Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

Assassins are fun, but I'm still a bit light on understanding their mechanics. I'm wondering what would happen in the following situation:

1. You have an assassin hiding in enemy territory.
2. The enemy has province defense.
3. The enemy has one commander.
4. You issue an "Assassinate" command.
5. You kill the leader, so there are no commanders left (other than province defense).

Would you automatically take over the province, or would you have to attack it on the next turn?

I'm also wondering if there is a way to tell if there is only province defense (and no commanders)in the province you are in without scrying... if your assassin has the "Assassinate" option, does that mean that there is a commander there (in other words, if there is no commander, will you be unable to issue the order, kind of like how you can't do a blood sacrifice without having blood slaves?) If there is no commander there, would you automatically attack the province defense commander, and, if successful (assuming only one province defense commander), then take over the province?

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

You do know that this takes about 15 minutes to test right?

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

it's even easier to read some general common knowledge, such as that stealth troops can't conquer territories unless they unstealth. so unless you actually attack(as opposed to assassinate) the province and get rid of the province defense, you won't be able to capture it. also, assassinate has no effect on PD, for obvious reasons. as for the option to assassinate, it isn't dependent upon having legal target(as in commanders to assassinate), all it checks is whether the ability is legal for the province you're in, for assassinate that's basically every enemy province(never tried to assassinate in sieged provinces and stuff, so I don't want to spread any misinformation in that regard). same as with all other abilities...

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

no, assassin will merely stay stealth. in fact, you may repeatedly press assassin and end up facing off against moult generic commanders

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

Yes, because my life isn't already busy enough. You know it only takes about five seconds to not make a Thread-Nazi post:p

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

I think this is what was confusing me... I assumed that assassinating someone was unstealthing.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

You can assassinate all the leaders of an indie province, of course

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

It is generally inefficient. Even Abysian assassins can lose to cavalry commanders, and the usual indie provinces has at least 3 commanders total.
Tribal provinces and Barbarians has two commanders. Horse Tribes only one. But there might be bodyguards.
The only time it is useful, is when you have access to assassins that can defeat commanders regularly (prophetized assassins, Abysia, Lanka, Patala), and your expansion troops would have trouble with elephant/heavy cavalry provinces.
Or you try to grab magic items from special indies.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

Well a steady influx of new people tends to regenerate old questions. Its not like we are SOOooooo busy here.

Having along some cheap scouts to check the zone instead of the more expensive and equipped assassin is a good idea.

Personally, one of my favorite assassins is giving a Black Heart to a Pan (EA or MA Pangaea). The Pans ability to draw Maenads is useful. If the Pan is leading any units then any Maenads that show up join them. But if the Pan is NOT leading any units then the Maenads go to the province. So the Pan can assassinate commanders, and after each one there will appear some maenads to attack the province giving you a clear view of what is left there.

Another option is to give your assassins the ability to cast Charm or Hellbind Heart. Have them try twice and then kill if both tries missed. That way you often get a free commander, with their equipment. And its immediately followed by that commander attacking the province. Its great to see an army flee from their only commander because he switched sides.

Many assassinations seem settled by who gets in the first hit. With any assassin I find it handy to have a luck item, a stop-them item, a reach item, and a summoner. Such as spear, vine shield, luck amulet, and skull amulet.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

That is a lot of gems. I would rather spend them somewhere else.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

assassinate and attack are two different things. the combat generated even uses different combat scripts

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

Whoa... slow down, partner lol. When you say it uses different scripts, do you mean that the scripting you assign to your assassin in the normal orders screen isn't what it uses?

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

no, he's just trying to confuse you. in fact i have no idea what the heck he's talking about, but what it sounds like he's saying is flat wrong

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

You can assassinate indy commanders, and then move in a single commander to take over the province. Notice that indies usually have 2-3 commanders per province. Not really a viable strategy as such, but for example EA Abysia might use it to take control of some hard to come by indy province (at the end of a dead end, or an isolated indy province behind another nation) and to get some experience for the flying assassins.

