How do you kill enemy agents?

[FootSoldier]

I squish them all.

Once I used to assassinate them, but crushing them is easier. It takes a bit of practice, but once you get how it's no problem at all ... and it doesn't matter how much skill they have. A soldiers hunt is a great equaliser. If you miss the first time you can have another go next turn.

I like the finishing animation too, where all the soldiers turn to look at the spot where the enemy agent died.

My best haul is 3 enemy assassins in one turn at Krakow. I crush assassins, spies if they're standing outside, priests/imans, inquisitors and sometimes diplomats and merchants. Early in my current Poland campaign an inquisitor denounced my best general on a road. I was so annoyed I pulled together the requisite 9 units and got him right there in the open. Childish, but oh, the satisfaction :d

Curiously the Pope doesn't seem to mind his inquisitors being crushed or assassinated.

Most places seem to have a natural spot to do this. The road between Vienna and Innsbruck that's lined with trees only needs 3 soldiers to get them (mind they don't escape via the bridge).

[goro]

are you on drugs?

[Desley]

are you on drugs?

With crushing he means he surrounds the enemy agent by units and then move another unit on them, agent has nowhere to go and dies.

[goro]

With crushing he means he surrounds the enemy agent by units and then move another unit on them, agent has nowhere to go and dies.

ok got you its the way he said it that made me say that

[Ezilkannan]

Assasinate them , although squishing is also a nice tactic

[Paladin94610]

With crushing he means he surrounds the enemy agent by units and then move another unit on them, agent has nowhere to go and dies.

Perhaps this thread started by myself explains a bit better.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...acters+without

[Hopit]

are you on drugs?

[Double A]

are you on drugs?

*sigh*

xxx
xox
xxx

x=your unit or impassable terrain
o=enemy agent

xxx
xsx
xxx

x=your unit or impassable terrain
s=your unit which just squished the enemy agent.

[painter]

Why bring up drugs?

Back on topic, I think the computer has done this to me by chance once. It was either reported to me as a natural death or an act of god, I don't recall which.

Personally, I prefer assassination, as it is less wasteful. But squishing offending agents is a tactic I will readily use.

[FootSoldier]

Goro -are you offering? (Not sure where that remark came from. Are you on drugs? )

Yeah, I've seen the AI do it once or twice, and not been sure if it was deliberate or not. Not to me, but on the road going east of Venice. Also, once or twicse when one of my screening units has been bopped by an invader and they retreat to the settlement they sometimes seem to kill a spy there ... (or am I thinking RTW?)

I raised it because I haven't seen this topic discussed before. (I did do a search on "kill enemy agents", but didn't find anything relevant). My mid-level priest on recently taken Rhodes went heretic, and the nearest one with a chance of taking him out was 10 moves away. So I just trained couple of peasants and squished him.

I find the crushing method less resource intensive than Assassins. I don't usually train units just to do it - I'll use what I've got and don't mind taking a few turns to bring units in. But the Rhodes example was much cheaper than an Assassin. Training 2 Peasants was 220, and I'm not sure if I was charged upkeep since I disbanded them the same turn. A maximum of 400.

An Assassin is 500 to train, 200 upkeep since you can't decommission him, and it's unlikely a fresh Assassin will succeed. So now I tend to keep them in General's stacks, and frontier settlements in the hopeful belief that they make my generals harder to kill. (Do you know if that is so, btw? Several times I've doubted it when a high level general with an assassin in his stack has been assassinated by an enemy beginner. I sometimes think it's just programmed to happen by the AI)

[FootSoldier]

Exactly as Desley says - surround the agent with units, and then step a unit onto the space he is occupying and he dies. Then there's an animation where all the units involved swing round to look at the spot where he died.

Some places you only need 3 units, and mostly it's 5 - 7 when they're at you're city, depending on whether there are restrictions like rivers or forests etc. To crush an agent in the open takes 9 units. I was assuming that people know about crushing agents.

Hmm ... and now I'm wondering if another benefit is that crushing doesn't cause a war. Out of idle curiosity I once tried to assassinate an ally's merchant. He failed, and I was suddenly at war with the Danes to my horror. They never accepted a ceasefire either. But, I have crushed allies' merchants without a war starting, and couldn't detect a change in relations either.

[zcylen]

isnt it cheating?

[Tears of Destiny]

isnt it cheating?

Not so much cheating, but it is exploitation of a game mechanic(A small technical difference).

[shikaka]

isnt it cheating?

