Assasins, - or are they just saboteurs? Ideas

[HorseArcher]

I'm sure, many of you are completely dissatisfied with the assasins in this game, since they just simply can't advance fast enough, and the best use of them is to sabotage buildings in an enemy province.
I had an assasin sabotagins every turn for 30 turns in 6 different major cities and yet, his only traits were of course about sabotaging, but he barely advanced anywhere, and at my first try to kill a merchant was a failure.

They are seriously nerfed from the RTW version, which I found very balanced and they were a far more strategic unit, considering their effectiveness.
Right now, they are no better than saboteurs, forget about trying to kill anyone important, I can't even kill merchants, let alone inquisitors or generals.

I also think, they suppose to be able to kill my own faction's generals and other strat map units as well. This was normal in the first MTW and I used them very well to remove disloyal generals or to change the events around a bit.

Here is another - I think - very important thing, that emphasises of killing my own faction units:

Ok, first, this is straight from the instructions manual:

When the Pope excommunicates a faction, it is only the leader that he has a problem with. However, this is no consolation for the people of that faction who are still cut off from the pope, their spiritual leader. In fact, when a faction leader is excommunicated, his people will be upset with him for allowing problems with the Catholic Church to go so far, rather than annoyed at the Pope for excommunicating them in the first place.

Can you see what I'm talking about assasins being able to kill own generals? I'm sure you have received a few times a mission from an opposing faction, to remove "his father" or the current faction leader in power, so the relations would get better with this faction and you would also receive some cash in reward.

Why not being able to remove an excommunicated faction leader of mine with an assasin?

Imagine, if the Pope would send you a mission (whatever to the Nobles) and give chance to reconcile with the church again, if they remove the rouge leader?

The Pope could also appoint an new heir to the throne, someone with a higher piety and/or chivalry to patch up the relations between the faction and the church. This leader would be charged to send an assasin and finish the job. This is sort of a coup to take over the faction with an alternate faction leader for the sake of stability and relations.
Makes sense?

I also have a problem with the Pope powers, which I won't go into details, but let just say, that if the Pope needs to approve the new faction leader, before it comes into power and if the heir isn't favored (low and bad traits and relations), then the Pope would send out a note to the Nobles to select a new leader. (give a vote option thing, like when voting for a new pope).

But that's another topic.

[OG Grenadier]

Absolutely oh outranking one! Assassins byte bigtime IMHO. Or at least give us control of Inquisitors so we can flame their pesky hides if they don't lift their game.

[Theoden]

I agree with you, assassins seem to be useless and was funny i had a higher percentage to get a general then i was to get a merchant but it didnt make a difference because out of my long camapign i managed to assassinate a total of nobody! lol but i don't think you should be able to assassinate ur faction leader...only heir and lower.

[kuningas]

with pure luck i was able to assassinate a venetian general with 3% chance of succeeding. yet i've been unable to assassinate anyone else

[dearmad]

I find them very powerful. You need to be patient and actually build up their skill carefully. Get a guildhouse. Devote your energies in this direction- or play by another strategy. They are quite powerful at lvl 9-10; at first I didn't like them the new way but now, having plenty of high-skill assassins through using them in reasonable ways has made me really like the new balance.

I do think the "killer on edge" trait should be rarer, however...

[Hedniskhjäertad]

Well.. King Rufus the Killer thinks otherwise! I've managed to kill 4-5 inquisitors, 2 Scottish Generals, 3 Kings of France, 2 Kings of HRE and a Dannish King. And i'm on 1120~30. My King, currently has full dread, and Retinue & Trait Master of Assassins. I have an Guild of Assassins in London & Edinburgh.

My first kill was very funny. I was planning an massive attack on the Scots, then i've noticed that Edinburgh had only a general as defense. Then i've sent 4 assassins with lvl 1-2 and on the 3th attempt, he was down. I sent my army in, and the scots were destroyed. But they had a full stack led by their king who turned rebel that i had to deal with anyway.

What usually works:
1- Select a settlement and start pumping assassins.
2- Once avaible, build assassins guild.
3- Targets for training: Priests / Merchants / Diplomats / Princesses.
4- Once at lvl 5~6 start trying to get generals.
5- If able, try to kill kings / faction heirs / pope.

But beware, using a lot of assassins will boost your king's dread.

[a_swiss_pikeman]

I have assassinated many cardinals before, i have tried to assassinate the Pope but it has never worked, he always gets away.