It's also possible to seduce indy commanders. I used this in a game as Patala to gain two bloodhenge druids (and thus nicely got into blood without having to go through the scouts "hunt slaves, empower somebody" -route). There was a third druid present too, but he refused to become seduced (so it resulted in assassination battle). Eventually a single markata scout conquered the province, all those dark vines and whatnots just routed in front of the godly power of markata (or perhaps because they had no commanders left).

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

No. what he means is that the mechanics of how Dominions runs assassinations are different from the ones it uses to run regular combats. I.e. to put it simply, the game has one script called "Regular Combat" and one script called "Assassination" and it runs the appropriate one for each combat. It has nothing to do with the combat orders of commanders.

As far as assassinations go, even the Abysian and other better assassins have a hard time against lots of opponents unless they have some equipment, mainly weapons. This is because an assassin with only length 0 or 1 weapons gets repelled too easily and can't get hits in and then dies.

I tend to use Abysian assassins in pairs, equipped with paired fire swords each, which can significantly increase expansion speed, especially when you have a scout along or lurking in the next province over. Two turns of assassination, then the assassins move on and the scout attacks the province, conquering it. You still have to be careful of tough opponents like cavalry commanders and barbarian chiefs. Elephant provinces can be risky, since they often have wizards.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

what I meant is that a retreat command for combat does not apply for assassination.
I guess I put it in the worst possible way.
I'll be back under my rock, now, where I belong.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

no, your still wrong. they still retreat. its very unfortunate

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

I haven't encountered elephant provinces with wizards. However, if one sees no elephant at militia+slinger provinces, there are a/only two or three elephants that won't show up on the scouting report b/there are two or three wizards behind the chaff.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

I thought retreating from an assassination attempt was automatic death... is this wrong?

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

yes, but this was supposed to have been addressed by now*. see the very first post in the bug thread


*retreat orders are supposed to be ignored

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

it takes about 5 mins to test this yourself and see that its still broken

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

Wow. I said I'd never post about the game mechanics again due to all the rubbish I get for my efforts, but wow. I mean just wow. Even I find this thread confusing, since it's largely full of conflicting, yet bizarrely still correct observations. And just for good measure, even a potentially misleading contribution from the usually reliable Edi (although that's likely more down to unfortunate wording than anything else, since "script" has it's own meaning in programming terms, but a very precise meaning in Dominions terms).

Plus of course the usual load of crap from Gandalf talking about using Pan's as Charm assassins, which is something that hasn't even got the remotest of practical uses of any sort in a MP game, outside of the most bizarre settings ever played (such as one where any commander unit with a MR over 10, and buying any PD, and having more than one commander in a province, are all forbidden). And I doubt it even has a use in SP games, which is amazing since everything works in SP games, but I'd put a small wager on this being one of the rare things that doesn't work.

So I'm posting to clear things up, as a lot of what I've seen is actually making me ill :sick: Anyway, to the matter at hand.


Assassinations.

First off there is only one script that a player can set for a commander to follow, and that is the one everyone knows about. Edi made reference to a "Regular Combat" script, and an "Assassination" script, but I'm assuming he is talking about scripts in the game code here, and not in-game commander scripts. Although a commander can revert to default / unscripted orders in very specific circumstances, which I will come onto next. (ie. the "set battle orders" you see for unscripted commanders)

Secondly, there are two different types of assassinations, which the game engine treats slightly differently (the game engine treating them differently is not something I have seen posted anywhere before, so I'm not surprised if it is fairly unknown). There is one type that happens in the Magic Phase via spells, and one that happens in the Assassination Phase via the "Assassinate Enemy Commander" order. Which is an order that can be given to commanders with the assassin tag when they are in a province (usually hidden) that is not controlled by the player issuing the assassinate order.

