Questions - Victory Conditions & assasins

[mac5732]

I have several questions concerning the game which I have been unable to find in the manual, is someone could answer them I would appreciate it... tks in advance

1. victory conditions, game shows, standard, by province etc, however, no where can I find any explantion for any of them, such as ok, what are the standard victory conditions, or what is the win by province mean etc. If someone could please explain each of the victory conditions or head me in the direction they can be found would be appreciated

2. assassins & spys, it shows you may be attacked by assasins, however, can the player direct assasins or place them himself and if so, how, same with spys or are spys considered hidden scouts etc.

3. If also doesn't explain well as to the strenght numbers concerning neutrals,, ie' 3,4,5,6, etc, which is considered average and which is considered stronger numbers etc, and how do they affect them

tks

[Endoperez]

1) Standard victory condition is "vanquish all your enemies". It takes a long time, and often isn't rewarding. The game ends with "Game over" message IIRC.
Victory by Provinces game ends when one player has the set number of provinces (which you choose), by Victory Points lets you allocate both the number of random VP provinces and the number of VP needed, victories by dominion and research end when one nation fills the requirement.
You always choose the limit in game creation.

2) Assassins and Spies have to move to the province. Scouts are neither assassins or spies, and not all nations have either. Ulm has Spies, Marignon has both Spies and Assassins IIRC, Bards of Man are Spies IIRC, Abysia's Slayers can assassinate, etc.
All assassins and spies are stealthy, and can move through enemy provinces. If you have a spy in an enemy province, you see more things than with a scout, like magic sites. When hiding in enemy province, a Spy can be given special command Instill Uprising, and an Assassin the command Assassinate.

3) 6 is probably easiest. The computer can advance very fast in the default indep. level of 3, and on 6 the game is easier for less experienced players. Most experienced player move towards higher indep. settings, at least for multiplayer.

[Saber Cherry]

IIRC indy level 3 is the default, and the higher the number, the more powerful independant provinces are (roughly log 2 according to Illwinter). At 3, there might be 15 militia in a province; at 5, that province should have more like 60 defeners, and possibly a mage; at 9, the indies can have large armies that sometimes include non-declared Gods, like Titans and Earth Mothers. I like to play at 8 - at that setting, there are occasional indy provinces that remain until the late game because they are too strong. Triton provinces can get pretty crazy, though.

[OG_Gleep]

2. Scouts are just stealthy commanders that can't command troops. There are many stealth commanders in the game that can act as scouts. Spys are basically scouts that have a special order "instill Uprising". Assasins are stealth commanders with the special order "Assasinate Enemy Commander", which will initiate a 1on1 attack vs an enemy commander located in that province. As far as control and placement and such, they are classified as commanders as far as mechanics are concerned.

3. I don't know what treshold "pretender" indies start to appear at, but one of my MP games is set to 6, and I have seen 2 such provinces so far.

[Nerfix]

Those crazyinsane level 9 indy provinces with Golems, Earth Mothers and whatnot are sweet.

[Cainehill]

And just to point out : one other attribute of spies, as opposed to scouts / assassins, is that a spy can sometimes tell you if a magic site is in a province, and gives more accurate information on the number & type of enemies in a province they're in.

[mac5732]

I thank you all for your help, appreciate it, just starting to get into the game after all this time

[Edi]

To add to what Endoperez said, the Illuminated One unit of Black Forest Ulm is a spy. The Machakan bane spiders are assassins. Some summoned units can also work as assassins or equivalent (Succubus and some unique summons).

Edi