Feedback on assassinations

[Buddahxx]

In my opinion if an assassination victim runs away and escapes it makes no sense that they die. Running from an assassin and getting away feels like a pretty logical way to avoid being assassinated. It also doesn't make any sense that magic items they carry just disappear.

[Emphyrio]

I think the assassin in a tavern shouldn't pause to start stabbing the random peasants he passes by until the peasants attack him first.

[Necroscourge]

Folks used to just equip autosummon items on all their mages so that if they get attacked an elemental kills the assassin. Start assigning bodyguards to your commanders and/or increase the patrols.

[Emphyrio]

Do mindless units guarding commanders get a bonus to appear during assassinations? I vaguely remember this being a thing but can't find documentation.

[Demonsthenes]

It would be really cool if some construct summons had the bodyguard trait, which would be a way to implement that.

Certainly bodyguard duty is one of the better use cases for clockwork soldiers, but a lot of assassins can easily kill two of them, and with the limit of 5 bodyguards and Ring of Warning no longer boosting that, there's no way to bring more.

And that's not even considering the cancerous EA Xibalba heroes who have assassin patience 5 and thus prevent any bodyguards from appearing at all.

My big complaint about retreat mechanics is that if you use elite troops like Celestial soldiers to protect an important commander, they rout if the enemy snipes the victim with say a bow, and thus die uselessly when they could run over and kill the assassin. Lost some very valuable troops that way once.

I think a good fix would be that every non mindless bodyguard should be treated as a commander for the purpose of the assassination battle... Just like how the commoners don't rout immediately from lack of a special leader.

[anaris]

the number next to bodyguard counters Assassin patience, i believe?

[Demonsthenes]

Yes I believe the chance for a bodyguard to appear is (5 + bodyguard stat - patience)/10.

Apparently patience 5 assassins is a Worthy heroes addition, so not Illwinter's responsibility.

Still, the Patience 3 assassins that LA Abysia gets are quite hard to fight with bodyguards unless you're one of the nations with national bodyguard units; there are no generic summons with that trait.

[voronin_mike]

Re: bows - they are not that powerful for an assassin considering missile deviation mechanics unless either the assassin or the bow has very high Precision. Though they can still hit, of course... And I believe that in assassination battles bodyguards usually just counter-attacked in any case in all previous redactions.
Agree that autosummon items are quite enough against most assassins. They also used to be commonly agreed to be the best equipment FOR assassins for a long time back iirc.
And agree about that running away shouldn't doom the victim. Though MAYbe the possibility could be restricted by the assassin's Patience again - say, they check out and block possible escape paths before moving in. But the reason, I think, is that escape would be too easy in most cases (unless flying or very fast assassins), making the option quite useless for the attacker... There may also be some problems with AI for these battles...

[Demonsthenes]

Have you ever fought a trueshot longbow assassin? They're very annoying, since they basically always hit and usually they will just interrupt your mage's spell every shot until they get the kill... Which against a 10 HP pajama man is 1-2 shots.

[Buddahxx]

Originally posted by Necroscourge:

Folks used to just equip autosummon items on all their mages so that if they get attacked an elemental kills the assassin. Start assigning bodyguards to your commanders and/or increase the patrols.

In the incident preceding this post I did have 5 bodyguards with the bodyguard trait, 3 of them where there and gave their lives which is why my mage had time to break and run.

In general I have no problem with the concept of assassins, that's fine. But if your target escapes thats a failed attempt, or at least it should be. What the heck happened? Did he escape the tavern just to trip and fall and break his neck? A friend of mine got into an even worse position where his pretender was horror marked and the neither his pretender or the horror could kill eachother. Eventually the pretender would hit the time cap and break and run and then die. That just doesn't make sense. The assassin literally could not kill him.

[voronin_mike]

Trueshot, yes, probably. At least, it gives the item real use. %) Otherwise, you need to really kit out your assassin for him to get real chance (unless he's a Starchild or Succubus, anyway).
As for the Pretender case - well, this is a case of when an engine is not up to the task. In tabletop, this is when DM had to make some rcommon sense ruling. Computers can't do that (unless the programmer coded this beforehand, anyway %) ). Sorry.

[Andkat]

Given that you can no longer script assassination defenses it is I think pretty silly for target retreat to lead to automatic death on assassination. Retreat survival should be guaranteed for the victim in a fort, and follow the usual retreat mechanics elsewhere ( and likewise on the assassin's end should they route, maybe with a big survival malus if the target was in a fort).

[voronin_mike]

Assassins are usually inside the enemy territory (unless they accidentally happen upon enemy army/raider when those attack you). So if an assassin retreats he usually dies anyway, and it's one less operation to tick. ;)
Agree that a death on rout for a victim could be a workaround to prevent everyone just scripting "Retreat" on their important mages/researchers. But then again, it could be that the game just used the same procedure for Arena and assassination battles. Which seems to no longer be the case, but the old code may remain for a time.
Also, as I noted above, the victim's survival shouldn't be assured. If I was a (competent) assassin, I would make sure that the door the victim would run to would be stuck while I have, say, a rope ladder outside the window... ;)
In addition, the game still doesn't include a possibility for the assassin to just put some poison into the victim's food/wine. Or bump into the victim on the street, pricking them with a poisoned needle and continuing to walk as before... The tavern, etc, locations, with a chance for residents sleeping are, at least, a step in the right direction.
UPD: we shouldn't forget that assassins already have just a niche use in the game: most of them have about 50% to beat an indy commander or mid-level mage, and if you invest in their gear, they quickly start becoming so pricy that you may be better off with just investing the same into thugs supporting your field army - while still not being able to take giants, Vans, etc.. And those which are actually effective (Starchild, Abyssian flying ones, summons, etc.) are going to cost and may be more effective in other roles...

[Andrej_S.]

Better say about tables and boxes in underwater mansions with roofs😎🤣

[Red_Rob]

Originally posted by Demonsthenes:

Yes I believe the chance for a bodyguard to appear is (5 + bodyguard stat - patience)/10.

Apparently patience 5 assassins is a Worthy heroes addition, so not Illwinter's responsibility.

Nope, Red Face is Patience 5 in vanilla.

Which makes sense, his whole thing is that he is the most patient assassin ever and will wait for the perfect moment to strike. It's cool when heroes get actually unique abilities imho.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Buddahxx:

In my opinion if an assassination victim runs away and escapes it makes no sense that they die.

Actually, it makes perfect sense.

They're disregarding any logical actions and fleeing in sheer panic, making it easy for the assassin to catch up to and kill them without a struggle.

It's the Dominions equivalent of some random teenager running UP the stairs to escape a supernatural killer in any Summer horror movie. ;)

Originally posted by Andkat:

Given that you can no longer script assassination defenses

You never could script actions for victims in Assassination battles in any of the previous games.