Guardsman and defending against Assasination attempts

[digitCruncher]

Simply put, aside from the Bannor's Training yards and the Guardsman promotion... is there any way to defend against Marksman attacks? My Mages often are a very valuable asset, and Marksmen (when defending thier territory, or with the Commando promotion, especially with the Mobility II promotion) seem to be undefeatable!

With the Raiders trait this would only require 5 experiance, and BOOM!! An unstoppable, crazy powerful, anti-adept unit...

Obviously what I am looking for is a unit that protects against Marksman attacks, and is available to all civs... even if they are horribly, horribly over priced (or even a National unit would do...)

 

[Ecofarm]

Workers and hawks will take the hit for you.

 

[digitCruncher]

Oh... ironic. I never thought of that...

It would seem wierd when I am marching in with 10 highly-promoted champions, 4 Archmages, multiple mystical units from other worlds, several chariots and heroes, each of which have sent entire cities to the afterlife... and 10 workers. And the workers being a critical part of that army.

"I am Magnidine, warrior of a hundred battles, who single handedly defeated the Dwarves on thier island, and you dare say that your family is more important than me!?"

"Yeah... they took the arrow for that archmage"

"Dang..."

But Hawks!? I assume you mean when they are on a city... as they wouldn't be intercepted if they are carried on, say, a scout (incidentally, they would also be good for defending the stack )

 

[Ecofarm]

Unfortunately, workers and hawks (even mounted). Those are the options at the moment. You need a hunter to carry a hawk , scouts can't, IIRC.

If you have not explored using hawks, you will be pleasantly surprised. Recon to peaks for mad visibility. Often, you can see enemy assassins far enough ahead to arrange they be damaged before arcanes come into range. Kill assassins with assassins of your own, when possible.

EDIT: Actually, there is also a guard you can build if you take (and keep ) the aristocracy civic (royal guards, IIRC).

 

[digitCruncher]

I've used Hawks once before (on my Cheiftain game), and hated it so much, I never thought of using them again. Partially the problem was, I couldn't get my hawk to look over any forests, but it never occured to me to use peaks (and likewise, Ancient Towers on top of hills, which have always given insane visibility even to my regular units )

And sorry, yes. Hunters can, Scouts can't. I was getting confused (again)

 

[Ecofarm]

The first time you recon a peak, you'll be hooked. Such visibility makes a huge difference on the battlefield (and they can see invis (stealth?) but not hidden, range 2 or 3 I forget - from point of recon), so you don't have to worry about nasty shadows hitting you unexpectedly. Regular hills give nice visibility with hawks too.

I play on immortal, but when the AI starts spamming assassins... I'm probably going to lose (I only win with a handful of the civs and not often). Waves of them are just too terrible.

Mistakes like working a castle for many turns unintentionally (as in your walk-through game) are game ending at that difficulty, so sometimes it's more frustrating than challenging. If I haven't played in awhile or don't feel like checking every advisor almost every turn and micromanaging like mad, I'll play emperor. Of course, I've been full-on addicted to FFH for months now

(quick speed)

 

[kenneth]

Another way is to use death mana. Summon a skeleton army. Unless you have adepts, they will usually be the weakest units in the stack. Save the trouble of buidling workers/hawks and best is you can resummon this fodder stack everyturn.

 

[Grey Fox]

I think that using workers and hawks as an active defense against assassins is kind of an exploit. The counter against assassins, except the guardsmen (which I've heard don't always work, and get themselves killed easily against regular attackers) is using an offensive defense of your own assassins.

 

[Switchblock]

It's not an exploit, assasins attacking aren't meant to represent full-out battles, but sneaking into a military's camp and poisoning, throat slicing, and cursing. Using workers as fodder is like having a taste-tester and someone that will take a knife for stronger units.

 

[Grey Fox]

Intentionally stacking workers/hawks as protection is in my opinion an exploit. If you don't think so, fine for you, but I don't like playing that way. I would actually like it if assassins skipped workers but not ships or hawks.

 

[Immaculate]

Intentionally stacking workers/hawks as protection is in my opinion an exploit. If you don't think so, fine for you, but I don't like playing that way. I would actually like it if assassins skipped workers but not ships or hawks.

SOOOO seconded.... i just hate destroying workers that i could be capturing. But hey, maybe thats not meant to be...?

It's not an exploit, assasins attacking aren't meant to represent full-out battles, but sneaking into a military's camp and poisoning, throat slicing, and cursing. Using workers as fodder is like having a taste-tester and someone that will take a knife for stronger units.

Maybe its worth having a 'taste-tester' unit that would become available with the poisons tech. The unit would be very cheap hammer-wise but still consume standard unit maintenance cost. The unit's entire reason-d'etre would be to foil assassins (always chosen first to defend against them and shadows). I'm not advocating an actual change to the current FFH mod, merely throwing out a half-baked idea.