Note that there does not have to be an enemy commander in the province for the "Assassinate Enemy Commander" command to appear. Also please note that control of the fort does not mean control of the province. Plus you can not issue assassinate orders when you are sieging enemy forts, as you are the player who controls the province in that case, and the "Assassinate Enemy Commander" order does not appear if you control the province. But you can issue assassinate orders from inside a sieged fort (as you don't control the province then), and is one of the rare (only?) instances of being able to use the Black Heart on a non-stealthy commander in a practical way.


The main (only?) difference between the two types of assassinations, besides when they occur in the turn resolution sequence, is in how the game engine deals with any "retreat" orders that have been scripted. As in Magic Phase assassinations, which occur via well known spells like Earth Attack, Manifestation, and Infernal Disease, retreat orders are carried out whenever they occur in the commander script. But during assassinations that occur in the Assassination Phase, any retreat orders that have been scripted on the rightplayer's commander (ie. the defender) are ignored, and instead replaced with default orders when they appear in the script (ie. "Retreat" will see the commander instantly revert to default script. While "Hold x 5, Retreat" will see the commander holding for 5 turns, and then reverting to default script). Although interestingly, the leftplayer (ie. the assassin) will retreat if scripted to do so.

But to all intents and purposes, and most importantly for practical usage in MP games, there is only one type of assassination, and that is the Magic Phase one. As scripting retreat on any important commander runs the huge risk of instant death should the commander be hit with an assassination spell. And since Magic Phase assassinations make up around ~90+ of all the assassinations that occur in a regular MP game, it is only the mechanics for Magic Phase assassination that really matters. I wouldn't imagine it being too difficult for IllWinter to make commanders ignore retreat orders during Magic Phase assassinations, in the same way they do during assassinations that happen in the Assassination Phase. But at time of writing (patch 3.26) they don't, so as I said, for practical MP uses, it's better to think along the usual lines of Retreat orders = Instant death during assassinations.


And regarding using assassins to capture provinces. Assassins can not be used to conquer enemy PD (at least not by using the assassinate command), as the commander units (and indeed all PD units) that you get with PD are not "real" units (ie. they don't exist outside of the battle), so they can not be targeted by assassins. And the art of capturing Indy provinces using assassins is to know how many commander units are usually generated by the different pop-types. P3D has listed some of them, but the best way to get a complete list, like the way to get a lot of answers to the game, is simply to run some test games and make note of what you find and observe.


Finally, and as per my usual MO, attached is a test game to back-up what I've said above. (End the Turn to process the results. The game uses no mods, and the Silent Seas map, which you should get with a base install of Dominions)

The test game has two assassinations happening in Tengpoche #31. Both involve Indy commanders being assassinated, with both Indy commanders being scripted to 1st round "Retreat" orders. One assassination will occur in the Magic Phase via the Infernal Disease spell, and the other will occur via a regular assassination in the "Assassination Phase".

The result should be that the commander that is targeted by the Infernal Disease will retreat as he is scripted to do so, but the other one will not retreat as scripted, and will instead revert to default orders. (which is hopefully what I've managed to ramble on about in this message)

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

:)
I dont actually remember ever seeing the original poster ask about MP games. If so then my apologies to the OP.

But thank you for stepping back in to give us the facts concerning Pangaea in MP play, and all nations in general Solo play. I did not realize that either were dear to your heart.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

very exhaustive, very informative


thank you much

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

There's another problem with the two-step province takeovers - assasins, and call lesser horror.
It is only safe for "filling back" expansion space. On the frontier, if another player attacks the same province, the battle between an expansion party and scout/indie commander is pretty one-sided.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

It's only safe for that, true. But it can still be useful. Especially if you can spam more attacks than your neighbor has expansion parties. He'll get some of them, but you can get more. If the scout's set to retreat, you don't even risk him.

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

Calahan, you forgot about the third way to initiate assassination combat :) A failed seduce results in assassination combat (which is why IMO one should always equip and script seducers for assassination combat).

Re: Taking over territories with Assassins...
 

Calahan, indeed I was referring to what the game engine runs, and made the specific distinction between that and a commander's combat orders. I thought the post was clear enough. I don't mind you clarifying, though, since your post had stuff I didn't know about assassinations. :)