Assassins: Waste of time?

[steev]

In my current game the AI spewed out assassins like there was no tomorrow. If I had a general in a city he usually had about 4 or 5 assassins hanging about outside, and half of my characters soon had guard dogs. If things looked nasty i just brought in a spy to make sure he didnt get anyone. After all that work the AI only successfully took out maybe 2 generals... and it was paying 200 F per ass per turn. Yet one 100 F spy was enough to see them off. Seems assassins really arent worth the bother. I know some people like to rain them to burn buildings, but why not spend the dough on an army and just go smash some more cities?

[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.

[sbroadbent]

The only places I don't really use them is against Cities (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).

In previous campaigns, I used them quite a bit with cities. Destroying economic buildings might not necessarily reduce the factions income, but it does start to take a toll on the enemy if they need to constantly spend money to repair their buildings. In addition, take out their castle recruitment buildings and you slow down the ability of the AI to recruit/retrain troops.

After waging this economic warfare I managed to bring several factions to a halt where they just were not producing troops or able to repair their buildings. With that said, I've had squads of 4-5 assassins going after several buildings a turn, so a concentrated assault can make a difference.

What it comes down to is playing style.

[snorky]

i always train an army of assassins i keep training until i cant train anymore.
and then i send them to a single faction. Then spreading them trough the provinces killing all family members you meet, destroying buildings killing priests and princesses.

now this doesnt do much with a few a assassins but with up to 30 assassins in one empire it will be devastating. But this tactic works best in the Eastern world because of the long distances between the city's

[anders]

it is dishonourable to consort with hitmen and other people of low carachter, head for the fields of glory instead!

[Ciaran]

I´ve noticed that while in 1.1 assassins indeed need a lot of training in the shape of sabotage missions, their effectiveness in the unofficial 1.2 patch seems to be aproximately at the level of RTW, i.e. they can kill captains and enemy assassins easily, making it easier to get highly skilled assassins in relatively short time.

[Slug For A Butt]

it is dishonourable to consort with hitmen and other people of low carachter, head for the fields of glory instead!

You calling the Pope dishonourable? Verily a Crusade shall be called on your ass mate.

[Bob the Insane]

their effectiveness in the unofficial 1.2 patch seems to be aproximately at the level of RTW, i.e. they can kill captains and enemy assassins easily, making it easier to get highly skilled assassins in relatively short time.

Totally agree...

[HoreTore]

Another good reason to use assassins, is that you get the VERY amusing regicide mission from a Prince...

[steev]

Well, three separate issues seem to be here. One is why the AI uses so many assassins, when the AI assassins are useless. The other issue is are they cost-effective (looks like not really), and the third issue is are they fun - looks like they are. I'm a great fan of arson and I'd like to get the "kill the king" mission.
In my current campaign I'm Egypt, and now that I've taken over Asia Minor I have time to relax a few turns before the Mongols show up.

[Caliburn]

Taking out ballista/cannon towers before assaulting a city is a strategy to concider as well, especially if you don't have artillery to deal with the towers.

[Moah]

Taking out ballista/cannon towers before assaulting a city is a strategy to concider as well, especially if you don't have artillery to deal with the towers.

Can you? I hadn't realised they were a target option. You certainly can't damage walls.

[phunkbot]

hey Org mates,

a note on cost effectivenesssssnes of assasssinsss

they cost what, 500, right?

to even get an assiassin to a level where he can do anything (3rd-4th or more) you have to do damage worth more than that(3 Priests/Imams at 200 each for example), and from there on it just skyrockets;

dont forget that a killed general is 20+ bodyguards gone and that killing all family members kills a nation which is good for small nations you dont want to ruin your reputation waring agains;

Moah's point on the mongols is quite good as well

can anyone tell me what happens to buildings you get at 100% damage? if you capture the city, can they be repaired or do they get totally destroyed and need to be rebuilt?

i think using them too much is not necessairy but they can save you a lot of trouble and i just hate AI agents of any sort moving about so they are worthwhile for me

cheers

[John_Longarrow]

This thread gives me a very ... disturbed... idea for a game. Try starting as Milan and only producing Spies and Assassins for your offensive power. Train them up and start removing neighbors.

I wonder if you could clear out all other factions this way? Only you and a bunch of rebel cities left.