 

[PapaMonkey]

This approach assumes thought that an assassin will always win. You throw him a bone (finger-bone or wing-bone) and then hope to catch him on the next round in a counter-attack. It seems like there should be a good unit that has can counter the assassin. Something that will (in game terms) watch to see him sneak into camp and take him out prior to his attempt. A unit like a gaurdsman unit that will take the hit, but has a good chance to defend.

All civs should have access to gaurdsmen style units (other than by using a specific civic). One option that makes sense out of the city would be a recon unit on Fortify/Sentry. This would be a unit that is patrolling and watching the army camp. It may not be the best defender against an all-out attack (choose archer, etc...) but againt an assassin, he may be it!

Any thoughts?

 

[fish_sticks]

Give a defensive bonus versus other assassins (because they are normally 5/3 or something like that) and have they defend first if they are in the stack. Does it not make sense for them to go directly against each other?

 

[odalrick]

I'd like it if Marksman only gave chance of striking the weakest defender, chosen after the decision to attack but before actual combat. Either they slip past the sentries or are caught. The City attack penalty could be replaced by a lower chance of "Marksmanning" in cities.

How large the chance should be is open for debate. How about 50% base, +10 in friendly territory, -10 in enemy, -20 for city?

 

[Grand Seeker]

I realy have a love/hate relationship with my assasins.

I love my own assasin but hate the enemies one.

I realy like them, but I agree that there should be a better way to defend against them.

I got two idees:
Maybe a divination spell could temporarily remove the marksman promotion
for a couple of turns?

One problem with the city penelty of assasins are that percentage advantages are additive, not multiplicative. I would realy like to have the city penelty of assasins be multiplicative instead. Lets asume a L5 unit with Combat 5:

With Additive bonuses
Base strengt: 6 -50%+100%= strength 9

Multiplicative bonus
Base strength: 6 *0.5*2=6!

With a multiplicative city attack penelty the assasin would have a lot harder time killing things inside cities.

I'd like it if Marksman only gave chance of striking the weakest defender, chosen after the decision to attack but before actual combat. Either they slip past the sentries or are caught.

I also enjoy this. Maybe make a 20% probability to loose the marksman promotion BEFORE any strike.

 

[Chip56]

With Additive bonuses
Base strengt: 6 -50%+100%= strength 9

Multiplicative bonus
Base strength: 6 *0.5*2=6!

With a multiplicative city attack penelty the assasin would have a lot harder time killing things inside cities.

Problem with combat 5 and for example shock 2 outside of a city:
6+100%+80%=16.8
6*2*1.8=21.6

Edit:
Just realized that those values are not right because of two things:
shock/flanking/cover work as a minus for the enemy
combat 5 would be 1.2*1.2*1.2*1.2*1.2=2.4

 

[Grand Seeker]

I'm not questioning additive percentage bonus in general, only that the assasins city attack penelty would have been much better as a multiplicative penelty.

 

[digitCruncher]

IMO, its not an exploit if there is no alternative...

All units should have thier counter... and Mobility II assassins cannot be caught 'on the counter-attack', as they have 3 movement! The only counter to assassins, are Guardsmen (or Royal Guards), and those are only rarely available.

I would rather have a horribly expensive national unit that is always available, and is very weak, than workers. But since none exist ATM, I will have to use the 'exploit'

But Assassins should be guaranteed which target they will be up against... its nasty to be shouted "SURPRISE, you aren't going up against the lvl 10 Archmage... you are going up against a lvl 15 Hero!!". As a result, 50% is FAR too low...

Heres another idea to consider... a "Protector" Promotion.

Available to Melee, Archery, and Recon units.
Requires Combat III
-100% Strength (With Combat III this gives a final value of -40% of the base strength)
Doesn't gain XP from combat (Use the withered promotion effect, but with -100% instead of -50%, if possible)
Intercepts Marksman Attacks

 

[xienwolf]

Or a simple addition of some new spells. Move Shadowalking to Force Sphere with a new name, and make a new Shadow Mana spell called "Illusory Double" which conjures up a permanent summon who serves no purpose but to intercept Assassin strikes (so low strength and Guardsman, cannot attack, no other abilities).

 

[odalrick]

But Assassins should be guaranteed which target they will be up against... its nasty to be shouted "SURPRISE, you aren't going up against the lvl 10 Archmage... you are going up against a lvl 15 Hero!!". As a result, 50% is FAR too low...

Well, that was the point really. Make Assassins in general more of a disposable resource, like catapults in vanilla, rather than autowinning units like they are now. Only instead of striking the stack, they hit the weak units.

In general, being an assassin is a high risk job. The only exceptions are, even in fiction, Heroic types. In FFH terms, they have high enough strength to challenge even the stack defender, for instance Alkazan and Shadows.

If you want more survivability take Flanking. Possibly introduce a new promotion after Marksman and Flanking that takes Recon up to 60-ish withdraw. That way they can withdraw after failed attempts at infiltration.

This is meant instead of stacking Workers and Hawks with the target. Let's say Assassins would then ignore 0 strength units. Possibly add a weakish Bodyguard unit that increases the chance of the Marksman being intercepted, at the expense of always being the one defending when the infiltration is foiled.