Discredit Character: Cannot select certain characters

[Makeithappen]

Is there a reason that there are certain characters I cannot discredit?
I want to discredit a general so I can get one of my spys in as a general.

For example I just setup enough points to discredit a character. I ran Interference last turn for any counter espionage.

I have 41 / 52 points.
There are only a few court nobles I can discredit. Some are grayed out.
All the deployed Generals are not accessible for this spy action. They are also grayed out.
The satisfaction of the generals and court nobles range from 14 to about 54. Obviously beforehand I noticed you can't lower satisfaction of anyone above 90 satisfaction.

Please help.I seem to be getting road blocked a lot on things I want to do with spy and there is little information in regards to who I can and cannot use spy actions on.

[RCMidas]

You can only discredit targeted individuals who are not deployed, and I think who are also not on assignment. Note that you can Discredit Faction to hit everyone regardless, but this costs more.

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

You can only discredit targeted individuals who are not deployed, and I think who are also not on assignment. Note that you can Discredit Faction to hit everyone regardless, but this costs more.

Well that sucks. I was hoping to get promoted. I guess spies are useless in this regard unless you are actively in a war with that faction. And just kill off the generals. It feels less organic that way and more of a grind.

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

You can only discredit targeted individuals who are not deployed, and I think who are also not on assignment. Note that you can Discredit Faction to hit everyone regardless, but this costs more.

also im avoiding using discredit faction as some of my spies have low satisfaction .

[RCMidas]

Spies serve best as administrators and family members, honestly. If you can get someone related to the ruling family of the faction you are spying upon, you can cause some massive damage to their elite by killing them off piecemeal and then triggering a civil war.

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Spies serve best as administrators and family members, honestly. If you can get someone related to the ruling family of the faction you are spying upon, you can cause some massive damage to their elite by killing them off piecemeal and then triggering a civil war.

yeah thats the real trick. Getting them to be admins and family members.
So does my spy have to be part of that family before I start spying? Or can i just marry whomever I want into that family, then use any character willing to spy?

I feel I talked to you or someone else a couple weeks ago about this very same issue. perhaps I am doing the whole thing wrong.

[RCMidas]

This does sound familiar. Your best hope for getting a family member to be a spy is to Receive Marriage from the faction you want to spy on (say you want to spy on the Yuans, you want to marry one of your female generals off to one of his many sons) and then to dispatch them to try their luck. Hell, you can even send back the acquired Yuan son as a spy, see if that works.

In my run, trying for the various spy achievements, I lucked out in getting one of the distant cousins of the Yuans. I didn't even know that she was related to them before I sent her off to spy on them and she got recruited. I just popped in to see what she could do and saw that the family options were available and went: "OK. Assassinations and everything it is. I thought this would take longer. Lucky me."

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

This does sound familiar. Your best hope for getting a family member to be a spy is to Receive Marriage from the faction you want to spy on (say you want to spy on the Yuans, you want to marry one of your female generals off to one of his many sons) and then to dispatch them to try their luck. Hell, you can even send back the acquired Yuan son as a spy, see if that works.

In my run, trying for the various spy achievements, I lucked out in getting one of the distant cousins of the Yuans. I didn't even know that she was related to them before I sent her off to spy on them and she got recruited. I just popped in to see what she could do and saw that the family options were available and went: "OK. Assassinations and everything it is. I thought this would take longer. Lucky me."

haha yeah it was you i talked to haha.

Yeah i would do the whole marry thing and I had the issue of my child not wanting to be a spy after she got married. Maybe they updated the game since you had your luck with it.

[RCMidas]

Theoretically, yeah. Spying is a very long-term game though, so my recommendation is just to start popping out kids as quickly as possible and marrying them to as many people as you can. It'll take a whopping 80 turns before they are ready to do anything after being born, so you want to get started early.

If you then send their siblings off to spy on the factions where they married into the ruling family, you've got yourself a technical relative of the ruling family already set up.

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Theoretically, yeah. Spying is a very long-term game though, so my recommendation is just to start popping out kids as quickly as possible and marrying them to as many people as you can. It'll take a whopping 80 turns before they are ready to do anything after being born, so you want to get started early.

If you then send their siblings off to spy on the factions where they married into the ruling family, you've got yourself a technical relative of the ruling family already set up.

so children of your faction and their faction have to have the spy option when they are old enough? otherwise i cant do it?

[RCMidas]

God knows, man, spying's weird. I've no idea what makes someone willing to spy for me and someone else not. There's no apparent logic.

[Makeithappen]

well its not about who is willing. I was wondering if your spy has to be related to the faction you want to spy on before spying.

I think thats where I got confused with your story. Its not about making babies or marrying into their family. its about hiring someone willing to spy that was apart of their family in the first place. Its about making family members dissatisfied and willing to leave. Then if your lucky they roll into your court, hopefully have the spy option and then you send them back. Then they get into the family.

Or if by some miracle your kids of your family and theirs is born with a willingness to spy then you can do it that way.

So far from my testing, adopting spies and marrying them (which is the shortest route costing a bit of money) into another faction family removes the spy option from that character. I think this was something that CA setup so players didn't spam spies into the most dangerous spy options in the game. It seemed logical to me to do it this way, but it seems I'll have to try the long process of one of the other options you mentioned.

[Makeithappen]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

You can only discredit targeted individuals who are not deployed, and I think who are also not on assignment. Note that you can Discredit Faction to hit everyone regardless, but this costs more.

So I just ran across Lady Bian, Cao Cao's wife in the field. I was chasing some Yellow Turban army. This gave me vision of where she was. Since her satisfaction was lower than 90 I am able to discredit her. apparently you need vision of deployed generals to do anything on them.

[RCMidas]

OK, that's useful to know. More information is always good.