Training assassins?

[PunchDrunk]

I find training spies very easy, but assassins not so much. Right out of the bat it is hard to find somebody to kill with your newly recruited assassins. The easiest target to train them on are captains with one or two units in their army, and even those are hard to sucessfully assassinate.

Any tips?

[TheFoolOnTheHill]

get alot and kill them one will get good

[Portuguese Man-Of-War]

I am guessing you don't care at all about your Faction Leader's dread? Good.

Just keep training them, eventually a good one will come. Rebels are the best way to practice your new assassins, they keep spawning, you will not have a problem finding rebels. Also, after you train enough assassins, you will get the opportunity to build an assassins guild, which instantly makes all assassins you train in the city with the guild much better, like two or three [units] better. But, rebels rebels rebels.

[Christonikos]

Level up your tavern. That's all I can say. You may be more succesful with your assassins then.

[Wartoga]

This is anecdotal, but it seems like Assassins improve better when they kill named targets rather than captains. Rebel generals are prime targets if they don't have security-enhancing traits. But if you are okay with possibility of pissing off other factions, you can slaughter their priests, princesses, merchants and the like with very good probability of success and level that way. I've pretty much exterminated all non-general NPCs in my last campaign that way.

[Caracaos]

This is anecdotal, but it seems like Assassins improve better when they kill named targets rather than captains. Rebel generals are prime targets if they don't have security-enhancing traits. But if you are okay with possibility of pissing off other factions, you can slaughter their priests, princesses, merchants and the like with very good probability of success and level that way. I've pretty much exterminated all non-general NPCs in my last campaign that way.

I'm not sure about the named vs captains difference. From my experience, you kill 1 of any target to get to the 1st level, 1 more to get to the 2nd, 2 to get to the 3rd, 4 to get to the 4th, and 8 to get to the 5th. I used to keep assassin farms near my guild hq where I'd put like 6 assassins around a rebel captain and knock him out every turn. I actually destroyed a small stack of rebels completely that way.

[Wartoga]

I'm not sure about the named vs captains difference. From my experience, you kill 1 of any target to get to the 1st level, 1 more to get to the 2nd, 2 to get to the 3rd, 4 to get to the 4th, and 8 to get to the 5th. I used to keep assassin farms near my guild hq where I'd put like 6 assassins around a rebel captain and knock him out every turn. I actually destroyed a small stack of rebels completely that way.

I think you're right about the Master Assassin line of traits progression being based on the number of kills of any kind. But there are other traits and ancillaries that get awarded seemingly randomly too, and I got an impression I got more of them by killing named characters. I could be wrong though.

[Fireright]

Just wondering about that exploit where players can surround an enemy agent and drop something on it to kill the offending piece. Would that be a way of training assassins up? or does it only work if an army is dropped on the offending piece?
Would be cool if it worked in upgrading assassins.

[xcorps]

Keep working on it. Get the assassins guild headquarters with pleasure palace, and you will be able to eliminate factions without going to war. In my Byz campaign, I train assassins from thessolonica. I've turned Denmark and Russia into rebel factions with just assassins.

[danny X]

you also get a handy public order bonus from all assassins guilds too

[AJStoner]

With your spies, find an enemy settlement with high-end brothels where they will produce lots of spies and assassins as these are the characters easiest to kill. Park some of your assassins in the area, with a few spies around the city to scope them out, and kill them as they are generated.

[KingofPoland]

i've found that diplomats are very easy to kill when they have log influence, as a lot of them do. Also, if an enemy assassin appears you can kill him fairly easily if he has low subterfuge.

[tudor93]

i've found that diplomats are very easy to kill when they have log influence, as a lot of them do. Also, if an enemy assassin appears you can kill him fairly easily if he has low subterfuge.

well yeah, wasn't this obvious ?

[The Kybrothilian]

It also seems possible, to use your assassins to kill your own spies, if they are in a settlement (I found this glitch in RTW, don't know if you can do this in M2TW too)

[Willowran]

all i do is find a rebel army and keep smaking away at their captain every turn. you are more likely to gain extra skill by killing a named character once your assassins reaches a certain level of subturfuge. with weaker ones, it does not matter, but if you have a beast assasin, whiping out a captain will do nothing for you.

i was playing as the chichimec tribes in the americas hotseat campaign and i was spamming agents before i invaded my human opponent. i had 20 assassins assassinating rebel captains from a single army for several turns (caracos). and yes, killing enemy assassins almost always have a 95% success rate, regardless of their subterfuge.

don't bother with sabotage. you might increase the assassins retinue, but never his subterfuge.

[.L.]

Princesses and Priests are the best targets, they have no bodyguards and you can get a 95% chance of success on a level 5 priest with a level 2 assassin.

[Willowran]

Princesses and Priests are the best targets, they have no bodyguards and you can get a 95% chance of success on a level 5 priest with a level 2 assassin.

i'd completely forgotten about them. (i never actually use either, except by accident)