[Fallout386]

I find assassins to be a big waste of money. Not only do they cost a lot to hire but at 200 florin a turn their upkeep is totally unjustified for their usefulness. I would rather have a system where your assassin is cheap to hire and has very cheap upkeep cost but as he gains levels and gets better at his job his upkeep price goes up due to the amount of contacts he needs to bribe and other needs that require him to spend extra money to get jobs done.

This way you could choose to either pay upkeep for a whole stack of army or for one assassin that is actually good at his job. Adding economical restraints on how you want to progress in the game. Subterfuge or brute force.

[Antonov]

To tell you the truth, I'm quite fond of assassins myself. They solve big problems, very cheaply.

The problem is, you need to have some luck with hiring a talanted assassin, because if your assassin emerges with a skill of 1 or 2 he's really not good for much.

But if you take your time to build up a moderate assassin to a real professional, then you have the most powerful general in the game I managed to build an assassin up to level 8 and I was killing the poor Danish faction heirs like flies, muahaha. Unfortunetly he got Killed in Action once so I lost him.

I agree it's quite stupid that you get higher chance to kill a general than you get for a merchant or priest. One of the points where I and CA disagree

But assassins are still fun. Or at least good assassins are, bad/dead ones aren't.

[Ketzerfreund]

Rebel captains are good for training them. Even 1-exp.-assassins get a >20% chance of finishing these off. And they also gain experience for sabotage, if not that much, of course. So, they may be underpowered, but surely not unusable.

-Der Ketzerfreund.

[Ludicus]

Why not being able to remove an excommunicated faction leader of mine with an assasin?

Because you are the Leader.

[lawngnome]

In my Turkish campaign my 10 subterfuge assassin has killed 5 Egyptian generals, countless merchants, and torched every building in Acre and Jerusalem, coupled with spies this made Acre rebellious (no +law buildings left)... good stuff... assassins are well worth it, it just takes some luck and patience. 10 subterfuge assassins destroy most buildings to 100% in one attempt

[(insert clever name here)]

Actually Assassins are pretty easy to level up. Every now and then you train some real duds but still, if you get guilds that shouldn't happen. Just have them target Captains of nearby armies and they should level up just fine. Sometimes you get lucky and one kill can net you like a 4 skill level increase if they get an ancillary out of it.

And once you get assassins at level 6 or so they become quite useful. At levels 8-10 they can so serious damage and single-handedly turn the tides of a campaign. It is really hard to kill Kings and some really high level religious leaders but still, family members and Princesses go down easy.

You want to get rid of a merchant or a heretic? Then try using Cardinals and other merchants, they do so much better at it. Assassins are meant in the game to take out diplomats and political enemies. Not merchants and Heretics.

[Chiron202]

I would add that they could make assassins more like hitmen. I'm not sure about the historical accuracy, but it seems odd that an assassin make the same amount of dough wether he gets used every turn or not. Make it cost quite the fee to do more risky missions, (killing the pope, kings, etc.) but then up the probability of the kill succeeding if the player can pony up the dough. I'm not sure of wether the money should get paid upon sucess or what, but you get the idea. This would mean that it would be relatively easy to kill mundane targets like merchants (seriously, what chance does a traveling merchant really have?) But would cost, oh, say 300-400 $ for the hit.

Also I would add a possible outcome, sucessful kill but have the assassin get killed as he trys to get away. If this is the case, the other nation doesn't know its you.

Lastly, have the probability of sucess go waaaay waaay up if the assassin is killing diplomats, spies, merchants etc. IN MY OWN LANDS! Sorry about the caps but c'mon, the assassin wouldn't exactly be arrested for killing some retard enemy merchant who just ran a crown supported merchant out of buisness, would he? Sure the target could kill the assassin in the act, but performing a hit with the support of the local magistrate/authorities would be well within reason.

[arnel98]

in my experience on VH/VH setting, the fastest way to advance an assasins skill is to pick off rebel units... They have the most chance of success compared to a diplomat/merchant, etc

At one time, i was able to get +4 subterfuge just by killing a rebel captain. (+2 agent skill, and +2 on a retinue or something)

[Fallout386]

I like the hitman idea

My suggestion would be to have an option like pay extra bribes etc in the locality to organise the assassination even better so there are no witnesses when the deed occurs. Say for example 1000 florin for extra 10% chance to succeed. So you could have options like:

Assassination Attempt Chance Modifiers (can pick only one option):

- 10% increased chance - pay 1000 florins to locals to look the other way.
- 20% increased chance - pay 2000 florins to guards to avoid patrolling that route.
- 30% increased chance - pay 3000 florins to Guard captain to re-route all patrols.
- 40% increased chance - pay 4000 florins for bribes and setting up of traps.
- 50% increased chance - pay 5000 florins to ensure the perfect conditions are organised for the attempt!

