Are assassins overpowered?

**merc234** · May 16, 2015, 01:36 PM

First of all, I love this mod. It's solved all the problems I've had with other mods that have made me give up on them (fullstack spam, overly aggressive AI, useless diplomacy)

However, it seems that the AI uses assassins far too much for my liking. In one game, the Crusader States were wiped out by having all their generals assassinated within the first 50 turns of play, and soon afterwards the HRE (my allies at the time) would just start spamming assassins and within about 5 turns I lost my faction leader and two generals. I was playing as Pisa and I only had about 6 generals to begin with. I just can't compete with that, considering that the HRE are very powerful to begin with.

My understanding is that the HRE was never a truly united empire historically, and its provinces were more like a confederation of semi-autonomous cities. I know this would be difficult to reflect ingame, but perhaps you could make them less aggressive? Because at the moment the HRE seems to steamroller everyone they go to war with.

My fix for the moment is to make assassins cost as much as possible (I think I set the cost at the max value of about 16,000) which works to an extent, but it prohibits me ever using them myself

**BuTAJIuK** · May 16, 2015, 01:43 PM

I know what you're waiting for a response from the leaders of the project, but as a normal player will say that I do with them was no problem . The only thing that bothered because merchants are strong opponents heretics as well as permanent and all spies .

**j.a.luna** · May 16, 2015, 05:46 PM

the truth is that the HRE is very powerful but I do not want that in the next patch do as in the vanilla .... would be nice to solve this problem but I think it will be difficult .
As for the murderers have never had a problem with them , I have faced the Egyptians being Sicilian and they have always had good murderers but I was able to defend them.

**Legio XV Apollinaris** · May 17, 2015, 03:29 AM

Originally Posted by merc234

First of all, I love this mod. It's solved all the problems I've had with other mods that have made me give up on them (fullstack spam, overly aggressive AI, useless diplomacy)

However, it seems that the AI uses assassins far too much for my liking. In one game, the Crusader States were wiped out by having all their generals assassinated within the first 50 turns of play, and soon afterwards the HRE (my allies at the time) would just start spamming assassins and within about 5 turns I lost my faction leader and two generals. I was playing as Pisa and I only had about 6 generals to begin with. I just can't compete with that, considering that the HRE are very powerful to begin with.

My understanding is that the HRE was never a truly united empire historically, and its provinces were more like a confederation of semi-autonomous cities. I know this would be difficult to reflect ingame, but perhaps you could make them less aggressive? Because at the moment the HRE seems to steamroller everyone they go to war with.

My fix for the moment is to make assassins cost as much as possible (I think I set the cost at the max value of about 16,000) which works to an extent, but it prohibits me ever using them myself

Hehehe ... sorry that i laugh!
I noticed the same in every campaign (as Sicily, Aragon, France and Crusader States) i have played yet so far! But i do not see this as a real problem, it is more like a challenge!
Assassins are no longer useless like in vanilla SS!
In my Aragon campaign the Moors send 3-4 Assassins and easily killed my faction leader and his heir, between the first 10-15 turns. I was not amused about this and started immediately a counter-attack. Recruited 1-2 Assassins by myself and first killed with them all remaining enemy Assassins in my lands. After that, i tried to kill every Priest and Generals / Family Members from the Moors. After i had conquered all settlements in Spain from the Moors i successful assassinated 4-5 Family Members and 10-15 Priests from the Moors. My new Faction Leader died peaceful with the honored title "The Merciless"!!

If you want high skilled Assassins, you can train them by trying to assassinate small enemy stacks without a general. In 90 percent they are successful and the skills from your Assassin rises. If you did this 3-4 times, your Assassin i skilled enough to have a 40-60 percent chance to assassinate an enemy family member.

About the HRE ...
Yes, you're right! The HRE is a hard to beaten enemy, especially if you're a small nation like Pisa!
My tactic here is to try that they get excommunicated. Once they are, ask the pope for a crusade against "Frankfurt" (her capital). If the HRE are at war with all other catholic factions they will loose a lot of power! I did so in my France campaign and it works like a charm!!

