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October 23rd, 2011, 04:41 PM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
I can see a plan where you buy assassins only the first few turns, perhaps in conjunction with awake SC, and use the money saved to build a very early second and third fort.
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October 23rd, 2011, 05:07 PM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fantomen
I can see a plan where you buy assassins only the first few turns, perhaps in conjunction with awake SC, and use the money saved to build a very early second and third fort.
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After a turn or two you could use indie commanders or indie scouts to attack the province the same turn that the last commanders are taken out. Would be interesting at least.
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October 23rd, 2011, 08:45 PM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
For the record, i attacked an indi province with 2 commanders and 30 something units. I lost - retreating only 1 of my 14 units. But the battle summary said that i killed 2 of the 2 commanders. Next turn i attacked with only 1 commander and i won.
So all to say...
if you kill the indi commanders but lose the battle, you can take it next turn regardless of the number of troops remaining (at least in this case).
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October 24th, 2011, 04:30 AM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
Assassins can also be quite efficient when taking some cul-de-sac provinces. Unfavorable terrain in combination with general map layout can sometimes mean a delay of several turns for ordinary armies that could be used for something better.
Assassins can also be devastating in an early war. If you get an early second castle (e.g. from site searching) on a crowded map, you may want to hire a few in preparation of an impending war and they can be put to work on expansion in the mean time. It is not efficient purely in terms of indie expansion, but the strategy as a whole is.
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October 24th, 2011, 11:45 AM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
Assassins work well on elephant provinces when you have expensive troops that are hard to mass early in the game. For example, Abyssia can send an assassin to knock off the commanders of an elephant province over a few turns while the troops are taking out multiple other provinces without being trampled. Sure, you could probably just take the province brute force, but you'd lose a few troops that wouldn't die as quickly against standard indies.
When an assassin doesn't find a commander in the province, you don't get any report in the turn messages. Or I don't, anyway.
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October 24th, 2011, 12:00 PM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
So assassins only work in very specific situations. So specific that recruiting them is almost always suboptimal.
It might work once as a trick vs players, but after that it will just give bodyguards to his commanders. (That almost always means the assassin loses. (Yeah, I know, there are some assassins that can win, but I don't care)).
And while you have been recruiting assassins, the other player has been recruiting mages, and researching. And while some assassins have mage levels, these are usually lower than other mages. So in the end you probably lose the research race.
Of course, you could have spare forts without labs. But then, you already are in a superior position.
And of course assassin/seducers mages (Lanka has a cap only one), can be used to assassinate enemies that are sieging your cap. But then they are already sieging your cap, and you have other problems. (And, even then, using a 300+ gold mage to have a chance at killing a random commander, with a high chance of death himself is not good (Murphy says: you always try to assassinate the SC)).
And lets not talk about assassin pretenders. Using those as assassins is almost as smart as using a "do nothing for 30 turns" niefelheim strat.
Assassins as commanders simply isn't that good. Assassin spells are a lot better. But only against other players. Expansion using assassins just takes to long.
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October 24th, 2011, 08:16 PM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
While I do not use assassins that frequently and certainly do not want to argue for them as some sort of general purpose unit, I do not see any reason to deny that they are occasionally very useful. One should not be unreasonable when considering the value of a unit.
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Originally Posted by Soyweiser
So assassins only work in very specific situations. So specific that recruiting them is almost always suboptimal.
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Assassins are specialty units. When you recruit them you do so for a specific purpose. That there are plenty of occasions where they are not useful is not particularly relevant in the situations where they are useful.
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It might work once as a trick vs players, but after that it will just give bodyguards to his commanders. (That almost always means the assassin loses. (Yeah, I know, there are some assassins that can win, but I don't care)).
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Once is all you need, if that once is good enough.
Then there is the fact that assigning bodyguards to every commander you have is not always that easy. In the early game, expansion parties are often heavily optimized to make expansion as fast as possible. Having a unit or two hanging around the commander may demand extra units and thereby reduce efficiency quite a bit. And, of course, in assigning bodyguards to all your commanders, you are probably paying a lot more than your opponent paid for his assassins.
