[Fate]

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!