Assassins on the March. Are you an innocent victum? Or did you ask for it?

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

the harem

I always thought that if you did not employ Oodles of spy's and assassins that the AI would not either. Apparently I'm sadly misinformed...

Playing SS6.3-Leon-Castile-early era- Gracul AI- M/M turn 60ish:

the Setting: Spain is mine minus Cordova and Granada. The Moors reign Supreme in North Africa. They lost about 12 stacks in a row and I'm set to pop a crusade on Granada.

So a 4th level Moorish assassin starts stalking my Two attacking generals and I'm scrambling to bring spies and assassins from Barcelona to get this under control. Planting generals in forts seems to help for the moment, or.... Mr. Assassins missed his attack roll.

1. So any definitive knowledge of this? I thought that if I played "dirt free" so would they.

2. Any tricks for keeping your generals alive without spies/assassin support?

****************************************************

I looked and found this but it's not what I was looking for...

AI Assassinations bugged?

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ight=Assassins

[JohnGlave]

I've seen lots of AI assassins (mainly with the loads of watchtowers I build). But I've yet to see an AI assassin actually manage to kill anything...

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

I've seen lots of AI assassins (mainly with the loads of watchtowers I build). But I've yet to see an AI assassin actually manage to kill anything...

But are you, using them?????

[JohnGlave]

But are you, using them?????

No I never use assassins. Occasionally I use spies, but in M2TW to recruit spies, you have to build the "pleasure palace" building line which gives bad traits to generals. The mere use of spies can also give dread to my faction leader to (I always choose chivalry). So I tend to not bother.

In RTW (and its mods) I tend to use spies frequently because they don't give bad traits or require a bad building.

[Gogolometro]

I always use spies at my borderlands provinces. Is a must. I remember a battle some days ago, when despite my spy in that fortress the hungary sneach one of their and take me from surprise. Gladly my garison ( byzantine ) was strong enough to crush them.

Ussual I play a chilvaric campaign, few spys almost no assasins, except when they need to defend my prince or leader. This change a lot in my curent campaing, the GreacaXtreme, were I conquered the british islands, and stuck in Marmara against turks and latin imperial crusaders. They use tones of spies. Turks get bonus like ayyubids from them plus their recruitment for hassasim. So I counter assasinate. I lose some good killer blades, but for now I have an elite killer who can eradicate all imams inbounding on my land. Mongols just siege Trebizont, so a assasin will became moreussefull than ever.

[Moritol]

I use assassins all the time, it is a good training for them to kill enemy assassins, then priests and last but not least generals.
And they are great to disable ballista and cannon towers.

As a positive result, my faction leader is scary as hell in battle - more ransom.

[PerXX]

Not sure why you're putting Spies and Assassins under the same roof.
Assassins are despicable murderers without honer. Spies are needed to run a functioning Faction. Information is the most powerful tool in any war! (hell, even this day, USA still spies on it's so-called allies. Guess Kissinger were right when he said "We have no friends, America only have interests")
I'm 85% certain that your use of said agents have no implement on whether your enemies will use them. The main difference there is if you do use, especially assassins, your reputation will fall faster, and thus you're more likely to be disliked, leading to bigger chances for decelerations of war and use of agents against you. In the end, agents will be used against you, despite your own use of 'em. You might see less of 'em if you you're a virtual brother of Jesus, but even then it won't prevent your enemies of using them.

[Selukon]

I use them all the time, and have never seen the AI use them.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Not sure why you're putting Spies and Assassins under the same roof.

Well...bear in mind my experience is just thru game play, as I cannot/don't read the scripts per say...

When I use a cover net of spies for settlement access and intelligence my reputation is always hard pressed to rise above "mixed". Once the 1st assassin steps out of one of my brothels, my reputation plummets like a locomotive over a cliff. Not to mention if I build the brothel line my govenors become drunkards and so on down that trail.

Oh how I do miss embracing the dread game, but if I do that, my entire building program is DOA {dead on arrival} with no possibility of resuscitation.

[Largon]

If I can't kill a General in battle, I recruit an assasin to get him.
The result is the same: he is dead

[E.K]

If I can't kill a General in battle, I recruit an assasin to get him.
The result is the same: he is dead

When the mongols come I assassinate their generals.
Or try to anyway, most of the time my assassins fail lol.

[JorisofHolland]

Personal Security is the best way to crank up your general's ability of resisting assassins. I'll look up some easy-to-gain traits if anyone's interested.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Personal Security is the best way to crank up your general's ability of resisting assassins. I'll look up some easy-to-gain traits if anyone's interested.

Yes pleeeeease....

[SoCCo]

pfff.. seriously guys, what's the matter to have a bad reputation. is it wrong to have all your neighbours at war with you ? afterall, this game is medieval 2 TOTAL WAR, so i knfe and poison the bastards who dare to enter my lands. the only AI unit that i allow is a priest of same religion, beside that ninja all the way.

i almost forgot to say why i use assassins and spies. first of all, i hate to see enemy spies inside my towns, they rape the public order and sometime they even dare to open the gates to welcome their friends. about assassins i'll only ask you a question:
have you ever lost a 16 years old general with 4-6 base stars and other good traits? personaly i like to have 1-2 of those guys. each of them by the age of 35-40 are 8+ stars at base without bonuses from traits ( attacking, defending, siege, archer, merc, infantery etc ).

