Spanish, at least as far as I can still remember....

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, History Geek.

For as powerful as the Russians are in you campaign right now, I would actually recommend taking military action against the Spanish if you're able. I've found they're rather vulnerable to civil war once they've lost a few provinces, so an expedition into the Iberian peninsula could pay big dividends. As an added bonus, their lands tend to be quite wealthy, and would add a nice chunk of income to the Sultan's treasury (although you probably don't really need the money at this point).

It's also been my experience that the Spanish are somewhat more aggressive than the Russians, especially against Muslim factions. So in this case, I'd say it's better to launch a pre-emptive strike and get at them first before they do the same to you.

[Roark]

It is possible to disrupt an enemy empire with spies alone, but if you've only got low valour spies, you can really only do it in naturally-rebellious provinces (eg: Estonia), or provinces with small garrisons that you've already primed with your Imams.

The best way (that I know) to use spies to foment rebellion is to use them in conjunction with Imams and an invading force... and you've gotta plan ahead for it to be really effective.

1. Plant Imams in as many Russian provinces as possible for about 10 years
2. Plant spies in as many Russian provinces as possible for about 4-5 years.
3. Take and keep two (or more) of their provinces in one year.

[History Geek]

Thanks for the input,

I hadn't really considered taking on the Rus with spies, as I considered a reemergence a more powerfull cloak-and-dagger move. Furthermore, I am already enganged in war with the Rus along our shared borders.

The problem, sorry challenge , would be that to take on the "we've got two full stacks in almost every province" iberic peninsular, I would have to divert quite a lot of units from that war. But then again, perhaps I should do just that, considering I resently won three major battles and they would take a while to pose a real threat again. But on the other hand - the clock is ticking, and there's only two counts left...

I think such a dilemma is really why this game rocks - I've been the richest/most powerfull on the board for 30 turns, and I'm still losing

Do you know if assasinating the gov'ner would have any impact on rebellion?