An interesting find (global map trick)

[August]

Last night I found a rather curious, and much amusing, way to manipulate foreign agents on the map.
Here's the story(playing SS 6.1 mod):
I'm playing the campaign as Kievan Rus. As my western armies wage war against the Byzantine Invaders(by taking the fight to them) and my eastern armies scramble hysterically to prepare for Mongolians that just have emerged, I suddenly realize that right in my central province I have a powerful heretic (I think one of my priests went "pop") with 6 piety, standing right in front of Kiev.
Needless to say, I'm not amused about it. I sally out one of my generals to at least "push" him away from the entrance to the city...

As you know, when an agent meets with foreign army, he gets pushed by it, usually to the side.
BUT if you move your army tiny "step" ahead at a time, you will push the agent one "step" in the direction of your movement, instead of sideways.
So basically, you are able to effectively move the agent in any direction, as far as your army's movement allows.

... using this push technique, my general(s) was able to push the uber heretic bomb all the way from Kiev, through Zjytomir and into Poland
(in other words I pushed him through 2 provinces into the third).

I can think of few other uses for this, but perhaps some of you have ideas on how to apply this?

[Wheelchair]

Nice little trick although; an Exploit.

Why? because the AI Cannot do this, but who cares the AI deserve it >: D

[Viking Prince]

Interesting find. I do not think I would use it. Not my style of play. Like Wheelchair, it seems to me a bit exploitive.

[August]

Nice little trick although; an Exploit.
Why? because the AI Cannot do this, but who cares the AI deserve it >: D

Interesting find. I do not think I would use it. Not my style of play. Like Wheelchair, it seems to me a bit exploitive.

I agree. But there's soooooo many things AI cannot do(or do well) it's scary. It shouldn't, however, stop us, from having fun at AI's expense

I'm thinking about herding all the local heresy enthusiasts into Rome and watch Pope flip out at the rave party that would follow shortly.

[Surgeon]

In my experience whenever I tried to push an agent with my army, he would slip past them into the square where they were previously instead of walking on ahead. Maybe it depends which direction you're pushing them in? :hmmm:

[August]

In my experience whenever I tried to push an agent with my army, he would slip past them into the square where they were previously instead of walking on ahead. Maybe it depends which direction you're pushing them in? :hmmm:

Do it one TINY step at a time. I've been pushing agents all the time today to test my findings. Works like a charm.

[Wheelchair]

Lol August you have it down to a science

[sparty]

Interesting little find there.

I can certainly see how that'd be useful. I bet you can even justify it historically as your army fanning out and hunting down the agent so their movement is slower but you are driving away the agent.

[Wizzerdrix]

I am very amused, thank you for this post ^^
Is it possible to push a heretic all the way into a city garrison?

[August]

I am very amused, thank you for this post ^^
Is it possible to push a heretic all the way into a city garrison?

You very welcome, sir!
Since the heretic is still technically a "priest", and priests cannot enter foreign settlements, I would venture a guess and say "no".
But I'm guessing here, since... ahem... I'm out of heretics at the moment
Don't let it stop you from testing it! I'd love to hear what uses this technique has.

I can certainly see how that'd be useful. I bet you can even justify it historically as your army fanning out and hunting down the agent so their movement is slower but you are driving away the agent.

I love it, excellent idea! I never thought about historical justification of it, well done.

[Serious J]

You can use a similar method to kill agents as well. Simply surround the agent with an army (single unit works) in all adjacent tiles. (so, need 8 unless he's backed up against the coast) and move one of them onto his tile. He'll drop dead. Helps with those pesky high piety heretics.

[Magno]

You can use a similar method to kill agents as well. Simply surround the agent with an army (single unit works) in all adjacent tiles. (so, need 8 unless he's backed up against the coast) and move one of them onto his tile. He'll drop dead. Helps with those pesky high piety heretics.

Wow this really helps with the anoying heretics and foreign assasins, thanks for the post.

[August]

You can use a similar method to kill agents as well. Simply surround the agent with an army (single unit works) in all adjacent tiles. (so, need 8 unless he's backed up against the coast) and move one of them onto his tile. He'll drop dead. Helps with those pesky high piety heretics.

Hah! That is fantastic!
Does that count as war declaration/hostile behavior by AI?
It's like having a 100% kill ratio assassin running about (without the pesky/lovely "Dread" faction leader traits)

[Drago Fett]

I would Imagine this works for Inquistors as well?

[Alexandru]

Another exploit of movement would be to surround the enemy agent with one-stack armies, one for every 9 cells around the agent, and use the 10th army to move over the agent, thus killing him, him having no more space around to step aside. You can also kill enemy agents being in an army stack by totally slaughtering the entire army (or whatever's that word i can't remember).

[Paladin94610]

Well... a rotting thread started by myself.

Killing Characters without Assassination

[painter]

I don't know why, but Alexandru repeated what Serious J said a few posts up. And your thread is much younger than Serious J's post. Proper attributions would be welcomed.

[Nefarious]

<snip>
Proper attributions would be welcomed.

The original source: Medieval2:Total War Heaven

In particular:

Week 27 2008

We were sick of enemy Imans until HAMandCHEESE brought this tip to our attention.
If assassination just isn't doing the trick, there is an easy way to rid yourself of their blasphemous ways. Bring one of your big armies and split it up so that the Imam is surrounded on all sides. Then take one more unit and move it to the tile the Imam currently occupies. Since the Imam cannot move out of the way, he instantly dies! You will need a minimum of 9 individual units to do this. It works for other enemy agent types as well so if you want to get rid of pesky merchants, this is one way of doing it.

A long-known exploit.
But that is not to say it shouldn't be mentioned from time to time.

[painter]

It is a good tip indeed. And there might have been a more older public posting as the game was released in Nov 2006, but I suppose that is academic and your quote is the most often cited earliest source.

[Marechal Ney]

Not exactly an exploit; if this was the real world you just kidnap the guy, carry him a long ways, and throw him into another province.

I am reminded of how in RTW:BI the WRE starts out with a governor of one of its eastern (eastern Austria area) provinces having just about every Christian conversian trait/ancillary imaginable. Considering that the region he is orginally in is pagan, resulting in horrendous unrest, and he has a couple tax-reduction traits, he is useless as a governor. Instead, I just use him as a weapon; move him into an enemy, pagan territory and you will likely get it to revolt within a few turns