Assassins...The Most Powerful Unit In The Game?

[Vaxholm]

I love using assassins, and I think they make a huge impact on the game. It got me thinking that they might be the most powerful single gameplay element that a player has to manipulate. Let me explain.

If you think about it, the Assassin effects nearly every aspect of the game:

• Diplomacy - killing the wrong person can start a war or stop one in the case of an excommunication or crusade if you take out the pope
• Battles - killing the enemy general beforehand can change the outcome of a battle drastically, especially if they have many stars
• Religion - assassinate enemy imams and priests when invading their lands or dispatch pesky inquisitors and heretics, which can make converting the population and avoiding rebellion easier
• Finances - knock off enemy merchants and put yours in their place - has a double effect of taking money away from them and adding it to your coffers
• City Building - set the enemy back by sabotaging their key buildings and reducing the units they can build - has double effect of forcing them to re-build the building thus costing time and money

I think people might underestimate the power of the assassin, because I rarely see them discussed on the forums. I usually build them in relations to the current enemies I have. More enemies equals more assassins.

What do you think? Are they as powerful as I say?

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

Assassins are nice, but they're not best in my opinion.
what i think...

[Spork Wielding Spartans]

I generally have to train so many assassins to have reasonable success at killing anyone important that I don't bother until I've basically won.

[vonKrysiak]

...you have to train them for 20 years on rebel captains to get any chance at killing someone important. Good and useful but by far not the best unit!

[Kahn]

Yeah, you've gotta train them to kill anybody of decent stature, but if you have an assassin assembly line coming out of one or two cities, then you get the Guild, so you produce better assassins.

Hell, even the cheap, low quality assassins can kill anybody if you send enough their way.

They are, by far, the most powerful force in the game. Example: If giant army finds it's way into my lands, I go "oh dear, an army". If an assassin find his way into my province, I flip out and make little girl noises as I move my most valued characters away.

[Bluice]

They are great but remember that your king gains bad traits from the assassin's work such as more dread and lowered authority so in the long run you'll find your governors rebelling due to your new found negative popularity so there is a fine line between pulling of a few kills and maintaining a good reputation as a king. Then again if your king is 60+ then kill away as his sons and in particular the crown prince will not gain dread father traits if already born and they can seem to be a saint when taking the place of their "dreadful" father's throne.

[AngryTitusPullo]

Playing as Moors when I took Constantinople the Pope declared crusades on me. Almost all my Catholic allies broke their alliance with me and send crusaders ( nearly 7 or 8 stacks what my spies told me).

Only 2 stacks ever manage to reach Constantinople (one French and one HRE) which were both lead by their Kings.

The rest disbanded after their generals were killed by my assasins..

[Bluice]

I hate when you call a crusade, then think you have allies on the way to find that a unit hidden under fog of war has made the AI plot a long course to get to the crusade and spend heaps of turns wandering about Russia going backwards and forwards because they can't figure out if the right path to take would be blocked. I wish the AI had the capability to plan the trek move by move, the moment they plot a long course they don't take into consideration the fact that their path may be blocked.

[Vaxholm]

They are great but remember that your king gains bad traits from the assassin's work such as more dread and lowered authority so in the long run you'll find your governors rebelling due to your new found negative popularity so there is a fine line between pulling of a few kills and maintaining a good reputation as a king.

I get these traits, but it doesn't seem to make much difference in the game to be honest. The value of killing enemy generals and family members far outweighs these little negatives to me.

For those people that say that it takes to long to train them, I think that's just retarded, because training them involves killing enemy units...which is the whole idea!! I will only kill the rebel army captain to get my first few traits, and then it's on to heretics, diplomats, merchants, generals, etc. You have to push your assassin to kill progressively more difficult units. Just doing the rebels won't help. You have to risk losing the assassin to build those traits quickly.

Here's a tip, pair your assassin with a spy and start taking out the enemy spies and assassins. Yes, the computer uses these more than you think.