The AI does this also.
Not very often and not 'on purpose' of course.

It usually happens in narrow spaces with lots of characters. A good example is the mountainous part of anatolia in crusades and the aztek mountain passes in americas.

[Litoralis]

Wow, I had no idea you could "squish" people. And I have played M2TW since it came out. I've got to try it.
Thanks, FootSoldier. +Rep.

I don't think it is too unrealistic, because I've often had an army marching around and thought, why can't this army crush that pesky imam/priest so he quits causing trouble. I mean, it is a huge army with thousands of bloodthirsty soldiers... and they can't kill one priest? Using it to kill spies or assassins might be taking advantage of a glitch, though, since they would be able to slip away in the night or something.

[Scipio Afracanis]

Wow, I had no idea you could "squish" people. And I have played M2TW since it came out. I've got to try it.
Thanks, FootSoldier. +Rep.

I don't think it is too unrealistic, because I've often had an army marching around and thought, why can't this army crush that pesky imam/priest so he quits causing trouble. I mean, it is a huge army with thousands of bloodthirsty soldiers... and they can't kill one priest? Using it to kill spies or assassins might be taking advantage of a glitch, though, since they would be able to slip away in the night or something.

Same here.

Learn something new every day.

Does it give you notification when your agent dies?

[painter]

It is also not really cheating, as you need to expend quite a bit of movement points in order to squish the offender. Particularly if you need to push the agent into the right position if there is a nearby terrain that can cover your lack of numbers.

The agents will prefer to move to the left if needed. If left is blocked, then they will prefer to move down. They will only move diagonally if the four main directions are blocked.

[Surgeon]

If you want to argue that it's fair game then, well, no, it isn't Lynching agents with an army has absolutely no consequences with the agents' faction, no risk of losing your assassins and doesn't influence your leader's traits and reputation.

But then again, who's judging you?

[Litoralis]

If you want to argue that it's fair game then, well, no, it isn't Lynching agents with an army has absolutely no consequences with the agents' faction, no risk of losing your assassins and doesn't influence your leader's traits and reputation.

But then again, who's judging you?

hehe, that is true. I just think I should be able to lynch agents with an army . It should have consequences in reducing my reputation, but hey, I can't have everything.

[FootSoldier]

I don't believe this is an exploit because it has 2 unique animations. I've seen the assertion before that it's an exploit, but never evidence as to why. People simply assert.

isnt it cheating?

Not so much cheating, but it is exploitation of a game mechanic(A small technical difference).

I've seen discussion of this on other forums, and posting it was banned for a while on the .com when the game came out because some felt it was an exploit. Not everyone agreed. The developers stayed silent.

The ban was later lifted.

Unique animations offer evidence this is a programmed action
The main evidence against it being an exploit is that this method finishes with a unique animation, and has another unique animation associated with it. First there's a death animation with an associated sound. To finish, all the participating units turn to look at the place where the enemy agent died, even if they are 2 tiles away. Try it and see. It's quite dramatic, and it's unique.

This animation is not the same as when a unit faces a passing agent, or one that stops behind it. The units are all facing away from the agent before he dies - facing in their direction of movement.

Another unique animation is when spies and assassins evading a "man hunt" (or lynching) may run a full move away from the hunting units. They don't always simply step into the next available space if it's the last one - sometimes they bolt out of reach. This may be to do with their level, but I haven't pinned it.

So, I believe it's an intended game action, and the animations are evidence for me.

(It was also possible to crush enemy spies in towns in RTW, by moving troops under the command of a general through them, sometimes having to use both directions. Retreating units would sometimes also crush agents if they ran back into a town when defeated.)

Game logic for allowing this method
For logic, whenever in history was it possible to flood an enemy's lands with religious agents, spies, assassins etc., and the only recourse was to assassinate or suffer? All factions/dynasties/nobles/town councils etc. organised man hunts. They would find and execute the agent if they could. Thousands have been arrested and executed for every one that was assassinated, most without trial.

If a Muslim ulama walked into Toledo in 1100 and toured the villages preaching the word of Islam what would have happened? Likewise, what would have happened to a Catholic priest who went to Marrakesh and started preaching Christianity in the villages to Almorovid or Almohad Morocco around the same time? I don't see them training up assassins in the hope that one will come out skilled enough to take out a highly pious cardinal or heretic.

If you want to argue that it's fair game then, well, no, it isn't Lynching agents with an army has absolutely no consequences with the agents' faction, no risk of losing your assassins and doesn't influence your leader's traits and reputation.

