I give up with spies!

[sherbs]

What's the point? You nurture them till they are almost James Bond, ie 8 subterfuge with traits as long as your arm and then they go and snuff it checking out a 95% chance merchant. Just happened to two of my best spies in a row. Pathetic.

I doubt I'm the first to complain about this. Sorry, just had to vent.

[johnnyg]

Everyone gets sloppy at some point in their career - spies are no different

[Kahn]

I think the key with Spies and Assassins is to amass a veritable army of the bastards and send them out. If you want to be an assasin/spy heavy faction, you've gotta be churning them out like a production line and keep sending them to the front.

In my English campaign, I've got two cities making a spy every turn and I send them straight to the pope. This keeps him in check should he tell me how to run my war.

[J@mes]

I think the key with Spies and Assassins is to amass a veritable army of the bastards and send them out. If you want to be an assasin/spy heavy faction, you've gotta be churning them out like a production line and keep sending them to the front.

In my English campaign, I've got two cities making a spy every turn and I send them straight to the pope. This keeps him in check should he tell me how to run my war.

assissins normally keep the pope in check i don't know what spys are doing for you? only causing unrest in his settlements.

[miccofl]

What's the point? You nurture them till they are almost James Bond, ie 8 subterfuge with traits as long as your arm and then they go and snuff it checking out a 95% chance merchant. Just happened to two of my best spies in a row. Pathetic.

That's not pathetic, that's about normal for the game. Pathetic was me losing a 12 piety cardinal to a 0 level witch; nevermind the fact he's toasted 5 heretics and is a missionary to boot. It's that 5% that gets you. Best to think of it as winning the lottery in reverse

[reddog11]

What do you mean that you send a nunch of spies to make sure the pope cooperates? All i ever use spies for is to see the map and to gain entrance in into a city. If you have a bunch with the pope does that somehow help in keeping him off your back?

[Mithrantir]

Merchants have surprisingly good security. They have the lowest chances to be assassinated than almost every other character type (bar Generals), also i think they are among the top 2 characters type that is hard to spy upon.

Assassins are also quite hard to spy upon, but also are among the easiest character types to assassinate.

[Evolution]

I use my spies to destroy enemy formations. Now this is the part where you ask "wtf you talkin aboot?" Well I'll tell ya.

I'll send about 4-5 spies in a settlement that I'm about to siege. Now in sending these spies they will open the gate for me so i don't need to use Siege equipment. , but thats not my plan. No my plan is to open all of the gates so that the Defender will have equally spread out their enitre force around the walls. This makes it easier for my army to capture the gate/walls on one side of the settlement while all of their army are still trying to get to the action.

[Kahn]

Never realized it, but yeah, they do totally do that when the spy opens the gates. +riggity rep for that one.

[hammer93]

i am in the same boat as you because i had this really amazing spy and he was killed by a merchant, infact it's happened to me about 5 times now! i've just given up on them

[sherbs]

Having had another bash, it seems my expert spy has the same chance of dying at 95% as my rookie spy has of succeeding at 51%. It's just a roll of the dice. Pointless, really. Reckon I'll just leave them in towns and castles on the off chance they might spot something. Way too frustrating trying to use them in the field.

[Kawligia]

Yeah I find it rediculous that its easier for a spy in the city to infiltrate the army and sabotage their defenses without being caught than it is for him to enter the city in the first place like any regular civilian or merchant.