I am new to the SSHIP team, so i can't tell you anything else about the Assassins! Maybe Lifthrasir are able to clear out here some things?

**Larkin** · May 17, 2015, 07:22 AM

I think it adds a fascinating dynamic to things. You wouldn't leave yourself unguarded if you were the leader of an up and coming or already powerful faction, would you? Putting spies in the settlements where your general-under-threat is will greatly decrease how likely an opposing assassination mission is to succeed. Spies are the only ones that can see assassins with any regularity.

Make your own assassins, and kill theirs. It becomes a fantastic game of cat and mouse, a whole layer of espionage.

Once you have an assassin with 10 subterfuge though they are ridiculously OP, I think I killed about 20 ERE generals and family members with one guy, he was popping another one off every turn.

**merc234** · May 17, 2015, 07:42 AM

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Maybe I wasn't playing it smart enough. I definitely need to utilise assassins and spies more myself, especially as I'm planning on curbing the HRE's power in my next game by funding their rivals and destroying their unit producing buildings. I will see whether I can improve my counter-assassination tactics too, killing theirs before they can get mine.

I'm still concerned about the fact that entire factions can be wiped out in the early stages of the game by having their generals assassinated though, as it takes out a lot of the fun of having lots of competing factions. As well as what Larkin has said above about assassins being overpowered at high levels. I think I'm going to reach a compromise and change their cost to something like 2-3000 to reflect their power and hopefully reduce the amount of spamming by AI factions. I'm slightly worried that this will make the AI waste all their money on assassins though, I will have to play and see.

Is there files I can modify to make the chances of assassination lower?

**Larkin** · May 17, 2015, 07:57 PM

I only saw a faction crushed by assassins once, and that was Serbia, by me. They attacked me for no reason, so I figured it was fair enough that I kill all of their generals in one turn.

I love the espionage game almost as much as I love the normal game now. I love sneaking spies into cities, getting them to revolt, stirring up wars between factions (and funding both sides) - as Venice, I've been funding a war between France and the HRE for several decades now, and have slowly managed to acquire Switzerland out of it without having to go to war at all. When France seemed to be gaining the upper hand, I got Aragon (who ruled all Iberia) to invade from the south, with lots and lots of gold.

It's like a big conspiracy. Very Game of Thrones. I love it.

**Lifthrasir** · May 18, 2015, 02:39 AM

I guess that we can adjust a bit their stats. So they will improve in a slower way and it would be more difficult to get one with 10 in subterfuge. Regarding the cost, another solution might be to add a cost for agents when you send them in a foreign land like they did in DLV. That should refrain the AI to employ to many of them to kill your family members and would force the player to use them in a more cleaver way. It should not remove the fun of the "espionage game" through. I think it's just a matter of finding the right adjustments.

**Zanze** · May 20, 2015, 01:00 AM

Putting spies in my (border) settlements or with generals has become second nature to me after extensive fighting against Venice, Sicily, The Moors, and Portugal. Feel naked without them, and the penalty for forgetting is very steep.

**merc234** · May 20, 2015, 08:18 AM

What is the reasoning behind having a spy escort at all times? Is it just so you can see the assassins or does it reduce the likelihood of a successful assassination?

**Lifthrasir** · May 20, 2015, 09:13 AM

Your 2nd answer is the correct one

**k/t** · May 20, 2015, 02:43 PM

Don't Assassins also reduce the chance of a general being killed, or is it just Spies?

**Lifthrasir** · May 20, 2015, 02:53 PM

I honestly don't know. I usually use spies to protect my generals and 1 or 2 assassins to kill the other factions assassins, priests and sometimes merchants and heretics. Then, I have 1 or 2 spies and assassins that I keep for war purposes.

**Larkin** · May 21, 2015, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by k/t

Don't Assassins also reduce the chance of a general being killed, or is it just Spies?

I think if the assassin is visible on the map the chance of assassination is decreased, and assassins do help to spot other assassins, but not nearly as well as spies. Spies actively reduce the chance by their presence whereas assassins do not.