Quote:
Originally Posted by Finalgenesis
Putting aside whether Using assassins or spies as scouts are a breach of NAP, since they have no auto-aggressive abilities (assassination or incite unrest require specific order to activate, unlike sceptic, reapers and auto-unrest some units have). Do note that:
All of EA Abysia's scouts have the assassin ability. For reference they are slayer and demonbred.
So in a way, I wouldn't say they are breaching NAP unless they are assassinating commanders and thus commit an actual act of aggression with intent. Not to mention they have no scout commander without assassin ability.
Note: I've never ran into assassins being used as scouts in previous MP games so I'm unsure what the accepted consensus is. I'm only going by the general principle vets have impressed on me: actual act of aggression with intent (e.g. random global overwrite seem like aggression, but lacks specific intent and thus not a breach of NAP). We may have to trot out a vet again if you want to be sure.
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I checked with the vets on the IRC channel when I was trying to decide what to do. The consensus there was that (a) sending assassins into someone else's territory without explicit authorization is a violation of NAP, and (b) most likely indicates that an attack is eminent.
Their advice to me was to hit my opponent without warning with as much force as I could as soon as I could, before getting attacked myself.
I had overlooked that Abysia doesn't have natural scouts, but no one uses national scouts in any event, unless they have a starting scout that isn't made a prophet. (When asking for advice, I was clear that my opponent was Abysia.)
In this case, adding to my impression of hostile intent was that it was not an isolated incident, and that the assassins in question were capitol-only units not idly produced.
In private correspondence with Ragnar's Wolves, he indicated that he was just messing around with the nation and that they *were* idly produced and he didn't even realize they were assassins. I don't see any reason not to accept that at face value, and there are definitely no hard feelings on my side.
However, I was and am going to play under the assumption that the other players in the game are trying their best to win it, even if they currently face long odds.