About spies and assasins

[Bucefalo]

I recently read the Twitter update about the spy and assasin strat map models, and it remembered to me an idea i had some time ago about those characters. So i thought it would be nice to share it with you in case you find it interesting or the EB team may like it.

The idea mainly is to remove the spies, and give their functions to the assasin. Then call the character something like "rogue" or similar name. Now, i know what you are going to tell me, that it is hardcoded, i know, but it is still possible. I´ll try to explain with the exact things.

First thing is you remove the spy, this way you avoid the "oh no our spy have open the gates" and you make sieges require siege weapons.
You lose the unrest factor the spies cause, true, but let´s consider a few things:
-Ai settlements need many spies to make them rebel
-I think it is not too realistic to be able to make a city rebel by sending loads of spies
-And last and more important, the assasin can do the same. Yes, the assasin can sabotage the building which gives public order, and this way he causes unrest! I think this is more realistic, and it is more risky too. You can just not send your spies inside and magically they create unrest. With the assasin you have to sabotage the key buildings, and the higher the building is the more difficult it is.

Ok so how would this assasin replace the spy functions? Well it is easy. He won´t able to get inside setlements, true, but the main function of the spy he will still be able to do. You just have to give every assassin the "increase line of range" trait that many spies have, so now the assasins see many things around him, and you can send him to explore the map like you do with your spy. Assasins also use subterfuge like spies do, so it should not be much problem to make traits for them.

In addition, being an assasin now he can kill enemy characters. So you have everything the spy is in a single character, and you only lose the "open the gates" when doing sieges (which is very bad for gameplay in my opinion) and nothing more.

In short the idea would be giving the assasin more range of sight and making him a generic "infiltrated agent" capable of lowering public orders by sabotage of buildings, and killing enemy characters. Of course it should be balanced so that the assasin can not just kill every enemy character. But imo it would be a nice addition and solving the problem of the spy opening the gates, while having the spy and assasin characters in a single agent.

I hope you liked the idea or at least it was a nice reading for you :)

[AncientFanTR]

I recently read the Twitter update about the spy and assasin strat map models, and it remembered to me an idea i had some time ago about those characters. So i thought it would be nice to share it with you in case you find it interesting or the EB team may like it.

The idea mainly is to remove the spies, and give their functions to the assasin. Then call the character something like "rogue" or similar name. Now, i know what you are going to tell me, that it is hardcoded, i know, but it is still possible. I´ll try to explain with the exact things.

First thing is you remove the spy, this way you avoid the "oh no our spy have open the gates" and you make sieges require siege weapons.
You lose the unrest factor the spies cause, true, but let´s consider a few things:
-Ai settlements need many spies to make them rebel
-I think it is not too realistic to be able to make a city rebel by sending loads of spies
-And last and more important, the assasin can do the same. Yes, the assasin can sabotage the building which gives public order, and this way he causes unrest! I think this is more realistic, and it is more risky too. You can just not send your spies inside and magically they create unrest. With the assasin you have to sabotage the key buildings, and the higher the building is the more difficult it is.

Ok so how would this assasin replace the spy functions? Well it is easy. He won´t able to get inside setlements, true, but the main function of the spy he will still be able to do. You just have to give every assassin the "increase line of range" trait that many spies have, so now the assasins see many things around him, and you can send him to explore the map like you do with your spy. Assasins also use subterfuge like spies do, so it should not be much problem to make traits for them.

In addition, being an assasin now he can kill enemy characters. So you have everything the spy is in a single character, and you only lose the "open the gates" when doing sieges (which is very bad for gameplay in my opinion) and nothing more.

In short the idea would be giving the assasin more range of sight and making him a generic "infiltrated agent" capable of lowering public orders by sabotage of buildings, and killing enemy characters. Of course it should be balanced so that the assasin can not just kill every enemy character. But imo it would be a nice addition and solving the problem of the spy opening the gates, while having the spy and assasin characters in a single agent.

I hope you liked the idea or at least it was a nice reading for you :)

Perhaps it would make more sense to make the assassin into the spy and remove the assassin. This is more sensible gameplay-wise, and realistic, as spies and assassins would usually always go into the settlement before finding their mark or gathering intelligence, and once inside, it is much easier to infiltrate buildings and palaces to destroy them or murder people, and they could reduce the chance of the spy opening the gate, so you need many of them (this did happen in real life, though, in Rome when Sulla attacked Marius, the spies killed the men on the walls and opened the gates).

[anubis88]

So what would the "rogue" do then?

[Watchman]

"Rogue" ? How very D&D.

Also kinda inaccurate in the context.

[Bucefalo]

Well i said rogue for a lack of a better word, sorry english is not my native tongue. The basic idea is to have both spy and assassin in a single infiltrated agent.

AncientFanTR, yes it could be the other way around as you say. The only thing i dislike is the opening of gates which undermines the importance of siege weapons. For the rest of things i´m fine as to how the spy works in the game.

[Rahwana]

Listen up, if you remove teh spies and assassins, you made Barbarian, and especially Horse bound Nomadic factions at severe disadvantage, as they mostly relied on spies to open the door and asault a settlement.

[Ca Putt]

I agree with Sonic, Imo City walls are overpowered enough as they are now already - probably half the battles in RTW are sieges, it takes several years until a large city runs out of supplies, Siege engines are extremely rare and expensive not to mention they take more time to move. Cavalry units cannot dismount and carry a ram or even some ladders. tho I have to admit that I rather wait for the AI to sally than getting a spy into the city ^^ afterall it is not possible to sneak into the city without the enemy being prepared which did happen in history once in while.

and the unrest is probably generated by spies who instigate the plebs to revolts or spread lies(or truth ;) ) about the rulers. getting up city dwellers against one another and do minor sabotage acts that don't really decrease the effectiveness of a city but seed confusion and chaos.

not to mention that they are extremely useful when used against the AS :D

still they would probably be many assasins that are spies aswell and the other way around.