Assassin Mod

[heroes182]

hehe, on the first game I played with assassins, Hatshepsut had built a city like 5 tiles from my capital (we were on +19 relations, so I wasn't worried), which meant Assassins could get there the turn they were built

Oh, that was fun.

The city pretty much didn't stop rioting at all until it eventually switched over to me I was sending Assassins into it every two turns, even though it was already "rioting for 20 turns" or whatever.
The odd thing was that, since Assassins sometimes decrease population size (or did it shrink just because no-one was working for centuries, so it starved...?), it actually went down to size -4 . It was at -3 when it defected to my empire, at which point I decided to keep it just to see what would happen. Oddly enough, cities with a negative population produce two food per turn until they reach size 0, at which point the computer realizes that there's no-one there to work any tiles, and *all* production stops. Not even the automatic city tile worked anymore, it was just an empty shell of a city standing in the middle of the map...

it still had a maintenance cost though!

 

[Los Tirano]

Ha! Well done.
I have found that with assassins you can keep an entire civ down. Their cities are crippled, their military is small, their borders are insignificant.

Then you crush them, divert your assassins to another civ and repeat. A thousand knives in the night and a quick war is so much more fun than a sledgehammer.

Is anybody thinking of adding this mod to any other mods? Merging with lost units and second unique units comes to mind. Ah the possibilities for war...

 

[RogerBacon]

It was at -3 when it defected to my empire, at which point I decided to keep it just to see what would happen. Oddly enough, cities with a negative population produce two food per turn until they reach size 0, at which point the computer realizes that there's no-one there to work any tiles, and *all* production stops. Not even the automatic city tile worked anymore, it was just an empty shell of a city standing in the middle of the map...

it still had a maintenance cost though!

Time to send in a shepherdess or a swineherd. Now you see why I took such a fancy to yoru Hungry Hungry cities mod.

Roger Bacon

 

[DrJambo]

Some of the reports here are making me think the assassin might be a little overpowered...?

Does the AI adequately defend against assassins as well as using them offensively?

 

[RogerBacon]

Some of the reports here are making me think the assassin might be a little overpowered...?

The examples mentioned above are some extreme cases. Many times yoru assassin won't do anything except die. I have thought about raising the cost from 80 to 100 after I added the ability to kill off great people.

Does the AI adequately defend against assassins as well as using them offensively?

I've seen AI assassins remain in the capital city where they are built but mostly the AI uses them offensively. One could argue that defensive use of assassins is non-optimal because the amount they will subtract from the random number is a rather small percent. I suspect that most human players favor an offensive strategy as well.

Roger Bacon

 

[Los Tirano]

I have a project idea, but lack the ability to do it.

A merger of these mods

Assassin mod
Robo Composite mod
Lost wonders
Leaders mod

Anyone want to create what will be a great mod? One of the best.

 

[jojoweb]

Hum, it's a very good unit, i love it !

But, do you think that we can turn abilities as a "Promotion". Because i am searching for a way to create a "Schemer" trait, for Cleopatra, assigning this abilities to a part of her units. (arf, i hope my english is not too bad ^_^, more i learn, less i know...).

So, do you think it is possible to create a "Spy" promotion to units by changing some lines of code ?

Thanks. ^_^

 

[RogerBacon]

Hum, it's a very good unit, i love it !

But, do you think that we can turn abilities as a "Promotion". Because i am searching for a way to create a "Schemer" trait, for Cleopatra, assigning this abilities to a part of her units. (arf, i hope my english is not too bad ^_^, more i learn, less i know...).

So, do you think it is possible to create a "Spy" promotion to units by changing some lines of code ?

Thanks. ^_^

Easy to do.

Change the line:
if (pUnitInfo.getDescription() == 'Assassin'):

to something like
if (pUnitInfo.getDescription() == 'Assassin' or ...has your promotion):

You can look up the exact syntax for checking if a unit has a promotion or not. I'm at work right now and I can't check it from here.
That will tell the computer that any unit with the required promotion is an assassin.
Since the main balance of assassins is that they can only be built at the capital and now this will let you build them anywhere you should be sure that the assassin promotion has a lot of negatives to go with it to balance it out. Maybe it should give -50% combat or something like that.

Roger Bacon

 

[jojoweb]

Hum, good idea. In my mod Cleopatra is less agressive than the other leaders. So, she need a big advantage. But it's true, Assassin is very powerful, too much in fact. Hum, i think i will create this promotion only for rare units... i will try and test it. Thanks

 

[Houman]

Hi Roger,

We are updating the Total Realism Mod for 1.61. Is your Mod already 1.61 compatible?

Thanks
Houman

 

[RogerBacon]

Hi Roger,

We are updating the Total Realism Mod for 1.61. Is your Mod already 1.61 compatible?

