Very short question on assassination and spying

[onomastikon]

1. If my assassin has "leadership" (can have troops) and leads some assassin-type troops (e.g. spider bane), does the whole troop get to go gang up on the target during assasination or only the commander?

2. I set the battle order of my spies on "retreat" so they dont charge the patrols that find them, but they still die when they are discovered -- why? Can I help this?

3. Is there a way to search for magic sites (if I have a stealthy mage) without having to attack the province (as it seems happens now)?

thank you

[General Tacticus]

1. I don't think so, but I have never tried.

2. Try putting them at the very rear in formation. It works well for me. On the other hand, if he has no friendly province to retreat to, he'll still be dead.

3. As far as I know, no way. Whether by spell or plain searching, you need to own the province. Except I think that a scout will discover level 0 sites on entering the province, since that does not require a specific action by the commander.

[onomastikon]

Ah, that is too bad. I was just wondering then what Spider Warriors are for (forget exact name of stealthy Machaka units are).

You can take a province with force using just assassins?

[Wauthan]

Assassins are pretty tough but no match for a large number of infantery. Missile fire can bring them down fast as well. You need the extra stealthy troops to do this or some good equipment on the assassins.

Machaka Bane Spiders are however a different case since they got such heavy armour and deadly weapons. Get 20 Spider Warriors and 5 Bane Spiders. Should be enough to cause a lot of trouble behind enemy lines.

[General Tacticus]

Those Spider Warriors (or whatever their exact name) are basically heavy infantry with the stealth ability. They are, according to their description, assassins-in-training, but they have not yet graduated http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

What you can do with them, besides using them as (rather expensive, but powerful) heavy infantry in your normal armies, is put a few (say, 20) of them under a stealthy leader, go behind enemy lines, then take a lightly defended province (attacking it in the usual way). Then sneak back out when the previous owner comes back, with his army, to evict you, and go take another. While you are at it, you can put taxes to 200%, pillage, destroy buildings, in short make a perfect nuisance of yourself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Cutting off the retreat options of the enemy's main army just as you engage it is also an interesting possibility...

[PvK]

If the enemy has discovered magic sites in a province, then your sneaking scouts will report them in the province info display.

PvK

[Wauthan]

1. No the assassin is always alone during his assassination run. Thank heavens! They are troublesome enough as it is. The stealthy units under his command is a real blessing when someone tries to assassinate your assassins or you need to take a province with force since it's guarded by something no assassin can beat in melee.

The Pangea assassin Hero is a really big pain using this strategy.