Countering the Midgame Assassin?

I have a problem against assassin using races in midgame wars. They often have massive archers or longbowmen defending their cities, and siege or casters are often necessary to break the cities defense. However, even when I build 3-4 siege units to go along with a stack of 10 or so normal units, the AI will suicide assassins against the stack and kill most of the catapults.

Are there any units that prevent assassin from targetting the weakest unit? Or do I have to build something like scouts and put them in the massive stack so that they feed XP to the assassins instead of the catapults?

 

units with the guardsman promotion can counter assassins, but they're only available to 1-2 civs. An other option is to use units with marksman yourself ;-). In cities, assassins typically aren't the strongest defenders around (not sure about this though)

 

Bring Hunters with Hawks! The Hawk counts as weakest unit (Str 0) in the Stack . Any Assassin attacks will kill your hawks first. An this will save your cats and casters....

 

using 0 str hawks -- brilliant! Thanks, now I have to just go try it

 

Using hawks as cheap fodder for assasins is usually considered an exploit in MP games. Most people don't complain when I throw surplus workers into a stack for the same purposes though.

 

Well, that's just broken. I think that a) the assassin should be reworked so the player can decide which unit he wants to attack in the stack and that b) there should be more counters available. The non-guardsman counters are all exploits. That's just not good.

 

Yeah definately. You've got to consider what the assassin wants to kill, ie not the HAWK! Also I dont think asassins should be able to destroy siege weapons, although I wouldn't mind an earlier saboteur unit for some races.

 

I've definitely had situations of surplus workers / slaves accompanying armies full of weaklings like mages, when I know the opponent has a few assassins lurking about. Especially easy if running the slavery civic (as your army "picks up" new fodder on its march). Same goes for having to defend a new beachhead type city.

It would be interesting if assassins could target units based on some popup dialogue, much like the popups that become available for various spells where you only pick one recipient.

But yeah, the counter is basically acknowledging their power by offering some sacrifices to them. The hawk thing does sound kinda exploity.

 

Anyone can adopt Aristocracy and build Royal Guards.

 

Why not use hawks to scout around and spot those assassins? They can see invissible units. Shouldn't be to difficult to kill them after they have been spotted.

 

Not if they are in a stack of other units, then you would need assassins to take em out.