Assasins

[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.

[Gandalf Parker]

Pangea has a number of units I have fun turning into assassins with the heart. (at least in DOm 1 unless some fixes happened I havent tested) Some interesting tactics show up....

Such as using a Pan as an assassin. Expensive mage but it has some interesting bonuses. If you use an assasin now to take independents you need an army nearby to take the province. Its guesswork on when to attack. But if you have a Pan (with no maenads assigned to it) then maenads will appear and go to the bar to be assigned to a commander later. But they arent stealth so there is a fight. What this means is that the Pan will do an assassination, then a few maenads will attack the province. Basically they test the province automatically every turn. Repeat until all commanders are dead and the troops flee from the 3 or 4 maenads.

The same thing occurs in a different way if you use Pandemoniacs. With their blood magic they can cast "hellbind heart" as their first couple of actions in an assassinaton. This worked fairly often in turning the commander to your side. Of course the commander was usually not stealth so what followed was an immeadiate battle in that province between that commander and the units he used to fight with. Continue until the Last commander wins the province for you, then capture more slaves and move on.

[ December 10, 2003, 15:27: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]