assassins convention

[krasni]

Was there some sort of shady characters convention I wasn't invited to?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's amusing but at the same time it's obnoxious, the AI tends to pool assassins at certain places and my family members there start getting 'insane' traits because they escape assassination every turn =P

[Spartan198]

Apparently Halicarnassus is the "South Central LA" of the Greek world...

[synthesis]

It's like "Wanted," but more entertaining.

[silentsam74]

Was there some sort of shady characters convention I wasn't invited to?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's amusing but at the same time it's obnoxious, the AI tends to pool assassins at certain places and my family members there start getting 'insane' traits because they escape assassination every turn =P

What you need is to join the convention. I've had two or three but nothing like that. Just use your own guys to mop them up. It gives good practice for when you want to get rid of annoying family members of rival factions. While you're at it go ahead and make the spies disappear too!

[Darth Alec]

Nothing like crashing an assassin party with your own.

[Scutarii]

I smell a good location for an assassin's training academy.

[DimeBagHo]

You would go crazy if you had that many people trying to kill you every turn as well. Give the guy a break and hire some assassins to protect him. As Darth Alec and Scutarii say, killing enemy assassins is the best way to start training your own assassins. After a few kills you move on to spies, then diplomats, and finally you might get some assassins that are good enough to take out family members.

I often keep 2-3 assassins working on the front lines or in choke points that see a lot of agent traffic. In other parts of my empire I try to keep enough assassins spread around so that I can strike an enemy agent within one turn anywhere in my empire. That helps a lot when some diplomat shows up and starts trying to bribe a settlement. Your alliances will also be much more stable if you kill any spies and diplomats that come near your territory because the AI finds it hard to resist attacking when it can "see" a weakly defended settlement.

[silentsam74]

In other parts of my empire I try to keep enough assassins spread around so that I can strike an enemy agent within one turn anywhere in my empire. That helps a lot when some diplomat shows up and starts trying to bribe a settlement. Your alliances will also be much more stable if you kill any spies and diplomats that come near your territory because the AI finds it hard to resist attacking when it can "see" a weakly defended settlement.

Well, good to know I've been using 'DBH endorsed agent strategy.' Actually, rather than trying to blanket the area with assassin coverage I keep one in every city. Early on I kept two spies in every city for increased protection against enemy spies. Now, I use one spy and one assassin. So, rather than just catching them when they try I have a much higher kill ratio on spies that get caught.

Anyone else notice more caught spies are killed if there is an assassin in the city rather than just spies? I hadn't read that anywhere. Just something I tried that seems to work very well.

[krasni]

Update - I cleaned up my assassins infestation. I hadn't made any assassins because I've played too much M2TW, and in that game using assassins can give nasty traits to your family members.

[Kara Kolyo]

@Silentsam i too use the combo assasin+spy in every city, it just gets tough if you try to use it with a poor faction - the combined 200 upkeep per city can be hard on your finances.
@krasni- yeah after lots of BC, now i wonder why my XGM leaders get the clean hands trait at most. not like couple of skulls for every other mob job.