Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

Also, when using assassins to take provinces keep in mind you're (almost certainly) using an army and/or pretender to expand as well. Focus your assassins on those juicy farmlands full of knights and leave the bear tribe pushovers for your regular troops. Assassination for initial expansion can be very worthwhile used like this, 2 or 3 assassins can net you a couple extra very nice provinces in the first year which can easily be better than a couple extra mages in some situations.

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

Attacking with a scout who has a Skull Talisman works well. The undead it creates helps hold off attacks while the scout checks out the situation to see who is left needing assassination. If the assassin is a mage you can also use the scout to safely store gems and occassional-use equipment.

Mictlan has an assassin god. A titan, with stealth and flight, who summons help during the assassinations.

Giving the Skull Talisman to an assassin is a cheap way to give them assistants during the assassination. Also it makes an assassin able to check for job-done fairly safely.

Pangaea has no assassin but does have Pans who can gather maenads to them each turn. With a Black Heart (to make them assassins) they will auto-check the province each turn. They will assassinate, followed immeadiately by an attack by maenads which will give you a nice view of who is left to take out.

Scripting a assassin who has magic with a spell such as Charm or HellBind Heart triples your assassins abilities.
A) He will try to assassinate a commander
B) If that fails then he will end up in one-on-one combat with the commander. He will try to take over the commanders mind. Set it for 2 tries (which is usually safe) and then combat actions.
C) If the spell works then the new converted commander will attack his old friends in that province. If he loses then you have both weakened them AND seen what is left. If he was the last commander then his own troops will rout from him which is kindof fun to watch. PLUS you get a new commander with all his equipment.

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

While this method does work, it should be noted that its really slow. You have to spend 1-2 turns assassinating (this assumes a group of assassins) and then another turn to move to the next province. So 2-3 turns per province if things go well. Whereas if you spent the money on troops you could buy mages instead and your troops can attack a new province every single turn.

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

Yeah, it's really more of a cheat against indy provinces and maybe a stupid AI, for people who can't beat them normally. Or MP players with a LOT of money problems (i.e. almost dead). Assassinations don't work against PD commanders, after all.

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

Right, as I said I think it really only makes sense if you're able to snag a couple very nice and otherwise well defended provinces. Depending on the nation you're playing it's not terribly uncommon to encounter a very high population farmland defended by too many heavy cavalry or elephants to be feasible to take with your initial expansion parties....yet could almost double your income. Plus, getting an assassin is not always mutually exclusive to getting a mage, your mage-assassins can go back to researching once they've cleared the high value targets. It's also not completely worthless to have assassins out scouting afterwards, people tend not to put bodyguards with their mages until after the first assassination attempt and loosing a couple combat mages the opening turn of a war can be fairly significant.

Situational, sure, but effective if the situation is appropriate.

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

Thats worth keeping in mind as people read all of the discussions. What might be a bad game strategy to build on, can be a useful game tactic to keep in mind.

Being predictable would seem to be bad. :)

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

Keep in mind the effectiveness of this strategy increases with the Indie setting. On Indie 9 there can be provinces you can't take w/o a medium-large army or a thug/SC. If you can take that with 1 or 2 assasins over 2 or 3 turns you have freed those busier forces to deal with something like invading other players or defending against incursions.

I have also found assasinations to be a cheap way underwater if there are untaken UW indies near you. A ring of water breathing is a lot cheaper and available sooner than any of the methods for getting troops under water.

Just remember to make sure another player doesn't take your cleared province before you can!

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

Also worth noting that there are fewer UW poptypes that have commanders that might be "dangerous" to your assassins.

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

If I remember, the era also makes a difference.
In era 1 you are more likely to run into barbarian commanders, and indie mages?
Its more effective in era 3 games where a single commander is usually an armored one, and likely to be leading larger groups of troops.

Re: Using assassins for expansion
 

I use assassins to aid expansion in some games, especially as abysia. If you aren't running sacreds, prophetising a starting assassin works a charm. Definitely focus your assassins on the tougher opponents, saving your troops