Clandestine Expansion

[sum1lost]

Oh, assasinating leaders?

Yes, it can be done, but tends to be too slow for the payoff. Sending an army, especially with pythium troops, is simply faster/more effective.

[Sandman]

I've messed about with this in SP, and I can't see that it could ever be a competitive strategy.

Firstly, assassins are slow, slow, slow. Move, assassinate, move, assassinate instead of just moving forward with a conventional army. You can use tricks like retreat-scouting to make it more efficient, but it's still slow, and the enemy can 'steal' provinces you've cleared of commanders.

Secondly, assassins cannot reliably kill commanders unless they have some serious items. Regular indy commanders can put up a tough fight, whilst mounted commanders are even more dangerous.

There are tricks to help make your assassins more effective. The easiest way is an assassin prophet with a strong bless; he'll be a reliable killing machine. Shrouds of the battle saint work as well.

[thejeff]

If you've got assassins that can handle regular commanders, either as is, or with minimal gear (skull earring?) it can be useful.

Not as your only expansion, but to mop up provinces while your expansion army is moving off in another direction.

The main cost is not building mages for early research.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Skull Earring is quite effective for most level five indies.
Even a Mujina can take out an indie Knight commander long before you can afford the resource loss of your infantry- just see if you can place them back a little. And if you take out all the leaders, then all those knights will flee.

Otoh, a priest kills you and picks up the Skull Talisman? No more assassination.

Not optimal expansion, but it can be a cost-effective way to weaken a key province. Until you've got a spare castle up, though, or are surrounded by unusually difficult independents (e.g. barbarians and an archer free nation), it's often an ineffective use of your commander recruit time.

[Humakty]

EA abysia has remarkable assassins, with flight and good stats, easily thuggable . I recommend them to people who love covert ops.(avoid like hell those MF priests)