Assasins

[Keir Maxwell]

Prohpet assasins can work well as they can pray to get dominion high enough to be able to work without any magic items.

The skull amulet is an awesome item and can be enough by itself for basic work. Dragon helm etc is cute as are many other options but in general its best not to have to spend to much on equiping assasins as the return is generally not good enough.

Perhaps the best magic item is the contract of life long protection. One of those and a skull amulet and you have plenty to work with. An amulet opf anti-magic is perhaps the next thing to consider.

You need a few assasin to make them really effective. Assasins spend alot of time getting in postion so cheap assasins is probably the way to go. Assasins kill off leaders and making troops drop off from armies so the more of them you have the better they work. Assasins tend to work best in the first few strikes after which countermeasures can become serious. Vs the computer this is less of an issue and you can go for some fairly serious assasin abuse.

Cheers

Keir

[HJ]

I don't find assasins very useful, at least not against the AI. AI provinces almost always have provincial defense in place, and a decent amout of it, and therefore apart from the fun of using them, or an occasional lucky event of targeting just the right commander, they never gain you anything similar to getting a province without a fight. Sometimes they manage to stop an AI attack, or kill a merc commander, but those are defensive actions. On offense, they are not really useful.

[ December 10, 2003, 09:22: Message edited by: HJ ]

[PDF]

I'm trying them in my first (solo) game with Marignon :
Naked they're useless, comma
The first I equipped had a poisoned dagger and a basic BS Plate : after killing some indies basic Commanders he was smashed by a paltry Barb leader
The current experimental one has Fire Bola and Fire Helmet, and a Skull Amulet (the one that creates skeletons) and fares much better. I'll give him a Shadow Robe I think, maybe a Barkskin Amulet also.

[Pocus]

Some other points on top of my head, on assassins (in multiplayer, against AI you can do much more damages):

- forget about sending assassins into the heart of your enemy territory (unless he has sneak 30). You are better to set assassins ambushes by preplacing several unequipped assassins in a province which will soon be captured by the enemy, or an enemy occupied province near your lands, and where your enemy move troops. In the group, you can add 1-2 equipped assassins too (with the items mentioned by my fellows comrades).

- At the time you can afford to have 10+ assassins sneaking, you should tell you that even if 1 out of 3 manage to kill somebody important, then they are worth the cost. Generally you can kill mages which are scripted toward pitch battle, like a mage with a thunder ward / wrathful skies combo. Know though that with the improved tactical AI, perhaps dom2 will override better and will let the mage cast a lightning bold instead. Anyway, a mage killed, with items and/or gems is worth several lost assassins, so dont be dispirited by their lack of results. You win rarely, but when you win its like a jackpot. Another jackpot instance is when you kill a commander which lead important troops. It can lead to victory instead of defeat in the battlefied. Thats why assassins are nearly always worth their cost.

- decked assassins : you will equip an assassin only if it is of particular good value (good HP eg), otherwise forget about it. Exception, in the begining game against indeps, it can be worthy to add an item to your assassins so that they have no problems killing knight commanders or barbarians chief.

- Even if your assassins dont manage to kill anybody but scouts, they can be worth the cost, because it can forces the enemy to bodyguards with good units his important leaders. It is not uncommon to see a player react by adding 3-4 trolls, or knights, or lamias to protect a commander. Thats anyway units which wont be commited against you, so you have won something, even if you loose assassins regularly.
Assassins have an even higher value in games with high indep settings. They dont care if there is 6 commanders instead of 2. The province will ask for more time before falling, but is not harder. On the contrary your regular army will have to wait more turns to get the proper power to defeat high indeps settings.

[Taqwus]

Skull talisman is nice and extremely cheap. For similar reasons, it's hard to assassinate death mages -- the cheap battlefield summons. And be careful with feudal leaders, as it's not uncommon for even a priest to have one or more heavy cavalry as bodyguards...
Star children make nice assassins because of the prec-100 mindbLast, but against a leader with fast bodyguards or that can summon troops, they have problems.
Spirit helmet or phoenix rod are nice but very expensive. Boots of quickness = good combo with items that require action e.g. phoenix rod, skull talisman.

[Teraswaerto]

An Empoisoner with a Skull Staff (or something like that, gives +1 death magic) casting raise dead or raise skeletons is IMO the best type of assassin, since it's only one item and C'tis probably has plentiful death gems.

[Wendigo]

Generally speaking, I find assasins kind of inefficient: Investing coin & gems in some guys that are going to be sitting on their arses waiting for the right time to strike, or running around looking for the right place seems a waste most of the time.

Specially considering that you can get the same results out of magical assasination from the safety of your labs, with much more flexibility regarding the location to strike.