Killing Indi Commanders

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

But that was not the comparison I made. The point was that one mage not researching produces exactly as much RP as an assassin not researching. A mage not researching makes you lose the research race exactly the same way an assassin not researching it does.

However bad units you think all assassins are, there is no escaping the fact that a mage sent to the front produce exactly the same amount of RP as an assassin sent behind enemy lines - none.

Yeah, and how much RP does the assassin produce when he returns?

And though I certainly do not deny that assassin spells are generally a lot better than assassins, there is the gem cost. Would you recruit gems for a small amount of gold instead of a commander?

I don't understand this last statement.

The above does not make much sense. If the tradeoff is usually too high, it is implied that it is sometimes not to high. This in turn implies that assassins are occasionally useful. And yet you claim that assassins are not useful.

I always said it was almost always suboptimal.

Please don't try to put words in my mouth.

Is this really supposed to cover all possibilities?

Sometimes.

Especially in light of my earlier mention of optimized expansion parties, it seems a bit on the thin side. Shutting down a few armies for a couple of turns is often enough to win a war.

Which only works if you have an assassin in the province where he currently is. So you need to be lucky, or good at guessing where is going to move. Or have multiple assassins.

And you are describing a very specific situation here. Still in the early expansion phase, having assassins in the field at the right spot, and your assassin can reliably kill an enemy commander. And the enemy player didn't put additional troops on guard commander to save his commanders when an enemy unit breaks through his lines. (Some players do that).

The chances of this all coming together is so low that it just isn't worth trying to use this as a real tactic. Especially, and I'm going to say it again, when you have to use fort turns for it that could also have been used to recruit mages.

Assassins which have a fort turn cost, in the early game this means capital fort turns, so you are not spending time recruiting mages or expansion parties. Ergo, suboptimal.

And yes, if your enemy overreacts it is perhaps smart to invest in one assassin. But it depends on the opponent. But an assassin spell is way more effective here.

A blood 5 summon requiring a blood 4 mage and 66 blood slaves is not the same as an assassin recruitable from day one requiring only a small amount of gold.

I am not that big a user of assassins, but I just cannot agree to that they are never useful.

Yeah, but they have one more cost apart from gold. Fort turns. And early game these are at a premium. And later in the game it is easy to script/guard. So it simply isn't effective.

Also, why does the succubus almost never see play? And was the disease demon spell nerfed in recent CBM versions? Because the assassin spells are that much better than an assassin unit. Target anywhere you can cast is a lot better than having a unit in a specific place that is easily countered by finding it with pd+patrollers.

Assassination is a good mechanic, sadly most assassins as units are not worth it.