Why use agents when you can steamroll the map.

[Lionheart11]

To me they have become useless, i do use a champion to rank up armies but that's it. My whinge about the 1 tpy (yet again) is a factor with this as agents are expensive to have and rank up and they die like flies. I am thnking agents actions need to be free if they must die like flies, atleast in shogun you could enjoy your max ranked agents until old age.

[CoolDemon]

Dude, agents are rater overpowered, they can be hugely effective if you know how to use them. They also add more strategic depth to the game and are very chepa because in contrast to armies they require no upkeep, unless you perform actions with them

[Roach]

There are times when having no agents gets painful. For example, as Parthia I was invading the Seleucid empire and since I was fighting multiple enemies my armies were getting swarmed every turn and interrupted, assassinated etc. I had to use my agents to thin the herd, so to speak.

In my Carthage campaign, I am spread out and diplomats are a must have to keep culture under control and my citizens happy in Sicily and Iberia.

After taking an enemy's last province, assassinating the leftover generals is way more efficient than fighting the armies.

I rarely have a huge cashflow problem, and I use my agents almost every turn, so I don't regret spending on them at all.

[alhoon]

I love agents. The ability to stop a reinforcing army and ninja a city is very helpful. The ability to poison their water and cause like 250+ casualties is also very much appreciated. Have two spies poison a tough army and then a veteran to drop their general and you're golden.

[Kahvipannu]

Agents are mostly not balanced well at the moment, and they are super usefull. Dignitaries can bring a lot more money to your empire with theyr "skill stance", if you build them that way. Champions training ability is ridiculously OP, you can make gold-chefrom soldiers in all armies without having a single war, that's not fun, and the problem being AI won't do that, so it feels cheating, and cheap to use. Action costs are fine imo, tought trying to convert enemy agents should be either way more harder, or more expensive to try. But in general, agents are fine imo, and very usefull, just need some balancing.

[Yojimbo]

Can you please explain how you steamroll with a starting maximum of three armies?

[cyclades]

I think agents make the game much more interesting which is a must at the moment until the political issues get sorted.

[Praetorian349]

I have found a use for them everywhere, especially in my campaign in the Middle East.

I am striving for getting all historical bonus objectives attached to a primary objective. So I need to make Armenia a client state.

Colchis held their territory and had wiped them out. So I had a dignitary, a champion and 3 spies wreak havoc on the public order of one city. They struck up a massive rebellion. The rebels stormed the city and took it.

I then made the newly formed Armenian kingdom my client and helped them grow to become a strong ally.

Nurturing the growth of a kingdom like that with agents is very cool.

[General David]

I only use them in order to "clean up" my territory of foreign agents which can be buggy at certain points.

[karamazovmm]

Can you please explain how you steamroll with a starting maximum of three armies?

its very hard you move your army then conquer a city, then you move another army and conquer another city, wait 2 turns move those armies and conquer 2 more cities. incredibly this can be done multiple times, specially if you are fighting your battles. but this might be hard to grasp, let me give you an example

Rome: 2 armies, henceforth called 1n and 2s

1n conquer velathiri and recruit 2x hastati, 2s move towards rome

1n move towards ariminum, 2s recruit 3x hastati

1n conquer ariminum, 2s recruit 2x hastati 1x velites

2s move towards sardinia, 1n recruits 2x hastati 1x velites, disband levy toothpick throwers

2s conquers sardinia, move 1n towards syracsuse while recruiting, i.e. spend movement points first and recruit latter.

raise 3t and starts recruiting, move 1n towards syracuse, 2s stays in place

1n conquers syracuse, 3t continues recruiting, 2s stays in place

everyone stays in place, 3t recruits

everyone stays in place, 3t recruits

move 1n to lilybaeum, 3t to carthage, 2s to the other sardine or crab or whatever

when 3t reaches carthage, 2 turns or so, launch multiple attacks, kill carthage

you can now raise 6 armies, actually you could before

you can proceed to kill lybia, and new neo nuova carthage

though concept I know

[Yojimbo]

its very hard you move your army then conquer a city, then you move another army and conquer another city, wait 2 turns move those armies and conquer 2 more cities. incredibly this can be done multiple times, specially if you are fighting your battles. but this might be hard to grasp, let me give you an example

Rome: 2 armies, henceforth called 1n and 2s

1n conquer velathiri and recruit 2x hastati, 2s move towards rome

1n move towards ariminum, 2s recruit 3x hastati

1n conquer ariminum, 2s recruit 2x hastati 1x velites

2s move towards sardinia, 1n recruits 2x hastati 1x velites, disband levy toothpick throwers

2s conquers sardinia, move 1n towards syracsuse while recruiting, i.e. spend movement points first and recruit latter.

raise 3t and starts recruiting, move 1n towards syracuse, 2s stays in place

1n conquers syracuse, 3t continues recruiting, 2s stays in place

everyone stays in place, 3t recruits

everyone stays in place, 3t recruits

move 1n to lilybaeum, 3t to carthage, 2s to the other sardine or crab or whatever

when 3t reaches carthage, 2 turns or so, launch multiple attacks, kill carthage

you can now raise 6 armies, actually you could before

you can proceed to kill lybia, and new neo nuova carthage

though concept I know

Ah yes your sarcasm is very amusing but i find I'm too busy intercepting enemy armies that suddenly appear out of the FOW and trying to stop the ridiculously hard to control public order form causing rebellions. Since i can now not achieve the complicated and advanced technique of recruiting a few militia for garrisons before i move onto the next city i am forced to stand around in ever so fun bouts of absolutely nothing happening while i wait for public order to settle down if indeed it does. right now im at war with four factions around germania and I have three out of my four settlements with terrible public order making it absolutely impossible to do anything. Also the game just crashed since i had the audacity ot mouse over a town i've already moused over dozen times.

due to the totally broken diplomacy i cant ally with anyone either to watch my back while i take down enemies. Thus i am hosed.

[karamazovmm]

diplomacy simply works as per shogun

if you don't know how to use spies, its your problem, if you don't know how to use dignitaries and their game breaking bonuses its another problem that you have

that turn by turn guide, almost always work the same way

learn to handle things properly in the game before complaining. cultural penalties? use dignitaries before hand. too much squalor in your territories? build entertainment options

I don't know why you are complaining about public order, squalor has been toned so much now that its not even funny anymore.