[JorisofHolland]

Some traits to gain PS points, reducing the chance that your generals will be assassinated:
HouseFounder: when a character that's not from the faction's royal bloodline becomes King, he gains 2PS. Housemembers gain 1PS.
Sobriety: has some nasty side-effects, gives some PS and gained by marrying, becoming father, comming of age with a drunken father.
AssassinMaster: gained by FL after assassination missions.
AssassinCatcher: surviving assassination attempts and excecuting the enemy agent.
HighPersonalSecurity: surviving assassination attempt, when on educative tour and both a school and a master thieves guild exist.
Paranoia: when the father has it, when educated near an assassins master guild, surviving assassination.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Some traits to gain PS points, reducing the chance that your generals will be assassinated:
HouseFounder: when a character that's not from the faction's royal bloodline becomes King, he gains 2PS. Housemembers gain 1PS.
Sobriety: has some nasty side-effects, gives some PS and gained by marrying, becoming father, comming of age with a drunken father.
AssassinMaster: gained by FL after assassination missions.
AssassinCatcher: surviving assassination attempts and excecuting the enemy agent.
HighPersonalSecurity: surviving assassination attempt, when on educative tour and both a school and a master thieves guild exist.
Paranoia: when the father has it, when educated near an assassins master guild, surviving assassination.

Thank you thank you soooooo much like +Rep Thank you...

Now..... Is there any truth to a general/FA being safe from assassin attack inside a fort? If not then my staulker assassign whiffed on his knife throw, and I missed out on getting the security bump cause he failed...

[Kabeloko]

dont like the way they mess my kings chivalry, still, they are a need, as theres no other way to kill those priests from different religions in ur lands...
i like to keep assassins in my neighbors borders, this way i guarantee no diplomat or princess is gonna plan with them against me...

[JorisofHolland]

I have no clue when it comes to that, perhaps a few experiments can be done to test it. Which I could do, later today.

[Losthief]

whenever i play as a catholic nation i always use 'em to control the pope....get about 3 lvl 8 and up assasians sitting around rome and just off the pope whenever ur on attacks and the excomunication warnings never come....one i got pissed cause the pope attacked me so I wiped out the papal states, i mean wiped out...i killed all there cities, armies, and every single cardinal (took like 30 turns of assassians) and evidently once there's no cardinals u don't get any new ones, so no pope...it was a spain game pre ss.

but yeah...outside of catholic i use them here and there usually have one or two running around to clean up inqusitors/merchants/spies/other assassians testy generals...but don't use them like a plague. Oh and yes...the ai uses assasians even when u don't, and also when you do...they just don't go to extremes. And u can still get kills in forts so he musta missed the roll.

the greatest use for assassians that i've found, especially catholic nations wise...is if u get a crusade/jihad called on u...just get 3 or 4 and kill all the generals a turn away from the target city and the armies dissolve. I always have extra cause u eventually get caught and at least one misses...usually 3 of the 4 lol. The coolest cut scenes are the cardinals one...the pope one is kinda lame by comparison...way cooler to crawl from under the altar.

p.s. i agree with above mongols are next to incrediable at surviving assassians....

[SoCCo]

whenever i play as a catholic nation i always use 'em to control the pope....get about 3 lvl 8 and up assasians sitting around rome and just off the pope whenever ur on attacks and the excomunication warnings never come....one i got pissed cause the pope attacked me so I wiped out the papal states, i mean wiped out...i killed all there cities, armies, and every single cardinal (took like 30 turns of assassians) and evidently once there's no cardinals u don't get any new ones, so no pope...it was a spain game pre ss.

but yeah...outside of catholic i use them here and there usually have one or two running around to clean up inqusitors/merchants/spies/other assassians testy generals...but don't use them like a plague. Oh and yes...the ai uses assasians even when u don't, and also when you do...they just don't go to extremes. And u can still get kills in forts so he musta missed the roll.

the greatest use for assassians that i've found, especially catholic nations wise...is if u get a crusade/jihad called on u...just get 3 or 4 and kill all the generals a turn away from the target city and the armies dissolve. I always have extra cause u eventually get caught and at least one misses...usually 3 of the 4 lol. The coolest cut scenes are the cardinals one...the pope one is kinda lame by comparison...way cooler to crawl from under the altar.

p.s. i agree with above mongols are next to incrediable at surviving assassians....

omg satan
i hope nobody knows where you are from, u might have visitors from italy. one small advice, if you see any nerdy looking catholic priest lurking arround your house, shoot first ask questions later
on topic, i totaly agree with you. there is no way to expell different religion priests, sometime a powerfull merchant comes and wipes out your merchants ( low lvl ones at least ), sometimes we face holy armies during jihad or crusades, sometime i use 5-10 assassins to wipe out enemy cardinals or high skill imams so they have no control over papacy ( no more excomunication warnings ), it's nice to control papacy or be the one who decides where the armies of islam will go next, and it's also nice to use it on similar religion generals who go on crusade/jihad and have more chances to succed than you. i don't want to fight grand crusaders who turn their eyes from muslim towns and decide to conquer my lands.