American Assassins

**Sokar Rostau** · January 25, 2008, 05:52 PM

Been playing an Apache campaign and knowing how much more advanced the Europeans are than the Apaches I decided I would use Assassins for some sabotage, but first I thought I'd train some up in murder, just in case. A small stack of Marauders spawned 3 moves away from Apache Camp so I sent each Assassin over and trained them up there.

The problem is that almost every time I successfully murder someone not only do my Assassin's traits improve but my Leader gets slapped with Dread traits. The very first successful kill resulted in him getting the Mean Leader Trait and epithet. Then it works it's way through Cruel, Malevolent, Merciless and Tyrant. I didn't have any more than four Assassins working at the same time. I can understand this happening on failed attempts, but these are (almost) all successful.

I earned myself some Assassination missions and my Tyrant Leader died before I had a chance to train my Assassins any further (my best only had 24% chance to kill a French General that wasn't a family member). I sent them off expecting to pick up a few corpses on the way from the French Captain that always seemed to be near the General. My new Leader became a Tyrant even faster than the old one - even when the four originals weren't doing anything but marching towards their target.

I've also noticed that if I train a group of Assassins on the same stack, they have a higher chance of failure at 95% than they do at 60%. I lost four +4 Assassins in one turn on two different Rebel stacks. Eacxh Assassin had trained on that stack and had a 95% chance to kill the target, but got killed anyway.

I've used Assassins extensively in the GC and it's taken many, many, turns to even get one of these traits and I'm sure that they only popped up on failures.

Also... Spies. Wow. It's almost impossible for me to train one up enough to infiltrate a city. I can walk up with any old spy and infiltrate a General's, even a King's, army with 100% success rate, but no city has had better than 70%.

Is this an America's, or even Apachean, only thing or has the use of Agents suddenly become much more risky?

**hellheaven1987** · January 27, 2008, 01:36 AM

Don't think so, if you overuse assassin (like murder someone every turn) your king would become a Tyrant very very soon even in original game.

Anyway, it is actually not bad to be a Tyrant...

**pwijnands** · January 28, 2008, 02:27 AM

I suppose it would be harder for the Apaches to get good agents. They don't get the brothel buildings which give extra traits/ancillaries with subterfuge and don't receive any substitutes for it as well. They also don't receive any assassin/thieves guild offers.

**Scooter** · January 28, 2008, 06:24 PM

I had the same Dread problem in The Crusades campaign. I trained one assassin- sent him to kill another assassin of a faction I was at war with- and got Dread... I used him again... another point of dread...

It seemed to em that you could get away with itr at least a few times in the GC before word got out that your leader is a cold-hearted killer...

**Sokar Rostau** · January 28, 2008, 06:45 PM

It isn't just Americas. I just trained my first Spy in my new Venice campaign. Sent him to look at a nearby Rebel army the same turn he was ready and the Doge got a Spymaster in his retinue. Then had him look at a Diplomat by mistake (a lucky mistake because it turns out that he only had a 60% chance to infiltrate Bologna), followed by two German stacks led by Captains. The fifth time I used him was to look at a Milan stack and that's when the Doge got Mean Leader +1 Dread. The spy died next turn when I tried to infiltrate Bern with 71% chance of success.

Could it have anything to do with the Spy/Assassin's proximity to the Faction Leader? In my England campaign the King is lazing away his days in York and had a team of Spies and Assassins pummeling Dijon for about 10 turns (not allowed to attack them due to threats from the Pope). Finally made Dijon rebel and moved an army in to capture Dijon while moving my black-ops team on to Milan and doing the same thing. The King has a few underhanded-type traits but not all of these epithets and + Dread things.

**aronnov** · January 29, 2008, 08:59 AM

It seems silly to get any negative traits if you have an assassin kill another assassin or spy. those agents are suppose to be secretive and as far as their respective factions go they're not suppose to exist. If you kill a princess, priest or named character i could see how that might be negative though.

**Pyrebound** · January 31, 2008, 08:21 AM

Whats wrong with +dread leadership traits? Dread is not a bad trait, its just bit different from the chivalry. The reason why you get those traits is that your king is sending assassins to remove people that are against him. Doesnt seem too chivalrious huh?

And in my apache campaign i dont think i ever saw anything but dread generals, its just how the apaches work. Even warpath gives +dread.

I like dread more than chivalry :>

**pwijnands** · January 31, 2008, 09:03 AM

The only good thing about chivalry is that it increases settlement growth, a thing Apaches hardly need. In terms of doing battle dread is more useful then chivalry (scaring enemies instead of your troops having more morale). Getting more morale for your troops is easy enough by letting your generals do some fighting (to get the Brave trait).