And you could cap it there. So the max increased chance would be 50% plus the assassin's own skill bonus. If the balance went out of whack then increase the bribe costs etc to tone down the assassin system

Anyway just some suggestions for a mod. You guys above me must have been really lucky (or me just jinxed) cause out of the 50 or so assassins I've gone through about 45 of them kept failing attempts to assassinate a barbarian captain over and over and became nothing more than a burden in my treasury with their -4 modifiers. Only had one assassin ever get to 10 subterfuge and he had a 6% chance to kill an enemy king in my own territory and miraculously succeeded. I think he had a cheat dice that he kept rolling 100s with anyway :p But besides that my luck with assassins have been dreadful.

[Admiral Nelson]

lol, one of my assassins, who had never killed anyone before and had a total of -5, yes, negative five assassination skill, actually killed the pope on first try. I was amazed.

[(insert clever name here)]

I would add that they could make assassins more like hitmen. I'm not sure about the historical accuracy, but it seems odd that an assassin make the same amount of dough wether he gets used every turn or not. Make it cost quite the fee to do more risky missions, (killing the pope, kings, etc.) but then up the probability of the kill succeeding if the player can pony up the dough. I'm not sure of wether the money should get paid upon sucess or what, but you get the idea. This would mean that it would be relatively easy to kill mundane targets like merchants (seriously, what chance does a traveling merchant really have?) But would cost, oh, say 300-400 $ for the hit.

Also I would add a possible outcome, sucessful kill but have the assassin get killed as he trys to get away. If this is the case, the other nation doesn't know its you.

Lastly, have the probability of sucess go waaaay waaay up if the assassin is killing diplomats, spies, merchants etc. IN MY OWN LANDS! Sorry about the caps but c'mon, the assassin wouldn't exactly be arrested for killing some retard enemy merchant who just ran a crown supported merchant out of buisness, would he? Sure the target could kill the assassin in the act, but performing a hit with the support of the local magistrate/authorities would be well within reason.

I totally agree on every point, that would be awesome.

BTW, Nice avatar.

[Aristocrat]

Hard to level up assassins? No, not at all, especially if you get the assassins guild. I have an assassin (rufus the killer) who has killed 4 venetion faction leaders, 3 Holy Roman Emporers, 8 popes, 4 hungarian princes, 2 french kings, and a myriad of agents.

He is a certified killing machine...admittedley getting old now so I trained up another in oh, about 3 turns, to a level 8 assassin.
The funny thing is, I haven't saved-reloaded to train either up once, if my assassins fail, they fail, if they die, they die (which recently happened causing a bitter war with france).

On assassins being able to kill your own faction leader? No, I don't like the sound of that, you ARE the faction leader so to speak.
What I would like, is rebellions as in MTW, where you got the choice between loyalists and rebels, that way, if you wanted your faction leader gone, you had a civil war to remove him from the throne. Assassinating your own family members I also agree with, there might be a general or prince on the virge of rebelling, so you off him, but you can't assassinate yourself.

Pity CA didn't implement said rebellions though, when we get the unpacker I may have a dig around (and try scripts before then).

[Premaximum]

Personally I find Assassins very useful. Of course, they're not going to one-hit the Pope or a Faction Leader every time, but they shouldn't be able to...it would make the game very unbalanced.

The highest Assassin I had was sitting at 10 subterfuge, with +3 to Assassinations via the Knife and the Child Apprentice retinues. He had more than 10 base subterfuge, really, but I'm not sure if points over 10 actually count.

He still only had about a 40-50% chance for Pope Assassinations, and that's fine with me. The greatest assassin in the world should still have a pretty hard time killing off the most important figure in the world.

Even still, that Assassin got the Pope at least 4 different times, and I've assassinated a Pope with other Assassins as well.

As was said before, practice on Rebel Captains. Even if you have a 95% chance on someone, take it if there's nothing around 60-70. Your Assassin will still get exp for it, but you get less the higher the percentage is. Also, no matter what you're assassinating, you have a chance for retinue.