But then again, who's judging you?

With all due respect - how do you know it has no effect? Obviously it has no risk to assassins because they aren't used for it. If a player prefers to use assassins, and I did for a long period, then do so. However, it does require effort, has costs and risks, and I believe it affects relations.

Effects on relations and traits
One effect is that the agents come less frequently, and the responses of, say, a diplomat, or a priest, of the target faction change when clicked on. "What do you want?!?" "You should be tried for heresy" etc. When the Mongols, or HRE say "the time for talk is over" it's not just on random rotation. It signals a change in the relations even though the relations shown on the diplomacy scroll don't change. It means they won't consider diplomatic resolutions now - it's full scale war.

I can't say for sure that it does or does not affect traits, (or relations), but I believe that it does. Many things are happening in this game that haven't been revealed in the mod files, or aren't displayed on scrolls. Some triggers are shown, some aren't. For one example, generals gain traits when outside the conditions disclosed in the export_descr_character_traits.txt file. I'm wondering if this method (besides straight spycatching) brings the CounterSpy trait up in a general.

(As for straight spycatching - my impression is that taking your troops out of garrison and placing them around your settlement, then returning them, increases your chances of flushing out a spy, making him have to retry to get back into the settlement. There's no major cost or effort with this. It would also fit with the RTW method - and of course, if you catch a spy it has no affect on your relations, reputation etc. although you might get the Counterspy trait for a governor).

Changes in relations are not always visible on the diplomacy scroll. Relations with a faction can be Perfect, when they attack you. Recently my faction the Danes was attacked by the HRE when relations were Outstanding - and I knew why, and expected it. Since then I've been gifting attacks on my enemy the HRE to their allies the Poles and the Venetians who Happily Accept (everyone, even the faraway Moors and the Turks, Happily Accept attacks on the HRE :d).

This has resulted in Perfect relations with the allies of my enemy. They've rejected my offer of attacks on other factions who are simply neutral to them. However, if I take a territory they want, or one they don't want me to have, then they will attack me. Perfect relations or not, I don't believe the Poles will let me take Prague from the HRE, nor the Venetians let me take Vienna or Innsbruck without repercussions.

So Perfect relations doesn't mean the other faction will not try to thwart you, ally with your enemies etc. or attack you if their interests are threatened. Other factors not visible in presented scrolls or mod files are at work. CA haven't given the whole game away, and somewhere are keeping track of other sets of variables.

Effort, costs and risks of the method
For the method itself, it's more difficult than using assassins to begin with, and does have costs and risks. It's tricky to get right in many places, and may require several attempts even when familiar with it. You have to gather units to get some agents in the open - spies especially - and may have to train new ones for the purpose. Getting an agent in the open requires 9 units, who otherwise could be doing something else. It ties up resources.

Assassins especially can be very slippery, as I said above. And, as painter points out:

It is also not really cheating, as you need to expend quite a bit of movement points in order to squish the offender. Particularly if you need to push the agent into the right position if there is a nearby terrain that can cover your lack of numbers.

The agents will prefer to move to the left if needed. If left is blocked, then they will prefer to move down. They will only move diagonally if the four main directions are blocked.

As noted, assassins and spies might run completely out of reach, meaning you have to try again if/when they come back in reach. And, besides expending movement points, you might end up with units outside your garrison, or stack, who go rebel.

It certainly is harder to execute than sending an assassin.

Finally, yes, the AI does do it, though very rarely (like a lot of other things it does rarely in comparison to the player, e.g. assassinations)

Exploits and cheats
I'm not against exploits as such - it's up to individuals if they want to use them. The same goes for cheats. There are lists of both on this forum and elsewhere. There's also plenty in the game that's legitimate but is also unrealistic. Let people play the way they want. It's only a game.

I don't use exploits or cheats for reasons of personal satisfaction, not because I think it makes me a "superior" player ... and no, I don't judge others for it. I know many do judge on this. As an example of something I do feel is an exploit, I don't use the multiple merchants in a unit, or in a fort (if that still works), though I can see an argument that it's legitimate protection of trade on your own territory. To me it feels like an exploit.

This method of crushing agents doesn't feel like an exploit to me, so I use it. If it feels like an exploit to others then don't use it.

However, if they want to argue in the forum that it is an exploit then provide some evidence and logic for this position. If it really is an exploit then I'm happy for it to be labelled as such. So, if anyone has evidence of such I'm interested to hear, and I'm willing to publicly retract my own position.

Happy days :d