Confused about agents.

[NiveusT]

I just started a new game.

Immediately- Everyone is killing my agents. Like they have a 99% chance of killing mine.

I take a look- Their metsuke/assassins are 4 stars already.

I get lucky- Kill one.

Dude comes back with a new one that's level 4 again and kills all my stuff like they're useless. The game JUST started. How are they so powerful? It's turn 10.

I use my ninja to kill something and it succeeds? Negative diplomacy against me from that faction. How did they know it was me? It's a ninja...

They use it against me? Zero negative repercussions in diplomacy for them. I just gotta guess who it was sometimes unless I see it happen.

What am I doing wrong here?

[markeason]

You are either playing with a mod or, perhaps you have miscounted either the number of turns, or the level of the enemy agents.

It is not possible in the base game for an agent to be level 4 by Turn 10.

Q. What difficulty are you playing on?
Q. What clan are you playing as?

Assuming you have no mods and the Turn is a bit further forward than Turn 10, then probably the first error you have made is to not prioritise agent recruitment.

In order to do to the AI, what it is currently doing to you, you need to be recruiting one of each agent type as early as possible. If you do not do this (especially on the higher game difficulties) the AI will own you in the agent war and you will struggle to get back control.

The first thing I look at in any campaign is how I am going to make my economy work. The second is where am I recruiting my agents and in what sequence do I want/need to recruit them.

The diplomatic penalty only applies if the agent is detected performing the sabotage/assassination etc act.

Be on the look out for provinces that you can quickly develop to allow you to recruit level 3 agents (and level 5 in the late game).

It is helpful to know which agent type is favoured by the main clans and how/where they are programmed to operate. That way you can take steps to largely avoid them.

Do not use agents for missions until they have levelled up a bit, you run the risk of losing them.

If you get the chance, send as many agents as you can spare to operate turn after turn against a rebel province (monk/demoralise, ninja/sabotage army) to wrack up experience without upsetting anybody diplomatically.

Hopefully that should give you some things to think about

In a typical domination campaign I expect to lose fewer than 5 agents and take out around 100 AI agents.

[Eddie G]

I will add that even when a ninja is successful, they can still be detected during the AI turn, that's how you get the penalty you were talking about. You just have to pay attention to the messages you get each turn, and you will see that your ninja got detected. It can happen when he doesn't do anything too. If you see a metsuke, he can see you too, so get the hell out of there. Even a low level metsuke can at least convict a high level ninja.

[NiveusT]

Originally posted by markeason:

You are either playing with a mod or, perhaps you have miscounted either the number of turns, or the level of the enemy agents.

It is not possible in the base game for an agent to be level 4 by Turn 10.

Q. What difficulty are you playing on?
Q. What clan are you playing as?

Assuming you have no mods and the Turn is a bit further forward than Turn 10, then probably the first error you have made is to not prioritise agent recruitment.

In order to do to the AI, what it is currently doing to you, you need to be recruiting one of each agent type as early as possible. If you do not do this (especially on the higher game difficulties) the AI will own you in the agent war and you will struggle to get back control.

The first thing I look at in any campaign is how I am going to make my economy work. The second is where am I recruiting my agents and in what sequence do I want/need to recruit them.

The diplomatic penalty only applies if the agent is detected performing the sabotage/assassination etc act.

Be on the look out for provinces that you can quickly develop to allow you to recruit level 3 agents (and level 5 in the late game).

It is helpful to know which agent type is favoured by the main clans and how/where they are programmed to operate. That way you can take steps to largely avoid them.

Do not use agents for missions until they have levelled up a bit, you run the risk of losing them.

If you get the chance, send as many agents as you can spare to operate turn after turn against a rebel province (monk/demoralise, ninja/sabotage army) to wrack up experience without upsetting anybody diplomatically.

Hopefully that should give you some things to think about

In a typical domination campaign I expect to lose fewer than 5 agents and take out around 100 AI agents.

Thank you for taking the time to write this reply for me.
I do have a mod but I wasn't aware that it might have done this.
I'm guessing that's what it is though =\
I was definitely on turn 10 in my save :<

It's alright, I kept playing and things evened out lol...

[markeason]

Which mod are you playing with?

I'll take a look and see what boosts it is giving the agents.