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And while you have been recruiting assassins, the other player has been recruiting mages, and researching. And while some assassins have mage levels, these are usually lower than other mages. So in the end you probably lose the research race.
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Ah, yes, if I recruit an assassin, I lose the research race. I take it the same goes for mages that are wasted by fighting at the front. Or mages casting rituals or forging or site-searching. Come to think of it, actually using what you have researched before everything is researched means that you lose the research race.
Strangely enough, none of the above seems to be true when I actually play the game. Yes, if I go overboard on any of the above, I will fall behind in research, but a moderate usage of such options does not carry the same consequences. A commander must be useful and assassins sometimes are.
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Assassins as commanders simply isn't that good. Assassin spells are a lot better. But only against other players. Expansion using assassins just takes to long.
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You must research assassin spells, assassins you can hire from day one or - even better - get for free at the start of the game.
That said, an expansion strategy based on assassins is too slow.
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October 25th, 2011, 10:58 AM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
Starbelly,
I like the idea of using assassins for elephant provinces. I may try it in SP to see how effective it is when using a nation that doesn't stack up well against elephants out of the gate.
Soyweiser,
Did someone mention using pretender assassins in this thread or are you taking cheap shots at someone?
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October 25th, 2011, 11:32 AM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
Quote:
Originally Posted by Foodstamp
Soyweiser,
Did someone mention using pretender assassins in this thread or are you taking cheap shots at someone?
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It was part of the wiki a LA Mictlan pretender. And it is actually still listed in that other wiki. (The one newbies find because it has a higher google ranking...) I removed it but still. I hope nobody read that and though, "yeah. good idea!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amorphous
Ah, yes, if I recruit an assassin, I lose the research race. I take it the same goes for mages that are wasted by fighting at the front. Or mages casting rituals or forging or site-searching. Come to think of it, actually using what you have researched before everything is researched means that you lose the research race.
Strangely enough, none of the above seems to be true when I actually play the game. Yes, if I go overboard on any of the above, I will fall behind in research, but a moderate usage of such options does not carry the same consequences. A commander must be useful and assassins sometimes are.
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Of course that never happens. Because comparing normal mage usage with normal mage usage + assassins isn't a fair comparison. As everybody uses mages this way, you will not fall behind.
Try a heavy blood nation for example. These usually lack in research as they need a lot of mages to blood hunt. (Or need scales to take magic 3). Blood nations fall behind.
Of course you may think your assassins are all that useful. But they simply are not if you trade a assassin for a mage. The mages can always cast assassination spells later. Bonus, if the spell fails, you do not lose the mage  . Another bonus, the mage does not have to be in the targets province for it to work.
(Of course, both tactics can be ruined by just buying a lot of indy commanders).
Quote:
Assassins are specialty units. When you recruit them you do so for a specific purpose. That there are plenty of occasions where they are not useful is not particularly relevant in the situations where they are useful.
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Sure, but the tradeof for buying them is usually just to high. And as assassins almost always are a tradeoff between buying mages. They are not useful. Perhaps if you find indy assassins without a indy mage. But I think they do not exist.
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Once is all you need, if that once is good enough.
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Well that means you are either very lucky. (Taking out that one mage that holds the entire enemy battleplan together, a mage that has no bodyguards, and is scripted such a way that it does not kill your assassin, and it does not go offscript). Or you bought a lot of assassins and do a one turn strike. And in the second case after the one turn strike all the assassins are worthless. Also, you lose your entire investment if the enemy army patrols for one turn.
Assassins are not even guaranteed to win. Even a low level mage can usually blast one to bits. And 1 or 2 guards is enough to hold them down long enough to kill them.
Sure assassins might work great if you give them items. But that dumps even more resources in a already failing strategy.
Look if they where that useful in any way. There would have been more blood succubus guides. And even with the great stats for an assassin, and seduction nobody really uses them. 66 blood slaves is just to useful in other ways.
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October 25th, 2011, 11:41 AM
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Re: Killing Indi Commanders
I know how you guys like to take shots at Gandalf, so I figured it was something to that effect. I do agree that assassin pretenders are a bad idea. I think it is interesting you tried, or did delete it from the wiki though, especially if it was a strategy for SP.
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