Assassinate
Assassination
- Easy Simple Basics: Certain races do this type of attack extremely well + can do higher damage than other races (12% is max, 10% max for other races). Most players do the 'assassinate commander' type of attack. Try to make sure that your enemies defenses are tiny compared to your assassination strengths.
- Your strengths are your race's mod on using assassination (a goblin's mod is 250%), the % of your assassin troops (goblins hire at 275%; better if you train them up some more), and the amount of them you use.
- Your enemies defenses are whatever troops they have that protect against assassinations; their assassins, theives, and rangers. Plus if they have any guard towers on hand. Lol, don't forget to get a spy report on the kingdom beforehand or else you will have no idea on what assassins will run into.
- This type of attack is mostly used to prep a kingdom so you can more easily take their land afterwards.
- Detailed Info Below
Assassination has now become a potent force in Shadowmere, no longer is it the weak attack that sat unused, its popularity is growing and so too are the races that best utilise this covert offence.
Assassins are used in more than just assassinating; they are used in defence of looting, spying and assassinations upon you. They are effective for spying and military attacking but their primary purpose is obviously assassination.
In the early stages of the game it is tough for some races to defend properly against assassination and some fun can be had utilising it upon races like Sprites and Ogres, but, other races are susceptible as well: particularly building damage. The best way to defend against assassination is by using Rangers housed in Guard Towers and Assassins themselves, an equal balance in the higher ranks works very well if the troops are trained high enough.
If you want to use assassination as an attack then the best races to exploit this offence are Vampires, Goblins and Dark Elves.
There are many types of assassination:
1) Assassinate commander.
Assassinate commander reduces the current xp% of all the enemy troops by a percent (max damage 12%).
Let's take an example of what can be done with assassinate commander:
Ogre A hits Dark Elf Z (a particularly dumb move by Ogre A), the ogre takes 800 land after 5 bombards and 5 military attacks. Dark Elf Z is a little miffed and spies on Ogre A; to his delight the ogre has no real assassination defence. Dark Elf Z then sets up his Assassins, Clerics and Archers, making sure he has plenty more assassins than what the ogre has in Rangers, Thieves and Assassins. Then the dark elf thrusts into his attack he assassinates the commanders 5 times doing maximum damage each time and then he saps the ogres' Bloodlust and does 4 Military Attack: taking a total of 1800 land all built on. Dark Elf Z then private mails Ogre A and gloats heavily, especially when the Dark Elf (fubar) finds out that Ogre A is Skeletor.
Now let's examine what actually occurred in the attacks
First the dark elf looked at the spy report to see how many rangers the ogre had, particularly housed in Guard Towers, and how many thieves and assassins the ogre had. This information gives a rough guide to how many assassins the dark elf should use at least (rangers + assassins + thieves). Thieves get a mention as they do help defend assassination attacks but to a lesser extent than rangers and assassins.
Next we can look at the damage done, 5 maximum assassinate commander attacks with a dark elf amounts to 12% taken from the ogres troop % per hit. So if the ogre had 10000 x 600% fighters they would become 10000 x 316% fighters after five assassinate commander; the breakdown of how the assassination reduces the fighters' % is as follows:
(Assassination 1) 600% * (100% - 12%) = 528%
(Assassination 2) 528% * (100% - 12%) = 464.64%
(Assassination 3) 464.64% * (100% - 12%) = 408.88%
(Assassination 4) 408.88% * (100% - 12%) = 359.81%
(Assassination 5) 359.81% * (100% - 12%) = 316.63%.
As you can see this is pretty nasty, especially in places like trood where there is no open market to help recover. Be warned that there is never a guarantee of such high damage and even the possibility of no damage exists (assassination failed) if the defence is good enough.
2) Sabotage buildings.
Sabotage buildings brings down buildings of combat potential. To be more precise it destroys Barracks, Outposts, Guard Towers, Mage Towers and Castles.
3) Assassinate troops.
This type of assassination slays Clerics, Archers and Mages of the enemy. It can be in handy when your target has lots of those troops, so that you can kill them and reduce his defences by a lot. It's a nice alternative if you don't keep lots of Fighters around to raid.
4) Sabotage equipment.
Sabotage equipment destroys War Machines, Weapons and Armor of your target. This is a great way to prep Minotaurs and Dwarves, that have a bonus in the usage of weapons and armor and keep lots of them on their kd. Also, it's a great way to prep any kingdom that keeps lots and lots of warmachines, since you can directly destroy them and cripple his defences.
5) Assassination types that have a permanent effect on study fields of the target.
These kinds of assassination reduce the studied level of specific skills, so that a kd that has its skills assassinated must study them again. They are the following ones:
- Assassinate treasurer (reduces economy skill %)
- Assassinate master weaponsmith (reduces weapon study %)
- Assassinate master missilier (reduces war machine study %)
- Assassinate master armorer (reduces armor study %)
- Assassinate engineer (reduces construction skill %)
- Assassinate master mage (reduces magic skill %)
The maximum unmodified damage that can be done with all assassinations is 10%. There are racial modifiers that allow some races to do up to 12% damage on at least the destructive assassinations (Dark Elves, Goblins, Vampires)(commander, troops, sabotages).
For example Humans could do maybe up to 10% maximum whereas Goblins could do 12% maximum. Even a weak defence will reduce the maximum damage unless a good assassination is set up.
Finally, don't forget that assassins enter into combat as well, they attack and defend about the same as an archer but they play no part in bombarding or bombard defence. And always remember to use more assassins than the enemy's covert defence if you want the assassination to go through his defences. The number of enemy's rangers/'sins/thieves compared to your 'sins changes the chance for success in the assassination. The experience %s of the above troops changes the damage done.
Assassination fast guide
It is a fact of state that assassination is a great prep tactic before any military attacks or as help to a stack - if it can be done effectively. There are many factors that one should consider before deciding to use assassination as a prep tool. First and foremost it's the race: there are races that have a great assassination modifier (meaning they get better chance to succeed). For examples High Elves are poor assassins with big chance to fail and their damage is easily reduced, even by a meager covert defence of the enemy. In contrast Dark Elves can surely use assassination effectively, since they have a great assassination mod (one of the best in the game along with Vampires and Goblins), especially if they haven't studied yet any worthwhile offensive spells (Flood and Inferno come to mind :-P). And beside the racial part there is also the assassination defense of the target. If you want your assassinations to be successful you ought to be sure that your forces are up to the task. So you must know that you have the required number/quality of assassins for them to accomplish their mission. The above mean that you gotta get a scry/spy report always before deciding to assassinate. And the report is needed not only for checking the covert defense of the enemy but, especially, to decide the kind of assassination you will use against him.
Now lets say that you have already decided to 'sinate your target. You must choose your kind of assassination according to your spy report. If he has lots of troops with lots of spare barracks space its better to Assassinate Commander. If he has many Castles/GTs/Outposts and/or no spare barracks, you probably want to Sabotage Buildings. In case your victim is a Dwarf or Minotaur with lots of weapons/armor, or even an Orc or Gnome with loads of Warmachines (or whatever race with lots of equipment for that matter), Sabotage Equipment will be your choice. Finally there is the option of Assassinate Troops, killing clerics, archers and mages of the enemy; I rarely use this 'sination method as I believe it's better to assassinate commander which is irrelevant to the kinds of troops the target has. Generally you can use one or a combination of the assassination methods I analyzed above, according to your spy report.
I know that I may sound like a broken record, but apparently it is of paramount importance to always, ALWAYS be getting a spy report and not to forget to have more assassins than your target's defenses.
Written by Doom, taken by the guides section in Stein's calculators site.