A problem with assassins

[burningsoul]

So i am playing for the Turks and i am at war with Byzantium. I send a lot of assassins to assassinate their leaders, captains, priests and so on...
but the problem is, that my assassins are not getting any retinue!
sometimes they get a catamite or a black stallion...but that is all!
Anyone knows why is happening this?
thx

[Tiberiu_R]

You should get more experience for your assasins by killing low-profile characters like enemy army captains. Don't go for the faction leader, they will probably miss the target and if they do then the leader will be more powerful agaisnt future atempts on his life. Go for less important characters and they will succed more often and then they will get extra skills

[burningsoul]

i already know this...but they just get traits, not retinue..
if it helps, a have modded the descr_strat.txt file...

[Kahn]

I was under the impression that getting retinue for assassins was a pretty rare thing. Sure, it's easy to get the "explosives" one, but something like "exquisite blade" seems to be really rare to come by.

...and this is coming from a player that deals very heavily in assassins. Love 'em!

[loquar]

I think this must be a random thing as I normaly end up with half my assassins getting exquisite blade and have so far only ever got the explosive trait once in about 16 campaigns. I also use assassins extensively.

When I'm in a bad mood due to losing half my leaders to the inquisition I often mass produce them and send 5-6 a turn at inquisitors even on low % chance I know it annoys the pope but sometimes you just have to stick 2 fingers up at the guy!

@khan, just had a thought while typing this. Do you assassinate mostly targets in towns? I assassinate mostly in the open and if you do it mainly in towns then perhaps that would explain why you get more explosives and I get more blades? I know I'm grasping at straws here....

[Kahn]

No, actually, that sounds about right. I do, certainly aim for town-based individuals more often than the in-the-open type. You might have something there, Laquar.

Also, is it more difficult to kill somebody in a castle than it would be to kill that same person in a town? That would make more sense to me, and sounds like something CA would do. Just wondering if it's true.