[_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"

[Obadiah]

Using assasins isn't my playing style, but I think I'm going to HAVE to use them, b'c the AI's Milanese assassins are destroying my (Venice) ruling family!!! I have a spy in the stack of every family member. I was down to two generals (Doge, heir) with 15 provinces, and worried about losing the game! Luckily a crop of next generation kids matured, so I survived that. Other than using spies as defense, which I'm already doing, I don't know what else to do other than go build assassins and play a part of the game I'd rather ignore. PS- Yes, the short answer is to go to war and simply crush the Milanese faction, which is my next strategic goal, but (a) that doesn't help in the interim, and (b) I assume that there'll be another faction pulling the same act soon enough, so that won't really solve my problem.

BTW- I was trying to recall what difficulty settings I'd picked for this campaign, and couldn't recall. Neither could I find where it tells you. Do I just have to make a point of remembering? Seems it should list it somewhere.

[HoreTore]

Obadiah, there's nowhere you can check that unfortunately. However, you can download MedManager, which allows you to both check it, and change it if you have the "wrong" one.

Do a search for it over at twcenter.

[Caliburn]

Assassinating a faction's line completely is very difficult, as they seem to adopt new family members if you don't manage to kill them all off in a single turn. I might be wrong, of course, and if there are only four left and you've got 20 assassins or so... But training up 20 assassins for 15 turns...

You can take out ballista towers with assassins, I've done that sometimes. I thin k you can't even sell city walls, can you?

[Quillan]

Assassins are like crops, they require careful cultivation for good results. The AI doesn't train its assassins, it produces one and sends it out to try killing everything. The result is that the assassin never gains skill, in fact it loses skill as a result of all those failures.

To successfully use assassins, do the following.

1) Pick a city to be your assassin's guild. Build no guild in that city, tech up to an inn and recruit your assassins there. Once it's offered an Assassin's Guild, build that.

2) Drop a spy in an enemy city. Have your new assassins go to that city and sabotage buildings. The church is the easiest building to sabotage. Over time and successful sabotaging, they'll get some bonuses. Your target is the third trait in the Conspirator line. This will give a +3 to subterfuge.

3) Once you have that conspirator trait, move on to assassinating people. Your initial targets should be rank 0 characters. 0 charm princesses are easy to find. 0 influence diplomats aren't uncommon. 0 finance merchants and 0 subterfuge spies you'll rarely see.

4) Once you've gotten to a total of about 6-7 subterfuge, you can move on to captains. Keep going, no matter what your subterfuge shows! The game does seem to count subterfuge even though the display stops at 10. An assassin with a 19 total subterfuge (just for assassination purposes) gets higher success chances than one who is only a 10.

5) Keep training new ones as well. Over time, you'll be offered a Master Assassin's Guild and an Assassin's Guild HQ. Build them. They'll give new assassins you train an extra +1 or +2 subterfuge.

[Slaists]

[QUOTE=Quillan]Assassins are like crops, they require careful cultivation for good results. The AI doesn't train its assassins, it produces one and sends it out to try killing everything. The result is that the assassin never gains skill, in fact it loses skill as a result of all those failures.

To successfully use assassins, do the following.

1) Pick a city to be your assassin's guild. Build no guild in that city, tech up to an inn and recruit your assassins there. Once it's offered an Assassin's Guild, build that.

2) Drop a spy in an enemy city. Have your new assassins go to that city and sabotage buildings. The church is the easiest building to sabotage. Over time and successful sabotaging, they'll get some bonuses. Your target is the third trait in the Conspirator line. This will give a +3 to subterfuge.

3) Once you have that conspirator trait, move on to assassinating people. Your initial targets should be rank 0 characters. 0 charm princesses are easy to find. 0 influence diplomats aren't uncommon. 0 finance merchants and 0 subterfuge spies you'll rarely see.

... (cut)

[QUOTE]

--

if you want to preserve chivalry of a chivalric leader: don't do anything beyond step #2 above... killing (rather than sabotaging) kills leader's chivalry points quickly.

[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.

[Melock]

I hate trying to get an assasin to a point where he's worth something, but when he does.. it's great. (use a spy to find princesses, they usually are easier to kill)



I love my merchants and usually play as England. Just in the north of france, th e dye is a nice little profit. (even more so when they get experienced) Although France always has that one merchant that's better and gets rid of them. That's when my assasin makes life a little easier.


Another thing I like to use them for is to kill diplomats/princesses. You end your turn and they do that animation on a city... but nothing happens... (I'm assuming there trying to bribe) I could care less about them doing it, but that stupid animation is like 5 or 6 seconds I'm not playing =) *STAB*