Wanna take large cities w/o declaring war?

[Kaneage]

recently in a game as Spain i had an idea.

I control Egypt and trained 3 assassins and sent them out as sabatours (sp?) to pick on Jerusalem. HRE owned it at the time and they were my ally. i didnt want to openly declare war on them but i wanted the Holy Land. Turn after turn kept blowing their ****** up specifically targeting things that add +order. Within 5 turns the city revolted against them and now it is fair game

I tried this with other cities including Naples, Genoa, and even Paris. The larger the city the easier it is to cause open revolt.

[HorseArcher]

that's what I did with the Milanese. They were down to 2 cities and one of them I had 3 assasins doing some sabotage every turn + 3 spies in it. As I kept destroying their buildings, once the entire city turned rebel and for my luck it was "faction destroyed".

[blinkboy182]

Also, if the faction you want the city isn't the same religion as you. Sent the priest over there to cause some religious unrest.

[Hurricane]

Agents are really effective at causing unrest, especially so when you use them all at the same time.

For example if your a Christian and you want to cause a revolt in a Muslim city, you just spam loads of priests into their territory, send 2 or 3 spies into the city and then have your assassins blow up the buildings that provide happiness, law and order etc... they won't last long