Assassins: Waste of time?

[Joshwa]

If you train them up they can be devastating. Them, combined with a bunch of spys, can make an enemy city rebel pretty easily, which you can then swoop in and take, without the bother of a costly war. You can also take out stack leaders of enemy armies to tilt the odds in your favour, if, like you, you are constantly getting caught wth your pants down defences-wise. And the satisfaction you get as the byzantines by assassinating the pope is just awesome. Take that catholics! bwahaha

[Erik Bloodaxe]

I don't find assassins a waste of times at all. They can be very usefulll, and are quite fun to use.

[Moah]

If you have good ones then killing the mongol leaders is a maaaassive boost - it's the 8* 8 dread generals all with night fighter so they reinforce each other despite your attacking at night that makes them so unstoppable.

The same armies with captains are tough fights but you're unlikely to lose.

However my assasins were all turkeys so i had to do it the hard way. Fortunately the Mongol AI is as passive (or was for me) as the others. Confront them with a big army (well 3 :-) ) and they jsut mill around not attackign anyone and let you pick off battles at teh edges. I lost a lot of troops, and quite a few of the battles but if I killed one of their leaders or smashed 1 of their armies (they don't merge so just get weaker) I counted it as a victory. I could replace my losses, they couldn't (after stack 3...)

Shame really. I had 5 armies at choke points and didn't get to fight a single defensive battle. Had to attack them every time.

[DukeKent]

Assassins are not cost effective as assassins unless you are willing to backup and restore in vanilla M2TW, and only marginally better in Version 1.1. If you use a bug fixer then they become only adequate at best.

[John_Longarrow]

DukeKent

Odd, I've never had that issue. I normally train up my assassins by having a group of them go towards a target city (normally one that has a spy to help ID targets) and start removing offending buildings. They do this pretty well and can easily gain skill while causing more fiscal damage than any other unit in the game. A group of 4 can do several thousand Florins worth of damage to a large city each turn.

If you also have them remove the occasional no charm or no diplomacy target, you can get some 6 or 7 rank assassins in about 15 turns. After they get some skill they can start removing those higher ranking targets that get annoying.

[Tyrac]

Ass are only good as a fun side show. Yes it can be amusing to spend all the time and effort to make a super assassin that will kill enemy generals and popes left and right however.....

If you want $ to = Victory you will never even make one. Your cash is better spent on Bodies to send over the walls to sack and pillage.

[Slaists]

Note, that successful use of assassins for murder rather than destroying buildings raises faction's leader's dread (which is a problem if the king originally has high chivalry). A dreadful leader is likely to cause the faction to lose reputation.

[Skott]

To me this is kind of a yes and no answer. Yes, they are a waste if you dislike using them to destroy the enemy's city/fort buildings, generals, merchants, diplomats, and assassins. If you dislike that kind of playstyle then you'll find assassins a waste of time, money and effort.

If however you like that kind of playstyle you'll find them quite valuable once you got the assassin trained up a couple of levels or more.

Basically you'll either like them or you wont. Simple as that.

[Slug For A Butt]

It was only recently that I started playing about with assassins, I always thought they seemed a waste of time. Hell no! Assassins are great for more than one or two types of mission.
I find the easiest and fastest way to train them is to chuck 'em at the nearest Rebel army as soon as they are recruited. I always allow the nearest Rebel army to stay put and then recruit assassins at that town. If they fail the first mission, just recruit the next assassin and go again. After a few murders they level up nicely.
Then for the fun stuff.
Throw them at everything from heretics and priests to generals and everything inbetween.
Throw them at cities to sabotage and lower cash to weaken you adversaries.
Throw them at cities to lower order and help them rebel so you can mop up afterwards.
Throw them at Priests in enemy provinces that have Heretics, so you help the Heretics do their job and lower order.
Throw them at troublesome merchants that stop you settling on a resource.

Really, assassins give you flexibility and help pave the way for invasions.

The only places I don't really use them is against Cities sorry Castles (waste of time, you'll not lower the order enough for a rebellion and you won't make that much difference to the income) and Inquisitors (the Pope will hate you when he gets wind of it).

I'm a convert, give them a serious go. They are worthwhile.

[_Tristan_]

Note, that successful use of assassins for murder rather than destroying buildings raises faction's leader's dread (which is a problem if the king originally has high chivalry). A dreadful leader is likely to cause the faction to lose reputation.

Not always true...I'm on turn 60 in a Hungarian campaign and the starting King Laszlo is now Laszlo the Tyrant after being Laszlo the Malevolent (His dread score is even above 10) and my reputation remains Very Reliable and no fewer than 4 factions have Perfect realtionships with me ...without giving out a single florin...

His high dread derives from the heavy use of spies and assassins I'm doing and so don't find them a waste of time

So a high Dread King is manageable ...I like that term "Dread King"

[Slaists]

Not always true...I'm on turn 60 in a Hungarian campaign and the starting King Laszlo is now Laszlo the Tyrant after being Laszlo the Malevolent (His dread score is even above 10) and my reputation remains Very Reliable and no fewer than 4 factions have Perfect realtionships with me ...without giving out a single florin...

His high dread derives from the heavy use of spies and assassins I'm doing and so don't find them a waste of time

So a high Dread King is manageable ...I like that term "Dread King"

Interesting. Will have to check that. There is another thread here, suggesting high leader's dread lower's ones reputation.

BTW, "very reliable" is not the highest reputation score. "Trustworthy" is.