Assassin

[Gandalf Parker]

I think assassins are very useful. For some nations they arent much more expensive than scouts so why use scouts?

I like to keep assassins on my borders. Some nations have commanders that lead large armies. You can often chop an invading army in half. If you use a couple, and immediately have a scout or something attack, you can often rout his units before he can purchase a local commander to save any.

And even if all you do is force him to get nervous, buy more pd, set a patrolling army in his back provinces, any of those can be a game factor. Some people are so locked into their strategies that just pushing them to do new things can throw them totally off their game. The more that people say that assassins, PD, stealth, seduction are useless; the handier I find them to be just for the shake-em-up factor.

I agree on the "summoning equip" thing.
I also like additional attacks such as dancing trident or stone dove or spirit helm.