Thanks
Houman

It works without needing to update the code, assuming you are just importing my code into your compilation. Otherwise, any XML files I have that received updats in 1.61 would have to be updated as well. I've received a report from another user that it is working under v1.61

Roger Bacon

 

[karablak]

i seem to have a problem- there is no donloading button at filefront free servers, thus i can't get this mod rogerbacon. could you upload it to this forum? i would be really gratefull

 

[RogerBacon]

i seem to have a problem- there is no donloading button at filefront free servers, thus i can't get this mod rogerbacon. could you upload it to this forum? i would be really gratefull

Filefront has been acting really scewy the past few days. I can't post it to the forums because it is too large. I'll add another download link when I get home tonight because I'm getting fed up with Filefront.

Roger Bacon

 

[RogerBacon]

File is also available here because Filefront seems to have trouble a lot. http://civ4mods.loadedinc.com/mod.php?id=22

Roger Bacon

 

[Spocko]

Hi RogerBacon,

Here's a zip of my modded version of your BadPeople and Assassin mod Py files. My mods change the chance an agent's action is successful according to various civics, buildings, religions, etc. I also have some reporting to the human player that has Scotland Yard.

Tell me what you think, whether you see a way to improve my code. The most inventive thing I did was to figure out a way to check whether the human player had Scotland Yard - I took a few guesses and with some luck, figured out some code that seems to work.

I tried to capture the victimCivAdjective that describes the civ that owns a victimized city, but amazingly, I was getting the wrong adjective (I'm playing Germany, and a Mongolian agent caused trouble in an Egyptian city - the system told me the city was Incan). So I gave up on the adjective.

Spocko

EDIT: I wonder if the victim adjective problem is due to my loading the newly edited Py code into an existing game... maybe pointers are being screwed up because the game isn't a 'fresh' game. After posting the RogerBacon zip file, I modified my copy of BadPeople to allow for a small chance of homegrown spawning of the three vices (prostitution, drugs, crime) and the messages about these rare events point to the wrong cities. Hmmm. I also made further changes to BadPeople to prevent having a city have negative production (as I've witnessed in a recent game).

 

[Nightravn]

One Problem I have with the Assassin is that the amount of culture it reduces is a fixed number times the experience. This can lead to a city having negative Culture which is a Very bad thing. Just having a city go into unrest is a great tool to get your troops to it quickly and it kills the culture defense making it easier to take.

We are using this in the Realism Mod as Houman as mentioned but I am suggesting a slight modification to it. Instead of a set Number it should be a percentage that way it will never make a city go into the negative but on the flip side it couls be a very powerful agent agaisnt a city with substantial culture.

The Change I preposed was to have him start with a base of 10% and then give another 5% per experience level, with a cap of maybe 25-35%. We don't want him to powerful but maybe a cap of up to 50% would be ok. Not to sure on the final numbers. What do yall think of this?

The other problem is the lack of defense agaisnt them. If they are revealed by another spy/assassin then other troops should be able to attack it. Either that or at least other spys/assassins should be able to attack them.

 

[Los Tirano]

Yes, the problem you identify is serious. However, in regards to not being able to attack assassins this can be solved in multiplayer or singleplayer. Rush monarchy by being the one to build the oracle, get assassins, go defensive.

Now put one in each city, should have just enough time. Against the computer more than enough time. Now if any civ, human or not moves an assassin near a city of yours, simply declare war. Declaring war disables the assassin from being able to do anything against a city with a defensive unit in it. In moving in he simply attacks the archer or longbowmen stationed there and dies!

If against a human player that greatly focuses upon asassins this can really stuff them up. If they are more powerful, then at least your cities wont be in disarray. War may take them off guard also. Damn this is a good mod.

Has anyone thought of reskinning the grenadier and using that unit instead? It has bombs and a short sword!

 

[Houman]

@Spoko could you please elaborate a bit more on your changes?

How does the religion etc effect the Assassin and what is meant by spwnable Bad people?

Thanks
Houman

 

[Fachy]

Few questions here:
1) Do you get to choose the assasin's mission, or is it determined automatically?
2) If caught, does it reduce the diplomatic relations as in the spy when it's caught?

I also suggest you lower its power to 1 instead of 2!

 

[RogerBacon]

Few questions here:
1) Do you get to choose the assasin's mission, or is it determined automatically?
2) If caught, does it reduce the diplomatic relations as in the spy when it's caught?

I also suggest you lower its power to 1 instead of 2!

1 The Assassin only have one mission: go into a city and do bad things. How bad depends on how well it rolls. I wanted to avoid user input so that the AI could use them as effectively as the human player (and believe me, they do).

2 No, diplomatic relations are not affected.

I made its power 2 instead of 1 because I wanted it to be able to kill "skilled workers" in my games. "Skilled Workers" are like workers but they have a combat value of 1 and can gain promotions. You can change it to 1 easily enough in the Civ4UnitInfos.xml.

Roger Bacon